mrhoppsmc

I dont get how this is effective at all? Also where are thr usb ports and DVD?


YouTube - Mineral Oil Submerged Computer

pat mcgroin

I saw that before its pretty cool.
There are a few other sites that show that.
The dvd is sitting on top.
The other site says that the oil keeps it very cool.
Im guessing that they are using a SSD drive because otherwise windows surely doesnt boot that fast.

Phædrus2401

Oil is a good thermal conductor, but isn't electrically conductive. Thus it's very good at soaking up heat from the components, but won't cause an electrical short like water would. It's also non-corrosive, unlike alcohol, and less expensive than glycol. I bet they've got a pump pulling the oil through the case, over the heatsinks, then through an external heat exchanger. It's a very efficient cooling solution, but probably very, very expensive. It does, however, allow them to overclock those components to ridiculous levels, probably even higher than you could expect from high quality water/glycol cooling.

I think they're using an SSD as well, but for a different reason. I don't think an HDD can spin up right when submerged in a liquid, too much drag. So they'd need an SSD.

Tiber Septim

Saw something like this a while ago here.
Pretty novel idea but not the most practical setup.
In that particular video they are using a standard HDD but it is mounted near the top of the enclosure in an airtight 'container'.

WereBo

All it needs now, is a couple of small robotic goldfish swimming around, possibly Bluetooth controlled???

Done_Fishin

oil is used a lot in Calibration standards because it allows any heat being built up to be dissipated very quickly and ensures a very stable standard.

My only worries would be about the effect of the oil seeping into the fibre glass boards which as you probably know are made up of several layers glued together.

However I am impressed and it's so simple .. the overall effect would be to stabilise the temperature throughout the whole system and I see no extra's for cooling the oil .. it should never get that hot even if the CPU is being overclocked .. think about what it takes to get oil hot in the pan to make fries .. you'd never get it that warm, volume of oil alone would take ages to come to the CPU temperature.

What did surprise me though was that the fans kept working albeit at lower speeds .. built in lubricating system means they should never fail .. however I would be worried about the extra current required to keep in going in the different environment. Might cause problems with the transistors that feed them .. but again the heat would be quickly dissipated into the oil.

Gives me something to think about ..

edit .. the hard disk drives are not submerged because contrary to what I had been led to believe they are NOT sealed, requiring a special bleed vent to allow for the change in air pressure when the disk spins up or stops and ALSO because if oil gets inside then there will be no air to allow the heads to float or skim above the disk surface .. instant contamination, slower reads and a dead disk very quickly.

-=Rousseau=-

Doubt I'd ever do this... Just think about how messy/inconvenient it would be to change out or add parts!