Is it wrong that I'm seriously considering this?

[semisonic9]

I find myself strangely seduced by the allure of this build: Puget mineral oil cooled fish tank (Be sure to watch the video)

Honestly, that's cooler than just about any rig I've seen. It would be quite a conversation piece for the uber-nerd crowd. Performance wise, you get pretty good temps and stability and what I imagine would be almost totally silent operation.

Compare the time/money spent on this versus the time/money spent on a nice case and a custom WC rig to the price/performance ratio of the two, and I think there's a compelling argument to be made here. I mean, if you're already looking at $200-300 for full tower and $200-300 for a water system, you'd probably even come out ahead going this route.

That being said...I'm a chicken. I'd probably start like they did, with an old P4 system I've got lying around, and take it from there. I'm also worried about a) components breaking down early, b) resale value for any parts I may want to swap {or lack thereof} and c) filtering the oil over the course of a long build.

Discuss.

~S

 

[aigomorla]

how on earth are you gonna clean mineral oil off all your components?

There is no resell value unless you sell the entire system.

Mineral oil will not work very well when you overclock. They even threw it on a radiator, to get better temps.

I dont recomend it. Its cool yes, but practical? not by a long shot.

 

[1Dogg2RuleAll]

Of course you are not crazy,... someone already beat you to the insanity!

The only real benefit of going this route would be for that "novelty" factor. The price/performance is very arguable as well as the noise factor as there will always be some components outside of the tank creating some noise. (Side note,... if this were done similarly with mini enclosed tanks for parts and water in main tank with live fish - that would be worth it!)

 

[Zepper]

I wouldn't go beyond contemplation of the idea myself. Why complicate your life like that? Air cooling continues to be the most practical by far and keeps improving every day. If you must play with exotic cooling, get yourself a Cray...

.bh.

 

[God Mode]

Get a strong industrial oil pump and radiator.

 

[semisonic9]

Originally posted by: aigomorla
how on earth are you gonna clean mineral oil off all your components?

Mineral oil will not work very well when you overclock. They even threw it on a radiator, to get better temps.

I dont recomend it. Its cool yes, but practical? not by a long shot.

I probably wouldn't bother to part it out, but to either sell it or keep it as a show piece later on. The hard drives, etc, are still external. I'd want a wired mouse and keyboard, though, so I'll have to look into what I can do to keep them from getting oily.

I'd run it on a radiator, too. Something big and quiet. 45c at full load is pretty sexy, imo, and that was w/o fans on the radiator. Best I can recall, that matches water cooling temps of fairly expensive rigs, and for less noise.

Originally posted by: Zepper
I wouldn't go beyond contemplation of the idea myself. Why complicate your life like that? Air cooling continues to be the most practical by far and keeps improving every day. If you must play with exotic cooling, get yourself a Cray...

.bh.

Why not? That's part of the fun of modding. What's a Cray?

Originally posted by: God Mode
Get a strong industrial oil pump and radiator.

I was thinking a MCP 655 to start things out, but I'm not sure which way to go on the radiator. Probably just go with a normal, large fan-less external radiator.


~S

PS- Fixed the link in the original post. Go check that out.

 

[Zepper]

A Cray is a supercomputer. In the past they have used various exotic liquids as coolants. Used ones occasionally come up for sale... ;-)

.bh.

 

[Tim]

If you enjoy the low temps, a rad and a pump are definately the way to go with the mineral oil. Without that, the temps slowly increase over time... However, I'm not so sure on your pump thoughts. Wouldn't it be better to find a pump specifically for oil type fluid?

Like somebody else above said, It's not going to be completely quiet. You'll have to keep your HDD's out of the oil (Unless you're throwing down some $$ for a SSD, and you're silly to throw it in the oil) as well as optical drive.

Wired KB and mouse won't be a problem, the I/O area just has to be sealed with a silicone or something of that sort.

 

[semisonic9]

Depends.

Water is denser (and heavier) than mineral oil, so I would hypothesize that the MPC 655 would have an even easier time moving mineral oil than it would water. I could probably run it on one of the two lower settings just fine.

Sure, I could use a different kind of pump and radiator, but I can't see a huge need to, so far.

The I/O thing is a good idea.

~S

 

[God Mode]

I'm sure you saw this http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php from puget but it is a good starting point for people interested in this.

 

[semisonic9]

Um...yeah.

I'm familiar with it.

Thanks...

~S

 

[herm0016]

mineral oil has greater viscosity than water, and that is the parameter that you need to look at when buying a pump, its harder to pump fluid with higher viscosity.

 

[semisonic9]

Ok, I buy that. Any recommendations?

~S

 

[Modelworks]

What you want is flourinert. I hope you have a big wallet though.
It is really interesting stuff.
You could actually fill a room with the stuff and your pc and swim around in it, even breathing it for a very short time

Fluorinert is the trademarked brand name for the line of electronics coolant liquids sold commercially by 3M. It is an electrically insulating, inert perfluorocarbon fluid which is used in various cooling applications but is mainly for cooling electronics. Different molecular formulations are available with a variety of boiling points, allowing it to be used in "single phase" applications where it remains a fluid, or for "two-phase" applications where the liquid boils to remove additional heat via evaporative cooling. An example of one of the formulations 3M uses would be for instance, FC-72, or perfluorohexane (C6F14) which is used for low temperature heat transfer applications due to its boiling point of 56 °C. Another example is FC-75, perfluoro(2-butyl-tetrahydrofurane).

Fluorinert is used in situations where air will not carry away enough heat, or where airflow is so restricted that some sort of forced pumping is required anyway. One example of Fluorinert use was the Cray-2 supercomputer, which had a large backlit "waterfall" to cool the fluid after passing through the CPU.

Gases including oxygen have high solubility in Fluorinert. Experiments have been conducted on lab animals to determine animal survivability when submerged in highly oxygenated Fluorinert. Lab rats have survived for extended periods in such an environment, but invariably died due to lung trauma after removal. The science fiction film The Abyss (1989) postulated an experimental liquid breathing system, in which the use of highly oxygenated Fluorinert would enable a diver to descend to great depths. While several rats were shown actually breathing Fluorinert, scenes depicting actor Ed Harris using the fluid-breathing apparatus were simulated.

Last time I checked, years ago, it was about $80/oz.
http://products3.3m.com/catalo...ageHandler/output_html