My new toy: full submersion oil cooled PC

Pic's now!!!!! I can't wait to see this!!

 

Is there a way to upload pics or must one have it uploaded elsewhere? I emailed myself some pics, so I have at least a couple for tomorrow when I have time to get it online.

 

I have made the annoying discovery that one cannot modify the operating system if it is stored on a flash drive, I can install flash player, etc, but when I restart the installation has been removed. How unfortunate, I may need to find a way to mount a HDD.

 

I tossed a couple dead CPUs and microchips into the tank as decoration, you can also see a mouse floating at the surface at camera left. The invisible right side of the tank is the PSU which is blocking the blue light, it is almost completely submerged.

The black fan on the left is fully functional shooting upwards at the oil's surface causing a nice wave effect, it sits on a few sticks of really old RAM to keep from sucking up gravel. The fan on the PSU works as well although it goes very slowly. The light's float, so my efforts to affix them to the rear of the tank have failed so far.

I don't have a proper hood yet, it is just a piece of cardboard with aluminum foil on it.

You can see in the first PCI slot that there is a linksys wireless card, to my great relief linux auto-installed it without intervention, which is good because I cannot modify the OS permanently. It may be that a HDD will have to be installed. I cannot afford a SSD and this is still a test, I used a mobo with capacitors that are not solid state. IN theory eventually the oil will get into the capacitors, but a few people who have done this for years are reporting that hasn't happened to them. I will consider this project a success in six months and may create a smaller version to sell using solid state capacitors and micro ITX mobos (maybe). That way I can use a five gallon fish tank instead of ten and pay a lot less for oil while not worrying as much about the cost of oil.

 

***bump***

 

Its hard to see in the pics you posted.....

 

OK, here's an old picture that pre-dates having lights and some of the decorative micro chips. It's also hard to see the bubbles in this pic. Oh well, it's all I've got besides the ones you have already seen. Again, the only operational parts are the motherboard, the power supply and the CPU fan. The rest is in there for decoration/to raise the oil level.

 

Ok cool now I can see whats in there better. Are you going to fill it all the way up?

 

If I do fill it up I'll need about three more gallons, very pricey. The other issue is that the PSU will have to be lifted up. If I allow the power cable to become submerged eventually the oil will permeate the rubber cover and slowly siphon out of the tank!

One person who made one of these had his mouse submerged and vegetable oil (he was using it instead) starting leaking out of his mouse (chuckle).

So it will take a little bit of a design change and a bit more money to fill it up, but I'm not even sure I want to, it already has the desired affect and it looks awesome with the lights on. I cannot decide if it's worth the extra $ to fill the tank higher.

 

How does it not short out?

 

Oil generally does not conduct electricity.
This is mineral oil and as long as it doesn't become heavily contaminated it will stay non-conductive. Some H20 will inevitably get in it over vast periods of time; however, the parts are all elevated off the base of the tank by gravel. Water will just settle to the bottom of the tank harmlessly. One of the reasons there is a whole 25 pounds of coated gravel.

Building this was very easy, building a nicer one would involve parts specifically chosen for the project. Next time I want a micro ITX board with solid capacitors, a smaller acrylic hexagonal fish tank, a small form factor PSU that is taken apart with the fan removed.

This one was built with parts going to a computer that would have been simply too expensive to repair, so it made sense to use the functional motherboard and a random PSU with a noisy fan (the fan is now under water, noisy bearing problem solved).

 

A couple slightly better photos.

 

Wow! That looks awsome!!!

Abner

 

I'm glad you like it! There's nothing quite like watching your computer run under liquid.