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60 Comments
- wweasel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Kevbryant is right, this is a new article on a VERY old story. People have been doing this for years. Worth noting is that cooking oil will rot eventually, that will be nasty and bad for your parts. A better, but much more expensive solution is a fluid called Flourinert by 3M.
Hack-A-Day has covered the oil idea twice:
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000287041976/
http://www.hackaday.com/entry/1234000050050192/
And this is an example of someone doing it right:
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1098/ - mother, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"why use cooking oil? That person aparently didn't even do rudimentary research beforehand."
I've had this type of project in mind for over a year now and the best fluid I have found is cooking oil. I surely wouldn't want a tub of petrol derivative slowly evaporating into my lungs, so mineral oil (yes I know some people consume it) is out. Regardless of what Fluroinert is made from, it's too expensive.
Vegetable oils are even used in industrial transformers, they are certainly the best all-around dielectric I have found. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'm so sick of you "this is old news" asswipes. Everything on digg is old news but, if it's interesting or useful it belongs here. Now go hump your beloved MAC !
- Half-Fast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1After a week or so your fries would be done.
- xtardox, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1smells nasty i bet
- 3rdMEgo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Geez... news must get old fast these days, considering the original article is dated Jan 9, 2006..."
I think what kev meant was that this has been done before by someone else... a loooong time ago. And kev, i'm not against something being an old story, digg is as much about news as it is about finding interesting stories and anecdotes that deserve to be shared with more people. And to the best of my knowledge this isnt a dupe... though i dont troll digg looking for them. - st0ney, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1upgrading must be a b*tch
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"i wonder if throw up would work"
You should try it & let us all know, would love to see some pics. - nazsco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1What about oxidation?
- Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1mother: I guess certain situations require different methods.. I wasn't thinking from the aspect of having one of these things in close proximity to my immediate living space.. The only reason I poo-poo vegetable oil is that it seems that it would go rancid and rather disgusting on you.. not a very viable long term situation without some alterations. from the earlier linked article:
"Oils and fats spoil by readily becoming rancid. Rancidity is promoted by light, atmospheric oxygen and moisture and leads to changes in odor and taste."
Not 100% sure but that sounds like bacteriological decomposition (could be enzymatic I guess). If so, perhaps you could remove light, remove oxygen, or make the environment antibacterial.. Heating it above 141F/60C(food saftey temp) is out of the question.. Cooling it below 40F/4C might help.. food is safe at that temperature and it is above the gel point (-16 to -18 C). I'm not sure if you could perhaps lightly chlorinate the oil to prevent decomposition (at safe levels like a swiming pool), there may be a problem with solution vs. suspension, and youd probably need an emulsifier like soap. I don't even know if Chlorine or the lye and other chemicals in soap are conductive, or their thermal properties.
Have you considered mineral oil in a closed loop system? You could exchange heat via a radiator and use a submerged pump. here is some data I have on hand for various liquids and their required pumps:
http://www.pumpschool.com/liquidlist/
If you do try this out, and solve the rancidity problem, post it to Digg or shoot me an email, I'd love to see how it works out: jason aht jason dot white dot name - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1here's the guy who originally attempted it
http://digg.com/mods/Keep_Your_Computer_Cool_With_Vegetable_Oil
and one after that
http://digg.com/mods/Sunflower_Oil_cooled_PC - patjamas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i remember some german guy doing this on his site before, wasnt as pretty looking as that though. maybe if it made sense at all id do it, but i occassionally need to move my pc and it already weighs 20+ pounds so 8 gallons of oil wouldnt help that out any.
- dynamx, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0didn't someone do it with baby oil? much easier on the nose.
- RyeBrye, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That's crazy. He just has the components sitting in the oil. I highly doubt that this will ever become anything mainstream - but this might have some very practical applications in acoustics research - where researchers pay $$$ for incredibly quiet test environments.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Ouch, would be funny to drop a match in there..
- Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I always wonder where people get the money to build things like this.. I would tend to experiment with old crap first.
What would really be interesting is if you could get some Fluronert or Mineral Oil in an acrylic case and mod in one of those fake clockwork aquariums so it looked like there were tropical fish in there.
If anyone tries this, I've been told by a friend of mine that there is also a silicon based inert fluid that is a bit cheaper than fluroinert, but a bit goopier. I wonder if you could drop the coils from a mini fridge in there as well? - Lionhart, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Looks like slashdot ripped this story off and put it on their site too :p
- eddieo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0pretty slick!!
- QwertyOper8tor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0What happens when the oil goes bad?
- ezweave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It would be better with mineral oil, certainly.
Petroleum based oils would corrode some of the connections on the boards. The best way to do this would be to use a much smaller case, too. Notice all of the wasted space... if the heat exchanger is efficient, why waste space? Not to mention that it would be heavy. - master_of_fm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i understand the concept, but this just seems completely wrong to me.
- Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 no chlorine, oxidizer.
- Bullsnot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Awsome!
Must be very heavy. I wonder if this could be done in a small system with a mini-itx board. Would the smaller amount of oil still be able to disipate enough heat. - MrMysterious, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Doesn't oil cool power transformers?
- moogle1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Most of these things got started after AMD demo'd a mineral oil-filled fish tank PC in March '05: http://anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2373
...but the first oil cooled PC I saw was on the Anandtech forums, during the Celeron 300 -> 450 days - probably in 1998 or early 1999. - adml_shake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0lol, if your running a Intel ship you can deep fry some food while your surfing the net....
- SpacemanSpiff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I saw a website a while ago where a kid did this, but it didn't have anywhere near this level of documentation.
dugg - Stopher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0So could I throw some wings and fries in the case and cook 'em up? =P
Seriously, that's neat but it looks really gross. - RatBagu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Yeah, baby oil or mineral oil is a lot better from what i've read.
- Kitsune818, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've read Fluroinert has been used as a component in artificial blood.. expensive, but why use cooking oil? That person aparently didn't even do rudimentary research beforehand.
- djspade313, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0That freakin cool :)
- LedZep95, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0it must stink...
only if i had that kind of money to burn..
cool tech, +Digg - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0i wonder if you could use oil instead of water in the water coolers that you can buy?
- Dhalgren, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Whenever I see these I think for a few minutes that it would be cool to do. I hate the noise of fans in my cases. But then I think about upgrading, damn that would suck. Then there's moving the thing: It's going to be heavy as hell and it look like (in this case at least) that there is nothing separating the PS from the oil other than gravity and the thing is sure to slosh if you try and carry it. Come to think of it, what happens if the case gets knocked over? It doesn't happen that often, but I've had a case or two tip over the years. Big mess and a ruined PS.
- Eaglefire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I would much rather do this with a pump squirting oil at the CPU / GPU, instead of complete immersion. This way the oil can be run through a radiator, and you can have a case window to see all the oil dripping everywhere.
- imightbewrong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ive seen this before on digg but its cool
- KingJeremy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@ezweave - totally. they had all those mats to seal ***** off, seal up the front half and mount the ps and hdd in there. and haha, if you just want a silent case, go buy this: http://www.quietpcusa.com/acb/showdetl.cfm?&DID=8&Product_ID=192&CATID=9
Expensive, but not as expensive as frying your computer parts, or coming home to an oil slick in your house.
These articles are totally lame. - imtigger2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0akinhelpu... excellent work! Lovin' the Liquid Linux box. :)
- jafojsharp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Two words "3M Novek". The new fire retartent material should also be a great coolant based on its properties, but I don't really know if it is the same as the mineral oil.
- akinhepu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1**Gratuitous-Self-Promotion**
2 liquid projects, on my desk. Mineral oil. 94F. Webcam.
http://russellware.com/liquidpc - KingJeremy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@webquacks - ya, although off-topic, I'm sick of Apple-lovin-gotta-be-so-segsy-with-the-*****-design-blah-blah-fukn-blah *****. If all those Apple freaks could get laid and expell their man juice hard on that they have for Apple products they would realize that Apple makes ***** v.1 products. Hell, OS X wasn't really all that good till 10.3. iPod v.1, how many of you asshats had one? I know, y'all aren't reading this anyway, too busy rubbing one out to the possibility of apple releasing Intel PowerBooks soon. Go EAD. And don't give me those well Windows sucks. All computers suck. Until the day I can hold a conversation with a computer, have it make me breakfast, take my kids to school, pick up my dry cleaning...OH NOZ! ROBOTS! with lasers! PEW PEW PEW PEW! BLEH, DED...
- DeadlyCouncil, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0omfg that looks gross as HELL.
They didn't say how cool it ran either... - Pizpump, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Not really as valuable for noise cancellation as one might think. Considering the hard drive & power supply are the noisiest components of your computer, you'd likely be disappointed.
Strictly looking at this from an acoustic perspective, there are superior solutions available. - IraqManiac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0wow, interesting
- firen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0my cousin has been doing this for a few years now
- bpowah, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Off-hand it seems like glycol would be a good alternative fluid for a long-term project. I imagine it has better thermal properties and is better looking (clear). As long as it was a closed, well-sealed system (so pets or kids don't drink it)
Or other high mol-weight (low flash point) alcohol? isopropyl? - newtonke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0you want fries with that?
- Trepan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Imagine having to swap out a piece of hardware that had a regular hardware failure not related to temperature. I'd just throw the ***** thing out because it would be too disgusting to repair.
- funkytaco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I've seen this done on either Anand, overclockers or HardOCP but it was done with a liquid made to keep the system cool.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0WTF!? That's the freakiest mod I've ever seen and one of the coolest physics lessons everywhere.
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