Pure genius! I’d like to see more people try this and report the temperatures they are getting, should just be over room temperature, which is great, would be a pain plugging and unpluggin those USB though.

Posted at 8:12 am on May 9th, 2005 by Titcher

And when you get hungry, throw in some cheese sticks or other deep-fried snack food of choice!

Posted at 8:33 am on May 9th, 2005 by brk

Is the type of oil important? Does it smell? I’ve read that harddrives shouldn’t be submerged, but can everything else (that would benefit of course)? Anyone have other links to this sort of project?

Posted at 8:33 am on May 9th, 2005 by Dan

This issue have been discussed many time in Spanish wireless communities, actually, is being used on Wi-fi links and linux hot spots on roofs to avoid rust, and humid condensation. It’s really a good solution for not very hot processors, and you must consider oil, being degraded to grease (wich in fact can bring problems)… (sorry for my lack of practice in english ;-))

Posted at 9:26 am on May 9th, 2005 by xTr

Well I was looking around and people have the same problems. They are looking for some good non corosive and non conductive oils and couldnt get anything that wasnt perfect for under $150 a gallon. So my thought is take one of the electric oil space heaters and drain the oil into the fish tank. That oil is non corrosive and conductive.

Posted at 9:34 am on May 9th, 2005 by Matt

…should of used olive oil, I hear it’s healthier.

Posted at 10:32 am on May 9th, 2005 by andrew sim

the website says vegetable oil works just fine. “weil

Posted at 10:37 am on May 9th, 2005 by radioeyes

Pretty creative. The computer has lasted longer than my fish.

3. Set the computer to calculate the largest prime number
4. Toss in some french fries

Posted at 10:43 am on May 9th, 2005 by xnok

were you angry at your motherboard so you had to nail it to the wall?

ive seen this sort of project been done before, but with a much more expensive form of oil, this is a great improvement.

i guess hardware with motors is a bit out of the question, and certainly no passing 110/230v through it.

This also would look pretty spiffy with some ink dye, and some cold cathodes, some awesome case mod

Posted at 11:14 am on May 9th, 2005 by Yet another Matt

Put in a few fountain heads, and you’re golden!

Posted at 11:23 am on May 9th, 2005 by Josh McCormick

I did this about three years ago, but I left it in the garage and it started growing things… One small problem with an organic based liquid you are constantantly heating to a little over room temp….

Posted at 11:27 am on May 9th, 2005 by Jim Tepper

Even if there is degradation of the oil, a three thousand mile oil change (or like once a month or so) should cover that issue pretty good. If you did this as a case mod, add the pretty blue and green lights, the glass fish, bubbles and some other fish toys, put a section at the top for your “dry” components (CD, Drives, USB connectors). It would rock…

I wonder how long the fans last in the oil environment. It seems to me they are always kicking the bucket faster than you would want anyway.

Posted at 11:28 am on May 9th, 2005 by dory

This was done roughly 6 years ago, someone posted a web page of his computer components put inside a cooler, then filled with mineral oil. This was, of course, older technology, so the cooling needs were less, but he even got into submerging A/C coils into the coil to make it cooler. I think someone suggested to just move the oil around, you didn’t need to “cool” it.

Posted at 11:35 am on May 9th, 2005 by SteveK

I concept i googled and found :
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1098/

I’m thinking of trying this out, only thing tho I’m probably gonna be getting a couple of USB extension cables so that I don’t to dip my hand in the idle rot-brewing temperatured orangic material.

Also, if I cant get ‘mineral oil’ I’ll probably just use vegtable oil with loads of disinfectant mixed in and some sort of emulsuphire(sp?)

Posted at 11:39 am on May 9th, 2005 by mooodi

I’ve seen this sort of thing before when looking at cooling a power supply for a tesla coil, someone had dunked a motherboard in hydraulic oil.The thing to note is that it is only a low spec processor, you would need some sort of oil cooler and a pump to run anything faster although it is possible. As for the comment about not running 110 or 240 through it, 11000 to 415 3 phase voltage transformers (and possibly larger)are oil cooled so your psu aint going to be a problem.

Posted at 12:14 pm on May 9th, 2005 by GSX

I would not suggest using food-grade oils, and go with either petrolium oil or mineral oils. Food grade oils have the tendancy to rot, while petrolium and mineral oils are more stable against rotting.

This is an interesting idea, I may even go as far as to suggest active cooling in combination with the oil. Keeping the oil cool will keep electrical conductivity low, and with active cooling and oil submersion you do not have to worry about condensation.

I would also make one potential change, and that is to seal all contact points. Enough oil getting between a loose connection would lead to a no contact situation.

Posted at 1:51 pm on May 9th, 2005 by Mewyn Dy'ner

wonder how well this will work with overclocking ^_^

Posted at 2:05 pm on May 9th, 2005 by Anigan

This is not the first time. I check out Ars Technica (http://www.arstechnica.com) frequently, and a few years ago (note _years_) when I was going on a cooling binge, I read about a guy who took this a step further.

he submerged everything, except drives, into a custom tank made of closed cell foam, and placed the evaporating coil of an air conditioner in the minneral oil, above the hardware. needless to say, it was cold (at freezing at points). he messed it up by leaving for work. a pertion of the evaporator coil became airborne, water condensed on it, and contaminated the minneral oil. the result was “bad”.

for more cool sh!t check out their forums. a few college kids (a few years ago) took apart the evaporator of a fridge, reworked the tubing, and super-glued the _evaporator_ to the _core_! solid core temps below freezing at all loads. insaine!!!!

Posted at 2:31 pm on May 9th, 2005 by mike Mulligan - call me beLine

also, another thing.

note the color.

mineral oil (pure, the kind you _should_ use for this kind of thing) if clear.

yellow mineral oil has impurities. not good for full submersion.

Posted at 2:35 pm on May 9th, 2005 by mike Mulligan - call me beLine

Use mineral oil instead of any veg based oil.
Second you some type of electronic cooler mounted above the level of the cpu with a heat sink out side of the oil could make for an effective cooler.

Posted at 3:24 pm on May 9th, 2005 by LWATCDR

note how none of the drives are actually submerged in the oil…

Posted at 3:41 pm on May 9th, 2005 by ben

As per what kind of oil to use, It is simple:

1.) It shouldn’t rot easily
No Olive oil etc.
2.) It should have the highest possible resistance (e.g. lack of conductivity)

Pure water is 18 mega ohms… that would work, but it would be impossible to keep dust out of it and it would then conduct. Has anyone dipped a multi meter in

1.) Motor oil
2.) Transmission fluid
3.) peanut oil
4.) Canola Oil
5.) Mineral Oil
6.) Cod Liver oil etc etc.

Posted at 4:12 pm on May 9th, 2005 by Matt

Didn’t anyone ever see the article on the guy who used this super expensive liquid made by xerox I think. He used a modified ice chest to put his computer in, and actually had the liquid pumping through a radiator submerged in liquid nitrogen. It was pretty extremem but his post speeds were ridiculous.

Posted at 5:55 pm on May 9th, 2005 by Stephen Crosby

Yeah, i used vegetbale oil i think 3 years ago, stuck the whole thing in an old freezer i ahd, ran extension cable for everything out through holes i drilled, and it worked fine. too bad the freezer was loud, otherwise it would have been silent

Posted at 6:18 pm on May 9th, 2005 by N3LDAN

stole a tip from a friend; cut open a few highlighters and let them ooze into the oil. Shine blacklight on your computer to see it glow!

Posted at 6:35 pm on May 9th, 2005 by radioeyes

@ stephen crosby: it’s called Fluorinert & it’d made by 3M, costs ~ $500/ gallon i believe. A cheaper alternative is midel 7131, which was designed to cool transformers, not sure what it costs, but I know its cheaper than fluorinert. I have heard mineral oil is the best thing to use if you’re poor like me. Here is a guy who did a damn nice mod using midel 7131…
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=802563&page=1&pp=20&highlight=Submerged

Posted at 8:05 pm on May 9th, 2005 by ruiner

Have a look at this – same idea but with dry ice added to the equation… and a little bit more extreme!!

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=52004&highlight=charlie+LN2+oil

Phil

Posted at 8:38 pm on May 9th, 2005 by pHIL HELLARY

When I said dry ice in my comment above I meant of course Liquid Nitrogen.

Phil

Posted at 8:46 pm on May 9th, 2005 by pHIL HELLARY

be careful if you add colorants or disinfectants. you could accidentally introduce a conductive component, and then your oil/coolant simply becomes a short circuit.

for the same reason, you should try to limit the amount of dust that enters the tank.

Posted at 9:30 pm on May 9th, 2005 by jaded

Now, put your webcam in :)

Posted at 10:29 pm on May 9th, 2005 by Weirdguy0101

when picking mineral oil, the best is pure muneral oil.

however, keep in mind that even so called “pure” mineral oil at stores has chemicals in it.

i stress _”P.U.R.E”_, look at the containers.

there is no need to use anything else, it handles below freezing, it does not evaporate, nor does it conduct. pure mineral oil is perfect. I suddenly really want to do this…

Posted at 10:58 pm on May 9th, 2005 by mike Mulligan - call me beLine

Definitely stay away from vegetable–I just spent the last week cleaning some parts that had congealed vegetable oil.

The following link has the conductivity of various substances. Hydraulic fluid looks promising but I don’t know if it is hydrophilic.

http://www.smartmeasurement.com/en/wizards/flowmeter/flmtr_mag_conductivity.asp

What you really want is Fluorinert

http://products3.3m.com/catalog/us/en001/oil_gas/specialty_materials/node_HX0DNRHXKWge/root_GST1T4S9TCgv/vroot_G1F6DNZDBVge/theme_us_oilgas_3_0/command_AbcPageHandler/output_html

Posted at 11:06 pm on May 9th, 2005 by jd

How do you remove the oil?

Posted at 12:42 am on May 10th, 2005 by theblunderbuss

another thing to consider is that a lot of oils are hygroscopic which means that unless you seal the system you are going to be slowly adding water to it.
An interesting concept would be a refrigerated/oil cooled system whereby the motherboard is immersed in oil, an airtight lid is fixed to the top of the tank and the necessary cables come up through an airtight seal, the air above the oil. You could then pull the air out of the tank and replace it with refrigerant. From my experience, the cheapest and easiest to work with would be ammonia, as you could use plain mineral oil in the system. You could then take a suction line from the top of the tank to a compressor and condenser, and just bubble the liquid back through the expansion valve at the bottom of the oil. Without running the suction on a vacuum you could still achieve oil temps of -30.
Actually, now i think – the easiest way to route the cables would be through a length of stainless tube which comes through the sealed lid and ends underneath the oil.
When i get a bit of spare time at work i will make such a system and post pictures and test results for you all.

Posted at 4:30 am on May 10th, 2005 by GSX

The best chemical for this job would be something called Flourinert manufactured by 3M. I pasted the link below. Yoshi from the old Screensavers (not the new junk) wrote a good book on computer modding, and the use of this chemical is included in there.

http://www.3m.com/product/f_index/Fluorinert(TM)_Electronic_Liquid,_3M(TM)_(BF)_00.jhtml#TopOfPage

Posted at 9:40 pm on May 10th, 2005 by cpslome

It should be added that all components entering the oil should be thoroughly cleaned.

Posted at 10:28 am on May 11th, 2005 by ilovellamafood

Sweet, I scooped boingboing.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/05/11/computer_sits_in_an_.html

Of course I originally pulled this from the gentoo weekly newsletter about a month ago.
http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20050411-newsletter.xml

EDIT: looks like slashdot has picked it up too.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/11/1756259&tid=222

Posted at 3:34 pm on May 11th, 2005 by eliot phillips

i like the idea of nailing the motherboard to the wall that would be rather interesting and some conversation piece

Posted at 8:35 pm on May 11th, 2005 by jak

dude, this is a prfect solution for my used lube, thanks man, I can finnily put it to use! >..< http://www.FreePSPs.com/?r=17674640

Posted at 2:15 am on May 14th, 2005 by aao_pwner

so, you are going to dip your motherboard into a bucket full of astroglide and your own man juices aao_pwner? thats sick you twisted bastard!

Posted at 1:49 pm on May 14th, 2005 by condom eater

Oil filled xformers are routinely used in power distribution. Askarel was the best, but it has PCBs so is no longer available. Meter it first, then vent through silica gel to keep moisture out. Note however that a short circuit in oil might start a fire [that was the advantage of Askarel].

Posted at 12:33 am on May 30th, 2005 by Walter E. Wallis

someone should get some lard melt it down and put their motherboard in it the chill it so it becomes a solid motherboard lard block that is kept chilled cooling the motherboard i think that would be pretty sweet

Posted at 10:00 pm on Jun 5th, 2005 by sid

A friend of mine did this with mineral oil in our high school CIS class…i have been considering doing my own project with MIDEL 7131…does anyone have suggestions concerning how to keep the liquid cool? obviously running it through a radiator of some sort is necessary, but is air going to be enough to cool it? could i use a pump from a plain old fish tank to move the liquid around? if air is not enough cooling, could said pump handle the temps of dry ice?

Posted at 3:41 pm on Jun 6th, 2005 by LeRenard

probably sound stupid but do oyu still need a heatsink etc on top of the processor?

Posted at 7:42 am on Jun 16th, 2005 by Martyn Compton

The following low-cost fluids will work for immersion of electrical parts:

Luminol TR-i*
Midel 7131*
Mineral Oil
Silicone Oil
Vegtable Oils

I am having trouble finding sources for the two most desirable fluids (Luminol/Midel) – does anyone have any tips on where they can be purchased?

Posted at 9:40 pm on Jun 17th, 2005 by shamrack

——Martyn Compton

probably sound stupid but do oyu still need a heatsink etc on top of the processor?——–

Unless you have an extremely (and constantly) high rate of fluid flow acting upon the CPU a heat sink is recomended! ;)

Your question prompted me to some thinking, however! The large heatsinks that come with or are purchased for a CPU are made with air-cooling in mind. If immersed, such a large heat-sink will probably actually INSULATE the processor to a small degree (depending upon fluid flow rate and temp.) With this in mind, a high-flow system should probably be built using a smaller heat-sink.

Posted at 9:46 pm on Jun 17th, 2005 by shamrack

you have a good point shamrack, is the heat conductivity of say mineral oil higher than that of a heatsink of aluminium, if it is then surely a smaller heatsink would be beneficial

Posted at 10:42 am on Jun 20th, 2005 by martyn compton

or am i just completely off the mark lol

Posted at 10:42 am on Jun 20th, 2005 by martyn compton

Try oil from a pole pig (transformer on power pole). If you beg your poco they will usu. shit one out for you.

Posted at 4:30 pm on Jun 21st, 2005 by computageek95

There are inherent problems with the full immersion liquid cooling systems, namely involving what oil to use. First, you have the professional grade oils: the ones that cost hundreds of dollars a litre. This (obviously) is unappealing to anyone who is not looking to spend a lot on one of these systems. Then, the cheapies: the natural oils, the kind you can go down to Von’s or Ralph’s or Piggly Wiggly whatever! to buy. These, as most of you know, were meant for human consumption, and because of this fact, they can be used by microorganisms for their consumption. Nobody wants 10 litres of rancid corn oil in their room, right? So here’s my idea:

1) Get fish tank.
2) Put parts in.
3) Submerge in biological oil of choice.
**Now, the key!**
4) Add beta-mercaptoethanol.
5) Remove most of the air and seal.

Bam! Problem solved. For those of you who don’t know, beta-mercaptoethanol (hydrogen sulphide gas with ehtylene oxide) is an agent commonly used in biological applications as a non-selective germicide. I’ve used it most often to destroy impurities in protein slurries to prevent further corruption (I’m a research technician at USC). ANYWAY, the point is that adding this to your oil of choice then (semi-)vaccuum sealing it minimizes (if not eliminates) your chance of your oil rotting. Beta-mercaptoethanol is, if memory serves me, 400x, so for 10 L (~2.6 gal), all you would need is 25uL to do the job. Very appealing if you ask me.

Posted at 8:26 pm on Jul 1st, 2005 by Chris

my bad, that should have been 25 ml for 10 l. Whoops! Anyway, point still stands: powerful antimicrobial agent, 400x, liquid cooling rules.

Posted at 8:33 pm on Jul 1st, 2005 by Chris

this is just.. the shit.. i have nothing further ^_^ btw hackaday rules, thank you almight webmaster! ;)

Posted at 5:50 am on Jul 3rd, 2005 by lain

and what do you do when it begins to gather dust and the sort of stuff you find inside your keyboard?

Posted at 12:10 am on Jul 5th, 2005 by john

FAO john,
if you wanna avoid dust and fluff and so on, you’d probably wanna seal it… in fact, its probably best that way because impurities will probably introduce conductivity or something which just isnt good. i dunno though, i’m only going on what i’ve skim-read from the comments so far…

Posted at 10:29 am on Jul 12th, 2005 by neema_t

Just a thought but couldnt you use distilled water instead? it doesnt conduct and shouldnt start growing things lol

Posted at 7:44 am on Aug 31st, 2005 by Billy Bob

A gaming friend of mine filled a small freezer with synthetic hydraulic oil. It worked fine.

Posted at 8:57 pm on Oct 19th, 2005 by Axel

if anyone is interested in using distilled water, keep in mind that it will eventually ionize from all the exposed metal it’s in contact with. fill a clean container with distilled water and dunk an old isa card in it for a week and you’ll see a difference.

mineral oil would be cheap and readily available but it’s a good idea to minimize its exposure to atmospheric moisture.

that is all.

Posted at 11:11 pm on Oct 26th, 2005 by sir pointy hat

Well i want to to this for a school DT assignment. i was thinking of submerging my old computer into a liquid called ‘PC ICE’ instead and then cooling the liquid with peltiers. Im wondering if this would work and how cold i could get it to go? what would be the best wat to keep it all watertight etc.

Posted at 8:33 pm on Nov 13th, 2005 by Turbous

I would certainly have to use USB cord extentions and vga cord extenions cause I dont wanna permanantly affect my Standard cords….Pure genius though

Posted at 12:07 pm on Dec 13th, 2005 by Richard

what is the problem with Hydraulic Fluid? it conducts less than distrilled water.

I don’t think it will go bad if contaminated. the smell might not be that great but if thats the least of my worries.

Posted at 3:27 pm on Jan 20th, 2006 by Mark

oh did you know i fried those fries in my COMPUTER!!!!

Posted at 10:57 pm on Jan 27th, 2006 by Alin

Hey, I wanna try this but with liquid silicone.

A friend who has a degree in chemistry told me silicone is inert, and is used in lab in heating baths. It comes in several densities.

http://www.clearcoproducts.com/standard_pure_silicones.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicone

Somebody has some warning about that, before my test?

Posted at 5:30 pm on Mar 4th, 2006 by Siilex

Mineral oil sounds the most promising for us with out the money to buy the really spiffy stuff. But would it erode or degrade the plastics on the mobo and cards or the silicone sealant on a fish tank?

Posted at 7:27 pm on Mar 8th, 2006 by traconn

My dad sells this vegetable oil coolant for machining. He said if you pulled a vacuum in the tank over the oil, it will not rot. If water gets in it, it will rot.

Posted at 4:44 pm on Mar 17th, 2006 by ScipioAfricanus

Check out this old article (written for n00bs). Talks mainly about refridgeration, but touches on total immersion using mineral oil, as well as liquid nitrogen and fluorinert.
Heres a tip: don’t make your cpu run colder than -150 degrees C!
http://www.octools.com/ramil/newscientist/faster.htm

Posted at 6:23 am on Apr 5th, 2006 by krud

I have also built 1 (now 2 actually) of these oil bath pc’s. The smaller enclosure runs @ approx 90*F… and the larger of the two runs @ approx 75-80*F. Not all that bad I would think…

Posted at 1:58 pm on Apr 6th, 2006 by Daniel g.

built a revised version of the 2nd machine, and the heat has gone up, but so has the performance specs… anyone out there have a design for a home-made radiator/heat exchanger that might siphon the oil, and return it cooler?

Posted at 3:46 pm on Apr 11th, 2006 by daniel g

i have two questions, First dose this cause any rust?, and two, what kinds of vegitable oil would work? I might try this out myself thought.

Posted at 12:03 pm on May 22nd, 2006 by Celtic_guy777

i have two questions, First dose this cause any rust?, and two, what kinds of vegitable oil would work? I might try this out myself thought.

Posted at 12:04 pm on May 22nd, 2006 by Celtic_guy777

What requirements for a pump for the mineral oil would I need if I was going to submerge an P3 motherboard running at 733? I was thinking about overclocking this P3 so I could get a little more out of it for Linux.

Posted at 12:55 am on Jun 4th, 2006 by halo 1150

I think Chris has to be joking with the beta-mercaptoethanol (BME). This stuff is a highly toxic poison:
http://www.stratagene.com/msds/msds_files/1023%20bME.pdf
and if your health’s not worth saving, it is possibly the worst smelling substance in existance. No, not even if a funny way.
If you’re concerned about microbes, be the first person to have lights in your case that actually do something and put a UV sterilizing lamp over the oil.

Posted at 11:09 am on Jun 13th, 2006 by frilledren

try cyclomethicone — it’s a light silicone oil about the consistency of water. It looks like it would be easy to pump. It’s easy to get, non-toxic, used in cosmetics, perfumes, and hair products as a carrier. Cyclomethicone evaporates easily, though, so your setup needs to be sealed. Cost is not cheap — saw some on eBay for $75 a gallon, so you would have to be careful about your design.

Posted at 9:04 am on Aug 17th, 2006 by nazcalito

try cyclomethicone — it’s a light silicone oil about the consistency of water. It looks like it would be easy to pump. It’s easy to get, non-toxic, used in cosmetics, perfumes, and hair products as a carrier. Cyclomethicone evaporates easily, though, so your setup needs to be sealed. Cost is not cheap — saw some on eBay for $75 a gallon, so you would have to be careful about your design.

Posted at 9:13 am on Aug 17th, 2006 by nazcalito

wholesaler charges about $60 a gallon – non-flammable too.

Posted at 9:15 am on Aug 17th, 2006 by nazcalito

And how long did it take to make french fries? :)

Posted at 9:31 am on Feb 1st, 2008 by Joffri

if you want to do this correctly use phase change liquid with pelters on the outside of a conductive box to lower the temp to -130 phase change liquid will freeze solid and maintain an thermal constant over the entire computer then overclock the hell out of it, energy consumption will be incredible possibly parallel computing remains a better option

Posted at 6:33 pm on Oct 20th, 2008 by adam

I have a question can you submerger the power supply??????

Posted at 1:45 pm on Oct 22nd, 2008 by Cam

i just found out you can

Posted at 4:12 pm on Oct 22nd, 2008 by Cam