Building a Mineral Oil Cooled PC

[OfficialFlashburn]

Neat Sci Fi Video:

FIVE STARS FOR EXCELLENCE.

Sincerely: The producer for song number 2 in the credits.

[DVTUandG]

all these parts suck now a days, and only 20 fps in crisis. that would mean some crappy parts even then!!!!!

[newyoukmets1]

kool suff

[Bateman1983]

I like a lot, thaks. Very useful.

[Bgunns567]

I found the video to be very helpful and very well done.I'm about to start a similar project involving an Intel 2600K ,16gb of ram, and (2) GTX580 3gb's in a 16gal tank/with oil cooler. My question is this...did you also seal any capacitors on your video card(s)? What kind of longevity did you see from your components over the last 4yrs? Anything you would change in how you prepped components/parts for the job? Any upgrades done over the last 4 yrs,and why?

[iRant4u]

I have a few questions: How difficult is it to replace or upgrade a part when it is like this? It seems like it wouldn't be easy to just pull one out and put another in... would you have to drain and refill the tank? What way would you have of reducing the heat of the oil? I've seen other videos that have radiators and fans for cooling the oil, and at high performance the temp gets to around 60 degrees F. I want to build one of these later, just some thoughts. Thanks!

[eagletwo13]

uhm would distilled water also work?

[sciguy14]

@eagletwo13 at first, but it would eventually begin to ionize.

[eagletwo13]

@sciguy14 wait i got myself confused... the distilled water will ionize... meaning Oxygen and Hydrogen separating and making it conductive?

[MrFR0ST95]

@eagletwo13 If it is in an air-free tank that is completely closed, but this would be hard to do. And every time you'd have to open it, it'd be better to change the water to prevent it from ionizing and later a shortcut or some messed up thing like that

[eagletwo13]

is it just me or did i see him putting the donut things and that optical drive in place like 20 times....

[Caswalle]

now dump the tank in a FREEZER!!

[themodmancarl]

why did you silicone the cpu

[sacleocheaterz]

Silicone is a step for disaster.

oil and silicone don't go well together

[TheGorillazoe98]

what was with the red blinking light on the power supply???

:-/

[LambOfMusic]

@TheGorillazoe98 The camera reflecting in the glass.

[CrayzyFreakzzz123]

why did you use silicone on the cpu?

[kypitbull]

@CrayzyFreakzzz123 i was going to ask that myself

[COMPUTEREXPECT]

hey can u make one for me i will pay u for that

[tacoman8200]

will this work with an xbox 360?

[VSUZUKIV]

@tacoman8200 yup

[Umbra360]

@tacoman8200 Yes, but the DVD drive and the HDD must be placed outside the container.

[SlackintoshHD]

replacing parts would be a fuckin disgusting nightmare.

[SPECKSPRODUCTION]

oh shit you can use baby oil???

[BringNStoHorizon]

imagine there was fish in the fishtank wouldn't that be an awesome PC!

[AirSoftMaverick3232]

I would really like to do this for a school project and I have a few questions: does the silicone adhesive essentially "waterproof" the cpu so that the oil doesn't wash away the thermal grease? And are the HDDs and the cd drive ok without any fans or anything keeping them cool? They won't overheat?

[somerville00]

@AirSoftMaverick3232 the silicon was unnecessary and thermal paste is non conductive so it can be in the oil. I also would like to know about the optical drive and HDD what is cooling them?

[themodmancarl]

haha dont drop a cd in the oil

[randrewm97]

i have a spare pc... i kinda want to try it out cause the pc it junk and i wont care if it breaks. if it works, i might build my next pc using this oil. after seeing intels new 6core on display in an oil computer.

[bluepickle15]

Fish of the future

[FrantiqFire]

As I was watching you build this, I was thinking "But can it play Crysis? Dohoho!". Then you played Crysis.

[northpaw2000]

Specs?

[kt19961996]

amazing !!!!

[gab1971]

if it gets hot can it bubble? LOL

[EddyVEVO]

Very nice, good job.

did it make a lot of noise?

[Aduhnima]

now some benchmarks and you are able to make some chips ;)

[Wiegieboard]

This is cool as hell.

[HylianDefender]

Now that computer would be something to show off.

[NoName875]

Im surprised that cpu fan was still spinning

[arasbm]

Nice design! Is this still running?

[sciguy14]

@arasbm I don't use it anymore.

[Doctathunder]

@sciguy14 but if you wanted to could you? also, do you need to reple the oil constantly the more you use it? please forgive any bad grammar/english language mistakes, i am drunk. : P

[sciguy14]

@Doctathunder yeah it still works, but I would need to add some new oil... some has dissipated. This is what you do when you're drunk?

[Doctathunder]

@sciguy14 lol well i was drunk. now i'm hung over

[luciasko]

@sciguy14 what lamp doing?

[sciguy14]

@luciasko make it light up

[luciasko]

@sciguy14 You are so funny!

[mikeello35]

But will it blend?

[xTheDeathSaintx]

it rubs the oil on its skin or else it gets the heat again

[shrimants]

@ikcti I was serious. I got the number wrong but IIRC all the worthwhile features in DX10 didnt work in XP. I was trying to run F.E.A.R. with DX10 and most of the effects wouldnt work because DX10 used certain vista-only techniques. I could be wrong though, that was quite some time ago

[LazyrockTV]

How has it faired, some friends told me you can't use baby oil is it still working good?

[shrimants]

Why are you testing crysis on a windows XP machine? Crysis uses directX 11 to do any of its hard core graphics crunching, so running crysis on full settings on XP does nothing more than tax your dx9.0C and physics number crunching....

[ikcti]

@shrimants Are you serious? I'm trying hard to figure out whether you're trolling. Crysis 1 only used DirectX 9 and 10.

[Lemiixem]

@shrimants This video was made in 2008, Direct x11 didn't even exist then.

[NarutoShikamaruKiba]

Nice, but can it run... Nevermind lol

[kylejack1]

Good luck upgrading.

[JoshVicki]

34 god all that effort for 34 cable ties and a old thermal take volcano fan would have done a better job!

[89karabaja]

@JoshVicki Yes, but that's not interesting :)

[kokfah]

wow.. this is really called extreme. my question is answered with this video. "why don just put the whole thing in water?", of course in this case it is baby oil. nice man!! u ARE awesome

[SeanofZeus]

@kokfah water can cause shorts in the components. tomshardware did this and after 5 minutes the parts shorted out. oil deters this since its not at all electricly conductive. Nice build but its not very asteticly pleasing.

[kokfah]

@SeanofZeus =)

[AndrewDeLong]

@SeanofZeus Well, if the water is completely distilled, then it would be non-conductive. However, all of the parts would have to be free of even the most minute of particles, as their touching the water would cause said particles to form a potentially conductive solution. Effectively, one would have to assemble the parts to the mobo and place it in the distilled water IN the very place where the mobo is assembled, as that is likely the only particle (dust) free environment.

Lotta work, really.

[bsmoove69]

Tried this with my xbox360 and I got trod.....lol...probably would have gotten it any way

[omfg0rz]

I got a quarter chub during the sensual part with the baby oil....

[posjoey]

wtf! that was awesome bro!

[ryancy]

Very interesting project. I guess guys have found another use for baby oil, eh?

[rick62008]

Doesn't this oil become rancid over time?

[akirafactor]

@rick62008 Mineral oil, no. Vegetable oil, yes definitely goes bad.

[Cam5X5]

This + phase cooling = Best cooling in teh world?

[TiuPaaje]

watch?v=kCqjLmXZYcg

[itsachilles]

should have put green lights on top that would have been sick

[woe96]

put fishy in it lol jk

[midnightfapper]

that's some hardcore doc brown stuff right there, 1.21 jiggawatts.

[iownudie108]

most stupid thing ever, after a year the oil will start smelling like fresh shit.

[francisroan]

is that the oil ur mother used to apply on u wen u were small?????

[RyanF470]

Oil cooled pc using Phase Changer cooler attached to a old heat sink should do the trick.

[FuShKrUjSi]

THE MOST STUPID THING IVE WATCHED TODAY!

[sciguy14]

@FuShKrUjSi 100,000 people disagree.

[ERIK5564]

@sciguy14 but you only have 339 likes out of 101,461

[sciguy14]

@ERIK5564 It's called a sample size - 91% of people like it.

[ERIK5564]

@sciguy14 but still.....

[wickedn1990]

@sciguy14 to be honest the oil pc is not much lower on temp's compared to when its not.

if u are lookin for major cooling and over-clocking look up " ac cooled pc "

[StinkyCheese9999]

@sciguy14

Not necessarily. Most people stopped the video before it was over and moved on without bothering to like or dislike it. It's an interesting experiment for grade school kids, but anyone who took high school level physics or that has built their own computers for awhile is aware there is more than one medium you can use to transfer heat.

[TheTrueSalpan]

@ERIK5564  really most people what he said 91% of the people watched it all and liked it they just dont press like

[TheINFIDELSTRONG]

@sciguy14 what is the music?

[tayg13]

why didn't you just buy mineral oil? it comes in gallon containers, no fragrance, and its a lot cheaper.

[sciguy14]

@tayg13 Impatience mostly.

[oringent]

Ha the more I look at this the dumber it gets, bravo for closing the lid on that thing, LOL. Trap the heat around the pc components BRAVO

[oringent]

of oil to air I meant

[oringent]

yeah, trap the heat in a extremely restricted carrier medium and transport it to the other components that are submerged, instead of transferring it to the air that is all around you, lol. I advise you to take a physics class, especially the part about the heat transfer coefficient of oil to water. If you let this run for some time, the oil will heat up more and more and damage everything that is submerged in it. Plus it gets a lot heavier and impossible to maintain, lol EPIC FAIL

[Archeronoxydexed]

@oringent BTW, don't forget air will get hot too, and has a much lower heat absorption if compared to oil. What's better, distrubute a constant 60°C homogeneously through all components, or let one or other component reach temperatures as high as 80°C while some others are cool and quiet at 40º? And there is a maximum temperature the oil will reach for a proper overclock, because of it's own heat dissipation with the air AND through the thin glass.

[oringent]

@Archeronoxydexed Take a book about thermodynamics and you will see that it does not work. The air has a lower heat absorption, true, but the whole room is filled with air and the air is blown at higher speed through the fan over the CPU. But there is a lot of air. There is just about 2 gallons of Oil that will heat up gradually, this heat will have to be transferred to the air around it. The air around the oil is not moving. Its easy to show that the CPU generates more heat than the oil can

[oringent]

@oringent radiate to the stationary air around it over its surface. Therefore the oil will heat up more and more the fewer oil the worse. Try it and let the think run for a couple of hours under full load. The industrial transformers are calculated to work right, don't worry about them mate. Calculate it for your self, it cant work even under very favourable assumptions about the CPU temperature etc. You would have to have the oil flow through a hose over the CPU and cool it down elsewhere.

[SargCatacombkid]

@oringent You are absolutely correct. An external radiator system is needed for this to work for an extended period of time. There are a few ways to do this for fairly cheap buy using a 12V DC oil pump, and a radiator with a fan. The pump is around 25 USD, the radiator and fan prices differ. The pump I found moved 7L/min (about 1.85gal/min) of mineral oil. Not too shabby, but you still need to circulate the oil through the system, which can be done with fans.

[SargCatacombkid]

@oringent I'll have a system up and running in a few months or so, and will include an all air-cooled build with the same components and long-term stress tests, then a mineral oil build with the same stress tests with and without the radiator and pump and see what kind of numbers I come up with. I'm hoping for some favorable numbers that make it worth keeping the components dipped in mineral oil, as pulling them and cleaning them would be a nightmare, lol.

[oringent]

thats the dumbest thing I have ever seen, you might just as well "cool" your PC with a hammer. Obviously, you guys have never been in a physics class. epic fail.

[Archeronoxydexed]

@oringent And obviously you never seen industrial-grade power transformers with steel chassis filled with oil for component heat dissipation. I have friends that work with electrical engineering, and after talking about overclock, one told me one of his friends actually did a PC like this based on the same concept.

[LordiCFH]

Any reason why there was silicone placed around the processor?

[sciguy14]

@LordiCFH It was initially to adhere the heatsink, but we ended up putting the fan clip on anyways.

[LeaveNoEvident]

The oil will soften up the motherboard over a long period of time !

[sciguy14]

@LeaveNoEvident no it won't.

[LeaveNoEvident]

@sciguy14 explain why not ?

[sciguy14]

@LeaveNoEvident Because it is made from woven glass and epoxy.

[4thPlayerFilms]

Dang dude. You're either really brave, or really stupid :O

[sciguy14]

@4thPlayerFilms Brave ;) Plus this is backed up by science, and prior experiments.

[Dell0304]

Why didn't you fill the whole thing?

[sciguy14]

@Dell0304 Because baby oil is expensive! ...And we bought out a whole CVS...

[Dell0304]

@sciguy14 Oh, ok. Haha, CVS is probably going "that guy must have a lot of babies" lol

[tubtubman21]

where can i buy the conductivity monitor seen in your vid

[sciguy14]

@tubtubman21 You mean the calculator?

[tubtubman21]

@sciguy14 ya where do you buy one for cheap?

[sciguy14]

@tubtubman21 ...A Calculator???  Anywhere.

[VideoGameExplorers]

How much did you spend on all this(except for the computer)?

[sciguy14]

@VideoGameExplorers Not much... less than 70 bucks for the baby oil and tank and plants.

[VideoGameExplorers]

@sciguy14 Thanks, that costs less than a lot of computer cases today, thinking about doing this. Thanks man.

[Sappharos]

omg that is soo beautiful :)

[fallomoko]

does this make your computer faster?

[sciguy14]

@fallomoko if you overclock it does.

[uexp4]

Practicality=no

Fun=yes

[SteezyJerksEnt]

what happens if you touch the oil?

[sciguy14]

@SteezyJerksEnt You get oil on your hands

[H3nkkap]

Awesome.... 

[psychonaut25]

Amiga like music

[adam19914ever]

no ya not

[mattman91c]

this is going to sound completely dumb but how does this not short circuit the PC, oil isnt conductive?

[Xenogenocide]

Did you know that you don't have to put a sealant around the CPU because the mineral oil isn't conductive of electricity?

[themainproblem]

This was a really cool experiment! Nicely done. After you were finished with it did you make an effort to clean the parts off? If so how did you do it?

[joeratti]

what are yo gonna do if a component breaks?

[xmodmodifier]

looks like the atlantis :D

[rweiii1]

i wouldnt be able to do this as i usually move my pc around at least twice a day :)"

[rweiii1]

@l19981 of course it will void your warranty. but if you know what you're doing, you wont break anything.

[rweiii1]

is baby oil mineral oil?? and is it cheaper than if you actually buy jugs that are labbelled "mineral oil??"

[babyvampire56]

how cool does it stay????>?

[Happyjuice]

Wow this is fricken awesome! Question, you just laid the mobo flat on the floor the tank no spacers or anything?? I noticed you had the PSU where the actual power plug isnt underneath the mineral oil, is this to prevent the system from short circuiting? I have an old system and I may consider doing this...how stable is this system can you leave it running? Or is it more of a project than anything else.

Thanks for the great vid! This was awesome

[sciguy14]

@Happyjuice While you could do this for a main system, I wouldn't recommend it. It's too annoying to maintain. This was mostly just a fun project. The power plug can be submerged - it doesn't matter since mineral oil is conductive. The reason for spacers in a normal case is so that the back of the motherboard doesn't short against the metal case. This case is class, which doesn't conduct, so that wasn't an issue.

[pablokiryu]

@sciguy14 What are the maintenance problems you found? I'm considering doing a similar build for my HTPC.... TY.

[sciguy14]

@pablokiryu You need good airflow, and it's annoying to replace things.

[fishtris12]

@sciguy14 Do you have your own Sci Fi Channel Calculator?

[buakananginamo]

what are you?...macgyver?...

[jasons520]

whats the silicon for

[sciguy14]

@jasons520 It was to hold the CPU restraint in place, but we ended up not really needing it.

[kng6666]

nice try lor...

[prox40]

hmm there is wires in there...is Mineralal oil safe for them?

[LelleQ]

@prox40 Yup

[prox40]

hmm there is wires in there...is Miral oil safe for them?

[Armaangandevia1]

pc specks

[zhantonio]

you copy other's idea and now tell us u are awesome？？

[bcbluecheese]

:D i want to do this so bad :D i have a 2002 computer xD hehe good test subject muhahahaha >:D

[noahgotyou1234]

Crap I need a new cpu LOL

[PojeMetal]

baby oil??? now you have bath tub for babies see it' s not hramfull for pc even babies, I like it : -)

[Tsarevna303]

You can save yourself a bunch of money. You don't want baby oil with it's high price and fragrance. Buy mineral oil by the gallon at a feed store where it is sold as horse laxative.

[dwoodsky]

@Tsarevna303  try not to drink the left overs then ;)

[tehklutzking]

No need for Febreze, the fragrance from the oil will fill your room with awesomeness :D

[pkhamidar2com]

wow you must be rich

[edstopak]

astig!

[buddiha]

would be a pain in the ass if you want to change display card or add ram lol

[izma1293]

did you cover up the end of the non used power supply cable with electrical tape??

[lozthegreat1]

what i dont understand is if you want it to bee as cool as possible then why did you put the fish tank lights in they generate a lot of heat seems pointless 2 me

[nykl555]

why did you silicone off the cpu retention bracket? its is actually water tight?

[sciguy14]

@nykl555 No, we were just trying to keep it held in place since removed the fan bracket. We ended up putting the fan back on anyways.

[UnDeRMc09]

pc spec's? :D

[sciguy14]

@UnDeRMc09 Nothing Special...Just old parts.

[DrakeMonk]

Good luck changing the DVD rom or HDD :D

[remotecontrolaholic]

why not just buy mineral oil?

[LLisaXD]

hahaha

that's really awesome. :)

[theh8edclown]

Question. Would u need a heatsink?

[bladerunnerfast]

Man why are you doing all that sealing? Far as I know you really don't need to do that.

The oil won't affect it not in a bad way at least. I guess it make it easyer for upgrading and etc. But nice work,it be nice if they didn't have breather holes on hard drives.

[Altaire7]

this is the stupidest shit ive ever seen.  So many more practical ways to cool your comp than this. But its kinda cool :)

[Watswat5]

I would put the drives at the top, add more oil, and put in some fans to move the oil around.

[iRTehSecks]

Seems like if the oil gets hot you're fucked...

[cat41693]

LOL i did mine exactly like this before i saw your vid lol but with vegetable oil

/watch?v=KbhXTN4Z9EA

[dmdougie]

Lol at Crysis testing..."not bad for 2003 parts" - it's jumpy as hell!!