[Tenacious Dyl]

After reading three different cases of people submerging their *entire* PC's (Just not the optical drive, and in one article not the hard-drive either) in oils to cool them, I became very interested in doing this myself. Although vegetable oil, mineral oil, and olive oil all work fine, they do build up in gunk, give off a nasty odor, and are fairly thick and unattractive. Here is the most easy to follow article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/01/..._out_the_fans/

I drew up (in a notebook... online version to come shortly) exacting plans on taking an Apple Cube case, gutting it, and prepping it similar to the Cube Fishtank project that is floating around out there.

Then, I plan on getting the low-end Intel Mini, and basically fully submerge it (minus optical drive) in the fluid, inside the leak-proofed cube case. If all goes well, I will upgrade the mini's ram, hd, and processor (to dual 2.16) provided I sell some things (in the marketplace currently) and put the rest away for college tuition and such.

My current plan is to use fluid meant for liquid cooling pumps, here:
http://www.performance-pcs.com/catal...oducts_id=3983

It seems to be superior to the oils used in other full-submersion projects.

My questions are:
1) Would this truly work better than oils? (Or does this solution only work because it is moved so well by pumps... ie, would oil somehow "beat" it)

2) Once everything was installed, and proofed in the cube, would it be conceivable to top the cube with about 1/3 inch thick aluminum, and pump enough of the fluid in to make it airtight, and have NO air in it (maybe even slightly pressurize the tank). This would create a "heat sink" with direct contact with the fluid, and the outside air. I could even put the "tines" on the heatsink going in BOTH directions (ie, going into the fluid, AND into the air)

3) Are there some sort of "covers" out there I could use for the ram slot in the mini, so that before the upgrade, it doesn't get soaked full of whatever fluid? Ex... a "dummy stick" of ram I could put in for now, to prevent clogging / greasing up my ram slot, that would be made of plastic or something so as not to cause a loading / running problem.

4) Is it probable, given the results of oil / liquid cooling, that just sealing a mini in a cube of this fluid, and making the top "heat sink" that this would actually cool the mini better?

I welcome any comments / ideas / feedback suggestions... I hope to post up some mock-up pictures soon, and actually start this project soon once things get rolling....

[Mister Elf]

Why would you ever even want to do that...you certainly don't need to. The Core Duo, even the 2.16GHz version, is a mobile processor- meant for cool running in tight spaces. The stock fan in the Mac mini should be fine.

[2009059]

Dude...go dual phase change or go home...jk. Really I agree with Mister Elf, there is really no need.

[Mister Elf]

Also, sealing the case enough to pressurize it will be impossible if you want to run SATA cables to the hard disk and optical drives.

[Waragainstsleep]

Get an external vacuum pump and immerse the whole thing in nitrogen. You could do a ludicrous overclock (if you can find out how), and it won't gunk anything up.

[Tenacious Dyl]

Just for fun... I tested an old Pentium 2, 400mhz computer. Bought some oil, filled up a tub in the house. Within a few minutes it was set up and fine.

It ran much cooler, and best of all SILENTLY... The hard-drive is in the oil and runs fine (I sealed the seams) and after this photo was taken, I took the power-supply's board out of the gray metal box, and dumped that in the oil too. No problem

I know its a winblows... but it was a test, to make sure I could easily dissassemble, reassembled, and soak in oil nice and proper



Right after this picture, and the power supply... there was some silent, lag-free starcraft action.

[2009059]

Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep

Get an external vacuum pump and immerse the whole thing in nitrogen. You could do a ludicrous overclock (if you can find out how), and it won't gunk anything up.

It's just that nitrogen isn't sustainable and the whole board would probably shatter if you touched it. I've seen clocks from pentium 4s up to over 5GHz with a liquid nitrogen set up, but it didn't last too long.

To the people checking out types of cooling: http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=287576

[Barefoot Matt]

Where would one get liquid nitrogen for home use?

I use it for biological laboratory applications at school (flash freezing tissue samples and keeping them cold), but a litre of it is gone in like 6 hours. It seems like unless you were condensing it yourself (which would be expensive), it would be really inconvenient and time consuming (not to mention expensive) to have to keep refilling your supply.

[Tenacious Dyl]

The liquid nitrogen cooling systems seem to be set up just for short periods, just to prove they can achieve "X" GHz, or beat some benchmark record. Not practical, not easy, not very usable setup.

Does anyone know that if you technically put your whole computer in a very well sealed container (with cables coming out VERY TIGHTLY sealed holes (that were extra thick...) ) that if simply left compressed (the gas) the PC Case (which would be huge) would never need refilling?

I guess what I'm saying, is this.... if you built a PC case, that was capable of holding, without leaks, liquid nitrogen, would 1) the pressure required to keep it in liquid NOT destroy the computer components, and 2) would the computer be functional if permanently kept in this state.

Picture using external hard-drives / power supply / disk drives, and putting a 2-3 inch thick metal / ceramic enclosure around your PC, and filling it with liquid nitrogen, and sealing it properly. Would it work? Would you inevitably have a leak, and thus horrible effects to the environment nearby? Could you easily make a valve to release / refill it, that wouldn't destroy itself under the temps?

[Waragainstsleep]

Nitrogen is actually pretty harmless unless you have alot of it it in liquid form. You can actually stick your hand right in it for a very short period without any effects, its nothing like the stuff in Terminator 2, takes ages to freeze things compared to that.

If you had a PC covered in it and the case burst, it wouldn't do too much damage. (Throwing a couple of pints of it down a wooden corridor is good fun. It boils off in no time and doesn't hurt the flooring).

The trickiest part of a nitro cooling system apart from getting good seals, is moving it around. You cannot use pumps and valves like with water, as anything with moving parts will seize fairly soon.

If you get some nitrogen gas in a container and attach a vacuum pump, you can solidify it fairly easily. You only need to liquify it of course, but freezing it is fun if you're bored. This should make a good reservoir for a cooling system, so you will have to mount it above the case, so gravity will do the work for you. You will then have to rely on convection to move the hotter coolant back up to the reservoir, for re-cooling. This may be a tricky equilibrium to establish, but in theory its just a matter of tweaking it until you get it right.

I have been thinking of attempting something like this, but I would prefer to use a Mac, and firstly they are harder to overclock, secondly most of the ones which can be overclocked don't clock so high anyway. The max you can set a G3 B&W clock to as far as I know is 1GHz. There are chips which will take this speed easily at room temp with only air cooling, so liquid N is overkill in most cases.
Just imagine what you could do if you nitro cooled a Quad.....! But I digress.

Its one of those simple in theory, bit trickier in reality kind of projects. Its not the sort of system you can bodge. It has to be solid, sealed tight, and in good state of equilibrium. Thinking about it, the pump might need to adjust its speed based on how much work the CPU is doing. I guess you could run SETI or sommething to keep it going though.

[msuper69]

This idea should be posted in the "How to ruin your Mac" forum.

[baw]

Pointless.

[Tuoder]

Originally Posted by baw

Pointless.

pointless and fun Overclocking can be a bit of a hobby. Most people don't want to bother *risking damaging their computer. A few, however would like to go quickly, cheaply, even if it is not for very long.

EDITED: added, *risking

[Tenacious Dyl]

Pointless if you aren't adventurous maybe. Someone has to try out every "first" that there is. Whether intentionally, or accidently, a whole freaking lot of patents and inventions exist today because of people doing / creating / modifying something that the general public would whine about and call "pointless".

I'd rather build or try something new, and fail a few times than sit on my butt and rag on those who tried.

[Tuoder]

For the record, I used to run an overclocked Celeron 2.3. It ran at 3.06 for a while. The thing cooked a 400 Watt power supply. I plan to put a mild overclock on the P4 3Ghz I replaced it with.

[akrap35]

I've heard about the oil pc's but why? Are a few decibles of sound really that much? I mean you can't get silence anywhere unless you are in a sound proof room. I've drowned my case out over the years. I have an AMD 64 3000+ (1.8 - stock) at 2.6 with only a Thermalright XP-90, Antec 92mm Smart Fan and some artic silver. It never breaks 40C even under full load and it is usally under heavy load 24/7 and I never even notice the fans.

[LadiDami]

i'm definately interested in seeing the mini submersed in oil. that only problems are what do you do if you want to (a) expand the computer - stick your hand and computer parts in and do some oily attachments? (b) sell the computer - how do you clean it off?

eitherway, good luck! post some pictures!

[Tenacious Dyl]

Cody: If all goes well, the ports themselves will be water-tight. Sealed at the edges, and heavily on the inside. As for other expansion, the hard-drive and optical drive would be sealed, various ways, to prevent their damage (oil + moving parts = stupid) thus, you could unscrew my case idea, and replace and re-seal either.

As for cleaning, it would be a lot of work, but certainly not impossible. The final plan is a mini, in the UV Water Cooling fluid shown way above. That fluid, unlike oil, is very "thin" like water. I would just drain the fluid from the case (as the mobo being in it is pretty... permanent.. if ports are sealed, and I would towel / evaporation / etc it until it was good. Then I would take out old ram to replace with new, or swap processors, etc. I don't think with the ideas I have in mind, that it would be easy, or even possible, to get it back in the original case, looking / working normal without a lot of work. (not really impossible, just a lot of work!)