Want a Cool and Quiet PC? Dunk it in Oil 402
The Last Gunslinger writes "Tom's Hardware Guide has published an article (complete with video) showing how they employed their own approach to the liquid cooled computer. To offset the loss of normal airflow around their Athlon FX-55 and GeForce 6800Ultra, the mad scientists in the lab decided to fill the case up with 8 gallons of cooking oil. The oil temperature leveled off at a comfy 104F during benchmarking operations intended to tax both the CPU and GPU to their limits. Interestingly enough, they first attempted this operation using deionized water. It worked for 5 minutes before developing short circuits...but the hardware was amazingly undamaged." Slashdot has covered similar projects in the past but it was neat to see the differences in oil and the look at capacitance around the CPU pins.
Put an Intel in there (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Put an Intel in there (Score:3, Informative)
how about using oil especially made to cool electronics instead?
what about changing out hardware? what about leaks?
Re:Put an Intel in there (Score:2)
Re:Put an Intel in there (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Put an Intel in there (Score:2, Informative)
mineral oil is what you want in there (Score:5, Informative)
Re:mineral oil is what you want in there (Score:5, Informative)
Oil comes with some problems. It is more viscous (thicker) than FC-77, so it won't circulate or flow as well, it's a lot less dense and has a lot lower specific heat. This means that it won't cool as well.
It's also a huge mess. Everything gets covered in it. It will slowly leach through even the tiniest of cracks. Any oil that collects on the ouside of the case will attract dust and dirt. It attacks many plastic and rubber materials including most silicone sealants. I remember it causing one type of shrink tubing to expand to about 2 times it's length. Some capacitors unwrapped themselves, and I've known some people to be mildly allergic to it.
FC-77 on the other hand is beautiful to work with, (other than the cost). It's water clear, when you remove the electronics from the tank, the FC-77 evaporates away in a few minutes leaving absoultly no residue. It boils at 97 deg C. So if you have a really hot part, the boiling (phase change) takes away even more heat. It attacks almost nothing (inert). Won't stain, or mess up your carpet and is practically non-toxic. You do need to protect it from evaporation though.
Just a note on De-ionized water, anyone who ever worked with it knows it's very corrosive. It tries to bond with ions in anything it can get it's hands on. It dosn't stay deionized for very long if it's in contact with any metals.
Re:mineral oil is what you want in there (Score:3, Informative)
Highly inert though they are, fluorocarbon liquids can damage teflon and other fluorocarbon plastics and rubbers, as well as many epoxies. This isn't as dramatic as acetone on acryllic, but teflon will swell and sof
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
And for those one-handed computing sessions... (Score:5, Funny)
Pre-warmed, even.
Sounds interesting. (Score:3, Funny)
And don't forget cause!=correlation (Score:3, Funny)
Wax might be even better (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course once it all melt then you are back to the steady state conduction of liquid parafin. But if you've ever made candles then you know that melting 8 gallons of wax on a stove burner can take a long time. If you can make that last say 12 hours--a work day-- and then let it cool down overnight you might never melt it all (or have two computers and play ping pong: one always cooling while the the other is heating).
How do you prevent voids? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I wonder about though, is whether in a conventional (atmospheric) application, you would end up with voids in the parafin (or other material with low melting point) as it heated and cooled. Obviously this would be a bad thing and could lead to overheating of the chips. I don't know much about the physical properties of parafin -- does it expand and contract as it heats and cools? If so then it seems like it could easily form voids around the chips.
I once worked with a liquid, some sort of long-chain polymer, that had a freezing point of around 40F. If you chilled the whole thing slightly below it's freezing point, that might be able to work in much the same way. Provided of course that it's a dielectric.
Rancid Oil? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Rancid Oil? (Score:2)
Re:Rancid Oil? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, once the oil turns rancid, things could get interesting as well as smelly...
I thought the same thing -- interesting concept, but cooking oil would either have to be changed every few days or so, or it would get stinky. Of course, they included a plug at the bottom of the case to make draining the oil easier.
They say at the end of the article that they recommend motor oil for long term operation. They used cooking oil for proof-of-concept. I still don't know if I would want the top of the case open as they did, even with motor oil, so I guess some sort of heat exchanger would have to be included to run this with a totally sealed interior. You'd need something to keep the oil at 104 deg F or cooler with the top on -- I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to design something.
Obvious questions... (Score:3, Funny)
If I overclocked my PC do I have change it every 2 months or 1,500 miles?
Will my next Intel Inside computer come with an odometer? Stay tuned! Oil filter change recommended once a year.
Re:Motor Oil... Use Jet Turbine Oil instead!!! (Score:2)
Uh no. There is such thing as DOT 5 brake fluid which is not silicone-based. It's made by Elf.
Brake fluid is expensive, anyway. I'd use the cheapest synthetic oil I could find.
Or LHM (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Motor Oil... Use Jet Turbine Oil instead!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Since we're picking nits; DOT 5.1 fluid IS DOT 5 fluid. It's just not SBBF. Related documentation appears below:
Re:Rancid Oil? (Score:5, Funny)
Salt
Water
Air
Carbon
Heat
These five things will slowly reduce the quality of your oil, forcing pre-mature replacement, and adversly affecting the taste^W [operation] of the product^W [computer].
Salt is introduced into the oil when [you eat] the french fries are salted too close to the vat^W computer. This has immediately damaging affects on the oil. Always ensure that you salt the fries [you are going to eat] in the bin^W^W^W [on your desk] rather than over the vat^W [computer].
Water is naturally introduced into the oil from the air around us, and the moisture contained inside the french fries.^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W Try to shake off excess ice before cooking the fries.
Since air is all around us, there is not too much that can be done to stop this enemy of oil. However, keeping the lid on the vat^W [computer] when not in use has been shown to reduce oxygenation of the oil.
Carbon is introduced into the vat^W [computer] as the french fries are cooked. Use the handheld strainer to remove excess carbon from the vat^W [computer].
Heat is a constant threat to the oil. Since the french fries are often cooked at 400 degrees or higher^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W^W [Since the computer regularly operates at temperatures rivaling a nuclear power plant], it is important to constantly monitor the clarity and viscousness of the oil. Use of a portable strainer can remove destroyed oil, and allow you to rescue the oil that is still in good condition.
Follow these simple tips, and your french fries^W^W [computer] will remain tasty batch after batch!
* tongue planted firmly in cheek
Re:Rancid Oil? (Score:5, Informative)
You should. But I'll save you the trouble.
It's called 3M Fluorinert, and now that it's come up in two separate discussions in two days, I now know more about the stuff than I ever wanted to. (Great use of company time, eh?)
This is the 3M page about it, they make a bunch of different varieties for various purposes. I believe what you'd want to use on a computer is the '77' variety. (I'm told that's what the Cray II used.) 3M Fluorinert [3m.com]
Some people [parallax-tech.com] who will sell it to you in small quantities (3M wants you to buy 11 lbs.)
And here's the obligatory Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorinert [wikipedia.org]
Re:Rancid Oil? (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, just make sure you don't get Super 77 [3m.com] from them instead. That would be a big "oops."
Very expensive overkill (Score:3, Interesting)
You probably don't want something too flammable, but if you can seal well enough to keep water out isopropanol is relatively nonvolatile and nontoxic, it's just that alcohols tend to absorb water. (Another option is propylene glycol, the stuff used in nontoxic marine antifreeze.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I prefer... (Score:2)
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Have to say that is kinda of dumb to try... de-ionized water is a great solvent and would love nothing better then to leach ions from material it comes in contact with.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Duh (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Duh (Score:2)
And at 104F, I don't think you will have much solvent action. If it got hot enough, I would be more worried.
Now you could use a refridgerating unit.to cool the oil.....
Re:Duh (Score:3, Informative)
The pcb material will swell over time. You know all those little thru vias that connect traces between the layers of the pcb? They don't stretch so good. That faint popping sound you hear is the vias seperating, and then bye-bye pcb.
A really good clue that your motherboard is dissolving/swelling is when the oil turns the color of the motherboard...
Funny how this same topic comes up regularly, and yet there seems to be no progress in forseeing the problems.
If you want a cheap way
Re:Duh (Score:5, Interesting)
Dunkin Doughnuts... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Dunkin Doughnuts... (Score:2)
uuh. (Score:2, Interesting)
For example, if you get water into the system you could fry your machine. Its not that difficult, especially if its not sealed too well. Another example being if the sealing were to catastrophically fail, you'd have 8 gallons of cooking oil that wanted out, and if you weren't at home could very well destroy the board.
Think you're going to try to take this thing to a LAN party? Good luck.
Re:uuh. (Score:5, Funny)
Extra Crispy?
Re:uuh. (Score:2)
Unfortunately, no. The thing topped out at 104F, he'd be soggy and limp, no, let me rephrase that...
Better stick with Hufu [eathufu.com] for now.
Re:uuh. (Score:3, Insightful)
~S
Re:uuh. (Score:2)
Re:uuh. (Score:2)
Dunno, but you'll probably be hungry again in half an hour.
Re:uuh. (Score:5, Funny)
------
Leave it to a geek to be worried about his mobo when 8 gallons of oil spill onto the floor.
I'd rather replace my mobo anyday. Try getting 8 gallons of oil out of burbur. Or better yet, try the same mess on hardwood or linoleum. I can see it now:
(slip) Shit, my fscking back. Gotta hurry, must get up before mobo dies!
(slip-splotch-boom) Oohhh... My aching head. How am I ever gonna get outta this mess!
(bam-slip)(careening into corner of desk, eye-first) Ahhhh! I can't see! I'm blind! My baby! My baby! Don't worry, I'll save you, baby!
[voice from bedroom] Is everything OK dear? Who are you talking to?
(splotch-bam-boom) Everything fine, honey.. Just a few minor diffi.. (bang)
Honey! Quick, call Compusa, STAT! She's not gonna make it!
Re:uuh. (Score:4, Funny)
Wow, I could take this and run with it in one of two directions. I could laugh at you for implying that either of the two buff asian dudes in the country would be at his LAN party but I think I'll comment on how I'd rather see a hot asian chick get doused in oil. Mmmmmm, oily asian chicks.
LK
Oil Change Intervals? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oil Change Intervals? (Score:2)
Wait, I've got a better idea, let's convince Tom's Hardware to try out kerosene or gasoline. Though I imagine the volatility of gasoline would be a problem (well that and flammability issues...)
Re:Oil Change Intervals? (Score:2)
Previous such experiments (Score:5, Interesting)
You've got to watch the thermal range, if you're wanting to do extreme cooling OR run really hot hardware. Some of 3M's synthetic liquids are excellent for this type of project - well, they would be but only a handful of enthusiasts have ever been able to afford them.
Finally, although you only need to extract the amount of heat being put into a total emersion system, you've got to cycle through most/all of the liquid in a reasonably short period of time. You shouldn't rely on the heat simply transferring through the liquid. Besides, if you do that, some regions will be hotter than you'd like and others colder, even if the average is just fine. The average doesn't matter, because no component will see the average.
Re:Oil Change Intervals? (Score:2)
Gasoline is neither volatile or flammable. This is important to remember when handling it. You may be treating that canister with kid gloves, but it's the fumes that you carelessly let evaporate out of the can that's going to singe your eyebrows off. Keep the lid on your computer, work in an open area with lots of ve
Re:Oil Change Intervals? (Score:2)
Yeah, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oil Change Intervals? (Score:2)
That's replacing a mixture of esters with an alcohol. Alcohols are somewhat more reactive and likely to adsorb water from the atmosphere.
Fire (Score:2, Funny)
1. Oil burns
2. The computer is filled with oil
3. Oups.
Re:Fire (Score:2)
Re:Fire (Score:2)
Re:Fire (Score:2)
http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/burn [m-w.com]
(see the verb definitions).
I would tend to agree with the definition that burn means the oxygen reaction, but I included the bit about chemical explosives because I thought that would be the clearer version.
Re:Fire (Score:2)
Re:Fire (Score:2)
Re:Fire (Score:3, Funny)
If the pressure gets high enough, you have
the first diesel computer!
Ugh (Score:5, Funny)
You get like half a...
a sentence and then...
have to click Next Page...
Not new (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not new (Score:4, Interesting)
It's interesting that this came up as an article, because in another thread I'd been discussing it yesterday:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1733
I think that we're going to see more stuff like this in the future. I don't think vegetable oil is where it's going to be though -- there are a lot better liquids that you can use, which conduct heat far more effectively. I found a place within a few minutes of googling that is willing to sell anyone 1gal or 5gal jugs of light white mineral oil (a petroleum product) for relatively cheap, in various viscosities. I think that would make a lot more sense than using some sort of organic oil that's going to go bad.
And if you were going to use it in anything serious, you'd really want to get 3M Fluorinert. It's expensive as hell, but it's designed for exactly this purpose.
Re:Not new (Score:3, Informative)
And yes, slashdot definitely had articles about oil cooling PC's predating 180 days ago.
Here's one from 05/05
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/ 11/1756259&tid=222 [slashdot.org]
Still, I'm guessing that this article has techniques of particular interest. Their main emphasis seems to be on a more self-contained refined design.
Seems worthy enough of a slashdot
Shortening, as in (Score:3, Funny)
BTW, It's been awhile (decades) since thermo - if it's not obvious.
Re:Shortening, as in (Score:5, Funny)
Water short-circuit? (Score:2)
That seems like an awfully short time period to have leached out enough material to allow current to flow. I wonder what they did to clean the circuit boards of residue prior to filling the box with water?
It probably says in the article but I'd hate to defy etiquette and actually read it.
Cooling With Oil? Welcome to 1999 (Score:5, Informative)
http://web.archive.org/web/19991122030011/www.acc
Re:Cooling With Oil? Welcome to 1999 (Score:2)
Mass-Market (Score:4, Funny)
For Maximum Performance... (Score:2)
Note on water damage to electronics (Score:5, Informative)
Deionized water temporarily has no ions but disolves some out of virtually anything, making it an undependable resistor. It also has a whopping dielectric constant that would be a bad idea in any case for a bath for high-frequency circuits designed to run in air.
Re:Note on water damage to electronics (Score:2)
Stop me if I'm wrong...
Transformers have used oil... (Score:5, Informative)
BTW: I saw a tranformer on a pole catch fire once. Spit oil and other stuff all over the cars below it. Very impressive.
Re:Transformers have used oil... (Score:2, Informative)
So did the Heathkit dummy load. A 1 gallon paint can to be precise. It used an SO-239 connector gasketed to the top.
With the proper gasket and connectors this will work well. Actually I might suggest a vertical Pelikan case not too different looking from an ammo case. As for fires that is generally 20 year old oil in overloaded transformers. So when was the last time you fired up your Appl
Re:Transformers have used oil... (Score:2)
That also brings computers closer to being an "appliance" with no user-serviceable parts inside, though....which, for some manufacturers is a plus. Just saying "don't touch that" has clearly had no effect on the various geeks of the world. Saying, instead, "Hot oil inside...don't open or you'll be burned" will deter a much larger number of geeks. Not all (there's always one), but still...
Re:Transformers have used oil... (Score:2)
Re:Transformers have used oil... (Score:5, Funny)
They also compress and store it in 'energon cubes' and transport it via the Space Bridge in support of the war efforts back home on Cybertron.
Obligatory pun (Score:2)
OK, I'll get my coat.
Alternative to oil? (Score:2, Insightful)
Someone in the discussion said, while the cooling properties of al
Re:Alternative to oil? (Score:2)
What not worth it! Sounds like an fun thing to try. Large explosions are always worth it. Maybe someone should submit it to Myth Busters.
--
Q
Reionionized water & bacteria (Score:3, Informative)
Oil is a good (but messy) cooling solution. I think I'd prefer mineral oil for reduced possibility of microbial growth. You'd want heatslugs vertical to improve natureal convection. And I wound't trust ithe typical PCBthermisters with that much ambiient cooling.
Dunk it in oil...or water (Score:4, Funny)
I decided this weekend to try and quiten my PC by following some other members lead and going down the water cooling road. The fans on my PC were really starting to drive me mad. The first thing that I did was to remove all the fans. The one on the processor and graphics card were no problem but the one in the power unit was a bugger to get out.
The most difficult part was sealing all the ventilitation openings in the PC case with silicon. I also put silicon all around the joints on the PC case. The smell of silicon was dreadful but when my wife complained I told her to be patent as it will be worth it when we have a completely silent PC.
Because I had completely sealed the PC case the only opening near top was the DVD drive. So I opened that and put the small hose I had purchased specially for the job into the DVD drive as far as it would go. With what I can only describe as great excitement and anticipation, I turned on the water. It really is amazing just how long it took before the case was complete full, and boy was it heavy. That didn't really bother me as I didn't intend to be moving the PC anyway.
The big moment had arrived so I called in my wife and mother in law (who was visiting) and I announced "prepare to hear nothing!" and flicked the switch on the socket on the wall.
Before I could even press the power button on front of the PC, with a loud bang, the whole place was plunged into darkness
I knew that it was only the tripswitch so I told my onlookers not to panic and I ran out to the hall to turn the trip switch back on. But can u believe it, it wouldn't stay on. After five attempts I decided to try unplugging the PC and would you believe...yes the trip switch stayed on. My conclusion: the PC must have in some way been causing the problem.
After about an hour of tries I finally decided to abandon the whole idea of water cooling and emptied the water out of the PC, put back in the fans (except the fan in the power unit, I had broken that one getting it out) and tried the pc AGAIN. IT STILL CAUSED THE TRIP SWTICH TO BLOW!
My PC is completely shagged thanks to stupid suggestions that I got on this forum. What the hell am I going to do now. I spent two hours last night with a hair drier inside the PC case and it still trips the switch.
Any suggestions greatly appreciated
Conor
Dot 5 Brake Fluid (Score:5, Informative)
Dot3 has awesome heat transfer ability, but collects water, and plays hell with paint (I imagine sensitive electronics to feel similar pain).
Silicone is a dielectric, right? How about PEG? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyethylene_glycol [wikipedia.org]
Re:Dot 5 Brake Fluid (Score:2)
Oil-filled electronics is fun! (Score:5, Informative)
I haven't seen the rancid oil problem, but we've only used a couple kinds of oil: a synthetic type (I'm told it's often used as a base for cosmetics), and castor oil. I have seen circuits change their operation when submerged (due to increased capacitance), but only once: a microprocessor reset controller changed its timing (it used a capacitor connected to a pin to determine how long to wait before letting the machine out of reset). You just have to be careful and watch for these things when designing the circuits.
Water leaks are bad, though water will tend to head down to the bottom. Our equipment is usually made to much tighter specs than any PC case, though (titanium housings and electron-beam welding, and sometimes an anti-corrosion coating). You get what you pay for.
A couple of things we deal with that your average PC builder won't: we have to forgo the use of any component with air inside it (e.g. aluminum can-type capacitors, some clock oscillator chips, really big power transistors), since they'll collapse under pressure (thousands of pounds per square inch), and we have to put a flexible window (or something similar) on one side of the enclosure because the oil volume will change with temperature.
Also... that oil gets on everything, man. No fun to work with. At least it doesn't smell too bad when you have to solder through it. But your hands feel greasy for the rest of the day, even after washing them.
Comfy temp (Score:2)
Hmm, sounds like rampant bacterial and fungal growth to me. You though a hard-core gamer's BO was bad, wait until you check out the smells coming from his case...
OTOH, a clear-modded case would be kinda neat... like an ant farm, except fewer ants and more slime molds.
Headlines: Cooking oil cakes causing server to fry (Score:3, Funny)
Okay....the server is still up....but it is running a bit slow.
Just because 9 months have gone by... (Score:3, Informative)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05
Want your machine to run cool? (Score:2)
WTF is 104F (Score:2)
Deionized water... (Score:3, Informative)
Definately not the dumbest idea I've ever heard -- making a hat out of a plastic bag, for example, would be worse.
Re:So what's the point of posting this? (Score:2)
Re:What about the hard drive? (Score:2)
Stick the moving parts outside the oil. But do you then have to worry about wicking the oil up the cables?
Re:What about the hard drive? (Score:2)
Yes. Look at the absolutely first picture on page 1 in the article. What is sitting on top of the power supply?
Which of course defeats the whole purpose, the power supply has a fan of its own.
Re:What about the hard drive? (Score:2)
Re:What about the hard drive? (Score:2)
Of course on the inside of the case behind that hole there is a filter that keeps the particulate matter out of the drive (although some drives use very bad filters). You have to do this or you can end up with the drive warping as the outside pressure flucuates (like say, when you're shipping it to someone who's house is at a different altitude and temperature than your factory).
Re:So I can choose no noise or... (Score:2)
~S
Re:better to use flourinert? (Score:2)
Fluorinert is expensive, and highly volatile, all the more when heated.
You'd need a sealed system, with a heat exchanger somewhere.
I worked for Cray, saw a Cray-2 system, and can assure you that (save for the coolness factor) you don't want one at home