Sub Zero Water Cooling without Condensation

[SuperBond]

I was watching one of the old sub zero videos and naturally Linus and crew were having to deal with condensation, some may say they were just ignoring the issue. It got me thinking. what if you built a subzero PC in a mineral oil enclosure? I would still have the tubing to and from the CPU and GPU to the chiller or whatever you want to use. But with the tubing submerged you wouldn't get condensation, though condensation may drip into the mineral oil unless you had an enclosure with a pass through or something so any condensation couldn't drip down. Mineral oil does freeze around -4C. So you would have to deal with that. 

 

Has anyone heard of this being done? did they have to deal with the freezing mineral oil, if so how did they do it? 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

The only way to not deal with condensation is either:

• 0% humidity (can't condense water vapor into liquid if there's no water vapor to begin with)
• Ambient temperature is much colder than what you're cooling at (i.e., lowering the dew point)

Otherwise as long as there's water vapor in the air and as long as you cool the part lower than the dew point, you're going to have condensation of some sort.

[SuperBond]

Well that's the point of having the build be submerged in a medium other than air. Essentially the humidity around the components would be 0%. 

[Tamesh16]

4 minutes ago, SuperBond said:

crew were having to deal with condensation

the oil would eventually get cold and build up condensation, i mean it wouldnt get into your pc, but being in a room that is constantly being kept at very low humidity will dry out your respiratory tract and it would be very uncomfortable to be in 

plus all the build up of water might damage your carpets and such  

[Mira Yurizaki]

1 minute ago, SuperBond said:

Well that's the point of having the build be submerged in a medium other than air. Essentially the humidity around the components would be 0%. 

If you're talking about condensation on the hardware itself, sure. Submerging it in liquid means you've effectively eliminated condensation.

 

But you still have to cool the liquid to said temperatures. If you wanted absolutely zero condensation in the system, then my original post still applies. Otherwise, you're just moving the problem to somewhere else.

[SuperBond]

10 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Otherwise, you're just moving the problem to somewhere else.

 Arguably moving the problem to somewhere more manageable. Your chiller probably doesn't care if it condensates, heat pumps condensate all the time and have condensate pumps to collect and remove it. 

 

Many problems are solved by just moving the problem rather than solving it. Think electric cars, rather then pollute the highways you just pollute the areas surrounding the coal, natural gas, or whatever your powerplants burn(nuclear being the only power source that captures all of its pollution). 

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, SuperBond said:

 Arguably moving the problem to somewhere more manageable. Your chiller probably doesn't care if it condensates, heat pumps condensate all the time and have condensate pumps to collect and remove it. 

 

Many problems are solved by just moving the problem rather than solving it. Think electric cars, rather then pollute the highways you just pollute the areas surrounding the coal, natural gas, or whatever your powerplants burn(nuclear being the only power source that captures all of its pollution). 

So... what are you ultimately concerned about?

[SuperBond]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

So... what are you ultimately concerned about?

Dealing with condensation around the CPU socket or GPU. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

2 minutes ago, SuperBond said:

Dealing with condensation around the CPU socket or GPU. 

They'll be submerged no? It'll be a moot point then.

[Bombastinator]

54 minutes ago, SuperBond said:

I was watching one of the old sub zero videos and naturally Linus and crew were having to deal with condensation, some may say they were just ignoring the issue. It got me thinking. what if you built a subzero PC in a mineral oil enclosure? I would still have the tubing to and from the CPU and GPU to the chiller or whatever you want to use. But with the tubing submerged you wouldn't get condensation, though condensation may drip into the mineral oil unless you had an enclosure with a pass through or something so any condensation couldn't drip down. Mineral oil does freeze around -4C. So you would have to deal with that. 

 

Has anyone heard of this being done? did they have to deal with the freezing mineral oil, if so how did they do it? 

 

Mineral oil has a different boiling and freezing point than water or air.  The bath would still exist inside a space that is filled with water vapor mixed with air though.

[SuperBond]

5 minutes ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

They'll be submerged no? It'll be a moot point then.

Correct. That's what i was basically asking, since they are submerged it wont be a problem. I was wondering if anyone had done it or tried it as well. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

6 minutes ago, SuperBond said:

Correct. That's what i was basically asking, since they are submerged it wont be a problem. I was wondering if anyone had done it or tried it as well. 

If you have the materials to do it, why not do a dry run and test it yourself? It's not like you need a computer system.

[porina]

1 hour ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

• 0% humidity (can't condense water vapor into liquid if there's no water vapor to begin with)

I had similar thoughts to this in the past. In essence you need to close off the mobo area to air. Filling it with some kind of sealed oil container is one way, but seems messy to me. I was thinking instead if it would be possible to have an airtight container instead. Then you have two options: include some desiccant to absorb any moisture in that air, or replace the air entirely. Personally I think I'd use CO2 since fire extinguishers are relatively cheap here (~£5 for 2kg refill - I have some left over from fishkeeping uses). Either way, you'd need to keep that gas air tight so moisture can't get in. The danger here is that any components would warm that air, and you'd still have to have some way to remove heat efficiently from that air. Maybe an extra rad mounted internally to chill that air.

[Bombastinator]

11 minutes ago, porina said:

I had similar thoughts to this in the past. In essence you need to close off the mobo area to air. Filling it with some kind of sealed oil container is one way, but seems messy to me. I was thinking instead if it would be possible to have an airtight container instead. Then you have two options: include some desiccant to absorb any moisture in that air, or replace the air entirely. Personally I think I'd use CO2 since fire extinguishers are relatively cheap here (~£5 for 2kg refill - I have some left over from fishkeeping uses). Either way, you'd need to keep that gas air tight so moisture can't get in. The danger here is that any components would warm that air, and you'd still have to have some way to remove heat efficiently from that air. Maybe an extra rad mounted internally to chill that air.

The problem with an airtight container is the cpu isn’t the only part of the mobo that needs cooling. The normal working fluid for motherboard cooling is air, though mineral oil can be used. An airtight container removes air as a working fluid for cooling.

[porina]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

The problem with an airtight container is the cpu isn’t the only part of the mobo that needs cooling. The normal working fluid for motherboard cooling is air, though mineral oil can be used. An airtight container removes air as a working fluid for cooling.

Got that, which is why I said you still need to cool that contained air. One possible way as I suggested is to have a radiator inside there, connected to the cooling loop also.

[Bombastinator]

15 minutes ago, porina said:

Got that, which is why I said you still need to cool that contained air. One possible way as I suggested is to have a radiator inside there, connected to the cooling loop also.

Lot of holes and cables for that airtight container. This may be why mineral oil is used.  Open top.

[SuperBond]

15 minutes ago, porina said:

Got that, which is why I said you still need to cool that contained air. One possible way as I suggested is to have a radiator inside there, connected to the cooling loop also.

I hadn't considered having a separate environment for the system. The only downside is sealing, proper air tightness is difficult. Especially with all the IO. But i bet it could be achieved. 

[Bombastinator]

2 minutes ago, SuperBond said:

I hadn't considered having a separate environment for the system. The only downside is sealing, proper air tightness is difficult. Especially with all the IO. But i bet it could be achieved. 

Achieved yes, but would it be less or more annoying than mineral oil?  It would be hard to keep the seals for one thing so it would need a chemical dessicant in there that would occasionally have to be replaced.

[porina]

15 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Lot of holes and cables for that airtight container. This may be why mineral oil is used.  Open top.

You'd have to ensure the oil doesn't directly or indirectly get cooled enough to itself start having condensation forming on it. Say if you're on idle load for a time, that could happen.