Sub Zero Oil Submerged Computer.

[Jizburg]

I am planning to make one "cool" computer.

i have some computer parts laying around. and want to do something odd that i have not seen before.
i am thinking oil submerged in fishtank, with oil cooling loop on the backside.

and a peltier cooler on the CPU that is cooled by some big heatpipe tower.

the problem with condensation on the peltier cooler sould then be avoided and it should be possible to go for som serious sub zero teperatures.

the CPU i am going to use is an old AMD Phenom II 1100T.

 

is this sounding like something cool or just pure madness?

 

[Matthew]

If you pull it off, it'd be so cool 

[Jizburg]

thanks :)

[Tommy]

I've been imagining this for a while. I think that if you could make it work, then it would be awesome and pretty damn unique! Booting may be a problem if the CPU is too cold, so you may have to find a way to work around that. As for condensation, could ghetto mount a water block with the peltier in-between the CPU and block and flush the condensation with that? OR if everything is submerged in oil, it may not be too much of and issue, just have a small pump to pull away the water if it builds, and add a form or shielding to the mobo and other parts, also if the Gigabyte boards for humid regions could be a possible advantage in this.

 

I had thought of it, but completely overlooked condensation, so this is what I could think off from the top of my head.

 

If you go ahead, you MUST do a buildlog, this would be so awesome!

[Jizburg]

it has been one of those " i want to do this sometime" but never had computerparts to play with. but now after my latest uppgrade it could be possible to do it.

it would be unique yes :P was hessetating to post the idea here in fear that someone else would "steal" the idea before i got building :P

totaly submerged in oil no air is going to have acces to the parts. and therefore no condensation. and if there was to build  some  for any reason. then the hot oil would take care of it i think.

Yes if i build it i will make a buildlog.

[Conelton]

is this sounding like something cool or just pure madness?

 

It's a whole truckload of both :D

 

If you figure it out then be sure to post it here because I, for one, would love to see it take shape :)

[Jizburg]

i wonder how cool i could make the cpu go. and how big overclock would be possible :)

[Colonel Mustard]

That's a very interesting concept you've got there. If it were to work it would be awesome. I would like to point out to you a couple of possible problems you might encounter. I've never run an oil or TEC cooled system before but from my understanding there is a very real concern that you will end up with a very large deepfryer on your hands. Peltier coolers produce an enormous amount of heat and therefore require their own cooling. If all this heat were to be absorbed by the mineral oil the temperatures of the entire system would rise considerably. If you plan to pursue this idea you will need to find a way to dissipate all the heat that is accumulating in the oil into the air. What is often done is the oil is pumped through large liquid cooling radiators. Before you start a project as complex as this one make sure you are prepared for the amount of time and especially money that will need to go into it. 

 

Best regards,

[Jizburg]

i have thougt about that. pump oil to a big radiator on the back of the case constantly

[Colonel Mustard]

After giving it a little more thought why not just abandon the mineral oil completely? Simply cool the peltier with the massive radiator you'd need to cool the oil anyway.

[nishank93]

You should check out Slicks oil cooled rig if you haven't seen one before. They're cool, but troublesome.

[Jizburg]

well the peltier is goinig to have a big radiator on it. "and a peltier cooler on the CPU that is cooled by some big heatpipe tower."

the reason why i want to use mineral oil is to prevent water from condesating around the CPU.
and another reason why to use mineral oil .... its "cool" :P

[Jizburg]

You should check out Slicks oil cooled rig if you haven't seen one before. They're cool, but troublesome.

yes i have seen it :P it is what gave me the inspiration.. i wanted to go one step more further :)

[Jizburg]

ooh.. now i get what Colonel mustard meant. you ment to have something like a H100 or a custom water loop going out of the oilfilled tank. that would work as well i think.

[Colonel Mustard]

Linus is prowling this topic. I wanna know what he thinks. ;)

[LinusTech]

Every time I look into peltier I end up coming to the conclusion that it's not worth it for a number of reasons

 

1. Thermal output - it WILL heat up whatever room you put that computer in. You have to have a peltier that's way over-powered for the CPU it's running on to yield any kind of good results

2. Power consumption - Phase or chilled liquid are both more power efficient, so if you're paying for your own electricity this is a factor.

 

With that said, if you do go ahead with the build make sure you post it in the build logs section of the forum!!!

[LinusTech]

Linus is prowling this topic. I wanna know what he thinks. ;)

mission accomplished.

[Colonel Mustard]

Great success. I'd like to see this build pulled off, it would be baller.

[Jizburg]

Well i get that its not realy an economic build :) if i did. i would be crazy as hell.

It´s more of a "rule of cool" build :P If i go ahead i will post it on this forum.

Thanks for commenting linus :P

[Jizburg]

would a 542Watt peltier be enough?

[cyberlocc]

oil is cool but messy cant wait to see it 

[cyberlocc]

also what do you plan on using to circulate the oil as a reg water cooling pump would only last couple months tops and i don't really understand the tower pipe idea on the back of the peltier will the peltier be in the oil. That would be counterproductive as tower if made of metal and it would have to be would get extremely hot and heat the oil immensely i would think could be wrong guess well find out lol good luck.  

[onionring]

I would just forget the peltier and just cool the oil directly with a gutted AC ,

I would put a normal heatsink on the cpu and a fan and let the AC do the job of lowering the oil below ambient.

[Jizburg]

also what do you plan on using to circulate the oil as a reg water cooling pump would only last couple months tops and i don't really understand the tower pipe idea on the back of the peltier will the peltier be in the oil. That would be counterproductive as tower if made of metal and it would have to be would get extremely hot and heat the oil immensely i would think could be wrong guess well find out lol good luck.  

 

the whole idea of the tower is to take heat away of the CPU its just a heatsink so yes it will heat the oil and cool the peltier and the CPU

i think there should be some kind of pump that would be good enough. slicks oil cooled pc had a oil cooling loop going out of the aquarium and it ran for years from what i heard. maby he has some tips on what type of pump he used.

[Jizburg]

I would just forget the peltier and just cool the oil directly with a gutted AC ,

I would put a normal heatsink on the cpu and a fan and let the AC do the job of lowering the oil below ambient.

 

 

that would also be an interesting build. i will give that some thought.