Just bought LTTs Mineral Oil PC! Don’t know what to do with it

[Jacob Canale]

Long story short, I live in Langley BC, a short drive from the LTT office, and as I was casually scrolling through fb marketplace, I noticed the Original Mineral Oil PC was for sale. I quickly reached out and bought it for a cool 300 Canadian pesos. My current plans are to convert it into an air cooled pc, but retain the fish tank look of the original Mineral Oil Pc. The components are currently dripping dry, but I plan on washing them with 99 percent isopropyl alcohol in a week or two. Final goal is to bring this thing to ltx. Let me know what you all think! Excited to own a piece of LTT history and also something from my childhood. (Plus, 300 bucks for a 1070 and a 5960x ain’t too bad )

[Letgomyleghoe]

 I would personally still keep it mineral cooled, but that's just me finding a pc in mineral oil absolutely amazing. nice find. 

[Biomecanoid]

8 minutes ago, Jacob Canale said:

Long story short, I live in Langley BC, a short drive from the LTT office, and as I was casually scrolling through fb marketplace, I noticed the Original Mineral Oil PC was for sale. I quickly reached out and bought it for a cool 300 Canadian pesos. My current plans are to convert it into an air cooled pc, but retain the fish tank look of the original Mineral Oil Pc. The components are currently dripping dry, but I plan on washing them with 99 percent isopropyl alcohol in a week or two. Final goal is to bring this thing to ltx. Let me know what you all think! Excited to own a piece of LTT history and also something from my childhood. (Plus, 300 bucks for a 1070 and a 5960x ain’t too bad )

What separates this PC from other is that its submerged in mineral oil. If you air cool it its just another PC

[Rugg]

You could damn near sell that gpu and make a profit. Ignoring the fact that it has been tainted with mineral oil of course.

[Moonzy]

you'll have to google how to remove oil residue from PCB, as i dont think alcohol will do that for you

 

keep it in the tank but aircool it seems like a wise idea seeing how it's been leaking and what not

[Jacob Canale]

3 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

 I would personally still keep it mineral cooled, but that's just me finding a pc in mineral oil absolutely amazing. nice find. 

I really do feel bad not keeping it mineral oil cooled, but for ease of mobility and overall maintenance I think it is personally better for me. A pc in mineral oil is pretty amazing. Thanks!

[Jacob Canale]

1 minute ago, Moonzy said:

you'll have to google how to remove oil residue from PCB, as i dont think alcohol will do that for you

 

keep it in the tank but aircool it seems like a wise idea seeing how it's been leaking and what not

Yeah definitely gonna have to do some more research. Was a very spontaneous buy so just now thinking things out lol

[Master Disaster]

11 minutes ago, Jacob Canale said:

Long story short, I live in Langley BC, a short drive from the LTT office, and as I was casually scrolling through fb marketplace, I noticed the Original Mineral Oil PC was for sale. I quickly reached out and bought it for a cool 300 Canadian pesos. My current plans are to convert it into an air cooled pc, but retain the fish tank look of the original Mineral Oil Pc. The components are currently dripping dry, but I plan on washing them with 99 percent isopropyl alcohol in a week or two. Final goal is to bring this thing to ltx. Let me know what you all think! Excited to own a piece of LTT history and also something from my childhood. (Plus, 300 bucks for a 1070 and a 5960x ain’t too bad )

 

The only advice I would have would be the make sure everything is cleaned a thoroughly as possible then just for good measure clean everything again, probably twice.

 

Mineral oil is notoriously difficult to clean off, even when you think its gone it still leaves behind residue which will destroy any heat transfer from heat paste to a HSF.

 

You'll need hot water and soap to remove oil, alcohol will not remove it. Apparently the best method to remove oil from electronics is to dishwasher all the PCBs.

 

It is going to require you strip everything down fully, that means GPU cooler off entirely and any plastic/metal shrouds on the board also need to be removed. Dishwasher the board, ram & GPU on a low heat setting, any plastics will need hot water & dish soap multiple times, you might have to replace the fan on the GPU. Its not going to be an easy thing to clean up.

[Moonzy]

Just now, Jacob Canale said:

Yeah definitely gonna have to do some more research. Was a very spontaneous buy so just now thinking things out lol

do make sure you check the paste on the GPU before firing up

 

i remember Luke said he fried one because the oil removed the paste between the die and cooler (makes sense because most paste is oil-based)

and linus also killed one, im not sure if it's the exact one that you have or not

[Jacob Canale]

13 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

The only advice I would have would be the make sure everything is cleaned a thoroughly as possible then just for good measure clean everything again, probably twice.

 

Mineral oil is notoriously difficult to clean off, even when you think its gone it still leaves behind residue which will destroy any heat transfer from heat paste to a HSF.

 

You'll need hot water and soap to remove oil, alcohol will not remove it. Apparently the best method to remove oil from electronics is to dishwasher all the PCBs.

 

It is going to require you strip everything down fully, that means GPU cooler off entirely and any plastic/metal shrouds on the board also need to be removed. Dishwasher the board, ram & GPU on a low heat setting, any plastics will need hot water & dish soap multiple times, you might have to replace the fan on the GPU. Its not going to be an easy thing to clean up.

Whew! Makes me a little nervous, but I have more than enough time to get this done I think. How safe is putting computer components in the dishwasher? Gonna be a fun time I’m sure.

[Letgomyleghoe]

1 minute ago, Jacob Canale said:

Whew! Makes me a little nervous, but I have more than enough time to get this done I think. How safe is putting computer components in the dishwasher? Gonna be a fun time I’m sure.

decently safe, but, high temps+water=corrosion. also, any food bits in your dishwasher previously (think drainage traps) are now splattered on your components. I've seen people scrub their components or wash them by hand with detergent and water. 

[NineEyeRon]

5 minutes ago, Jacob Canale said:

Whew! Makes me a little nervous, but I have more than enough time to get this done I think. How safe is putting computer components in the dishwasher? Gonna be a fun time I’m sure.

Dont do it in a DW used for food, same goes for the oven method. Keep food prep and that stuff seperate...

[Master Disaster]

25 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

decently safe, but, high temps+water=corrosion. also, any food bits in your dishwasher previously (think drainage traps) are now splattered on your components. I've seen people scrub their components or wash them by hand with detergent and water. 

Good luck cleaning an Intel BGA socket by scrubbing it....

 

22 minutes ago, NineEyeRon said:

Dont do it in a DW used for food, same goes for the oven method. Keep food prep and that stuff seperate...

Why exactly? Dishwashers are used in the catering industry not only because they're quicker than washing by hand but because they get so hot they literately sterilise themselves and everything in them during a cycle.

 

As long as you make sure to clean out the filters beforehand then you send it round on a full cycle with nothing in to remove any debris its perfectly fine.

 

Oven I would agree with, I wouldn't want to eat food cooked in an over that's had molten solder in it but dishwashers are self sterilising. There's almost zero risk of cross contamination. The 8 bit guy uses his dishwasher to clean PCBs pretty regularly, heck I've seen people poach fish in a dishwasher before.

[Edmond Dantes]

i would keep it the way it is. if u change it then its not original history no more and it drops in value

[Jacob Canale]

4 hours ago, Edmond Dantes said:

i would keep it the way it is. if u change it then its not original history no more and it drops in value

Not worried about the value lol. Don’t plan on selling it, and a mineral oil pc that leaks is kind of a pain. Legit you can’t touch this thing without getting oil everywhere 

[Sir Asvald]

Damn! 300?! I would personally leave it as it is. xD 

[Letgomyleghoe]

8 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Good luck cleaning an Intel BGA socket by scrubbing it....

oh, yup, forgot it was an intel socket.

[Jacob Canale]

Hey y’all! 
 

About a week ago I purchased (sorta) famous LTT Mineral Oil PC from some dude on Facebook marketplace. In the end I decided that in the end I was going to convert it to a air cooled pc, but keeping as many as original parts as possible. As you may have guessed, this did require me to drill a few large fan holes in a somewhat rare pc case, but given the fact that I was leaky already, and that I was not willing to put the time into servicing a leaky oil computer, I decided it was the best course of action. Today I have mostly completed the computer, which still has the original Motherboard, power supply, CPU (5960x), CPU cooler, and Graphics card (kind of original, was the replacement for the 780 after it fell to the wrath of Linus. Also still has the castle, boat, and original aquarium rocks! A few parts were added, mainly a Ed black 500gb nvme ssd, and a 1tb Samsung ssd. Overall I am pleased with the outcome, but it still has a little bit to go before I am completely happy with it. I do plan on bringing it to LTX 2021 if it happens! Hope you all enjoy! I present, SLICK 3.0, LESS STICKY EDITION.

[WhitetailAni]

This is the mineral oil PC?

How on earth did you get that?

[CommanderAlex]

This is pretty damn awesome! I remember watching these videos when I first found them to be entertaining...but those days are long gone. 

 

Quite an amazing score to find and preserve, I love the case. 

[Jacob Canale]

23 minutes ago, ragnarok0273 said:

This is the mineral oil PC?

How on earth did you get that?

Yep it is the one and only. Ltt was giving it away for free to whoever could come and pick it up first at their offices, and I bought it for 300 bucks from the winner of that contest  

[WhitetailAni]

Just now, Jacob Canale said:

Yep it is the one and only. Ltt was giving it away for free to whoever could come and pick it up first at their offices, and I bought it for 300 bucks from the winner of that contest  

Nice!

[LogicalDrm]

@Jacob Canale, I have merged your update with the original thread and moved to complete saga to Build Logs. In general, updates to older threads should be posted in the older thread. And since this was kinda a story, it fits best in Build Logs.

[Jacob Canale]

12 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

@Jacob Canale, I have merged your update with the original thread and moved to complete saga to Build Logs. In general, updates to older threads should be posted in the older thread. And since this was kinda a story, it fits best in Build Logs.

Awesome sounds good  

[A1200]

On 2/7/2021 at 12:37 PM, Jacob Canale said:

Awesome sounds good  

How did you clean it in the end? I was thinking ultrasonic PCB cleaner but the gear is likely more than you paid for the rig.