PC Cooling living on a small boat

[Son_of_Al]

Living on a small boat (35 feet), should I be concerned about damaging my computer (or any other electronic devices) due to the high humidity, relatively poor ambient ventilation onboard, and salt water conditions?

 

And if so, how might I mitigate the risk of damage with a non-traditional cooling set up? Water cooling? I saw linus did a video on Mineral oil immersion (which I really don't wanna do)

 

Would it be possible to seal the computer in an air tight environment (dehumidify this environment with damp-rid or something) and export all of my cooling needs with a water cooling loop to an externally mounted radiator? 

 

I'm living in the chesapeake bay where, especially in the summer months, it can be very hot and humid and miserable. Not ideal for computers. Also, onboard the boat there's no feasible way to reliably power an airconditioning unit nor a dehumidifier to help reduce the humidity and overall exposure to airborne moisture.

 

Here's my idea... and don't laugh

 

Build a custom wall-mounted case with plexiglass and wood that could mount the Motherboard, GPU, HDs, etc. Run necessary wiring and a water cooling loop out of the case and then seal the computer w/in, protecting it from the harsh conditions. Can a cooling loop with GPU and CPU block handle that amount of cooling without some kind of air flow? Would simply circulating the air in the sealed case be enough to manage temperatures?

 

Any insight into the above questions would be greatly appreciated. Any better ideas than mine would also be greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks a lot!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just gonna say it, laptop.

 

 

[Ryoku]

2 hours ago, Son_of_Al said:

Living on a small boat (35 feet), should I be concerned about damaging my computer (or any other electronic devices) due to the high humidity, relatively poor ambient ventilation onboard, and salt water conditions?

 

And if so, how might I mitigate the risk of damage with a non-traditional cooling set up? Water cooling? I saw linus did a video on Mineral oil immersion (which I really don't wanna do)

 

Would it be possible to seal the computer in an air tight environment (dehumidify this environment with damp-rid or something) and export all of my cooling needs with a water cooling loop to an externally mounted radiator? 

 

I'm living in the chesapeake bay where, especially in the summer months, it can be very hot and humid and miserable. Not ideal for computers. Also, onboard the boat there's no feasible way to reliably power an airconditioning unit nor a dehumidifier to help reduce the humidity and overall exposure to airborne moisture.

 

Here's my idea... and don't laugh

 

Build a custom wall-mounted case with plexiglass and wood that could mount the Motherboard, GPU, HDs, etc. Run necessary wiring and a water cooling loop out of the case and then seal the computer w/in, protecting it from the harsh conditions. Can a cooling loop with GPU and CPU block handle that amount of cooling without some kind of air flow? Would simply circulating the air in the sealed case be enough to manage temperatures?

 

Any insight into the above questions would be greatly appreciated. Any better ideas than mine would also be greatly appreciated. 

 

Thanks a lot!

You can't really seal the case as you need airflow to cool the the vrm and stuff on the motherboard.  I suppose to could water cool them as well but do the water blocks for motherboard cover everything that needs to be cooled or it it just the vrms?

[Stefan1024]

With a lot of money: watercool everything (including the VRM on the MoBo and the chipset) and then sprey some protection coating onto everything except the connectors you need.

 

Normal solution: keep it fairly open with good airflow and don't spend to much money on it. So you can just replace something if it fails within 2 years.

 

Environnement damaging solution: never turn it off. When it is hotter that the surrounding it will allways be dry. But the noise can be annoying.

[frostburg]

A lot of "harsh environment" cases for industrial usage exist, but they're probably not very suitable to the needs of gaming builds. I'd consider something like the Silverstone MM01 before trying to build an airtight custom case.

[The Falcon]

I would recommend some kind of Production, event grade flight case like something here http://www.flightcasewarehouse.co.uk/industry/index.asp?section=desktop-computer-cases-2467. Use water cooling for the hot stuff, run it to an radiator outside the case that has a water tight seal when the piping goes back into the case (will require modification) and run filtered ventilation fans on the front and back to cool everything else. When it gets rainy or to humid and you dont need the pc just close up the case and it should keep most of the humidity out inbetween uses. 

I plan to move onto a boat and that is coming I am considering doing myself.