Mineral Oil Submerged Computer

[PCC-Jon]

Puget Custom Computers shows off a truly unique computer, built in an aquarium! Cooling is provided by submerging the system in mineral oil. With lights and bubbles, it looks great, and is not as expensive or difficult as you might think.

Link: http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

Post your discussion here!

[mlbpro417]

Wow simply amazing!

[Muddy]

You have to make and sell these. I know I want one.
I wonder what you could put in it to make it look like a real fish tank? Just picture one of those small deep sea diver with the bubble blowing treasure chest in it.

[maccam94]

Rather than just using a lid, you should have covered the top with a large heatsink (make sure it touches the mineral oil, even if you need to attach another thermally conductive piece to the bottom of the sink). This way, rather than just using a large heat resevoir, you could use this setup as an actual cooling apparatus. Without a place to dissipate heat, the system will eventually heat up all of the mineral oil and crash/meltdown.

[singularity]

Hey guys, I'm going to be building a copycat system using a machine I already have up and running. My only question is where did the optical drive go on the second machine? I see a CD or DVD drive sitting on top of the tank for the first machine but none visible for the second. Also I'm considering making a stand and mounting the hard drive to the platform and submerging that as well. Any reasons (aside from the unwillingness to put up with unplugging the drive numerous times) why this is a good or bad idea? Last question: does the mineral oil eat away at the rubber on any of the capacitors and such? I thought that was one of the main cons about submerged systems, but this looks too cool to pass up. Thanks for showcasing such an awesome idea and any answers to these questions you can provide!

[neodeltai]

This is quite an exciting project! My roommate and I were discussing this subject last night, and I came upon this while researching today. I have many questions, but I'll limit them to the two I'm most curious about:

I came upon this thread discussing submersion here. Ignoring some of the childish bickering in that thread, I'm wondering if you've come across the problem detailed here, and if so, how did you overcome it?

Also, practically every submerged system I've read about stressed that the PSU should be kept outside of the oil, as it would only serve to heat it unnecessarily. Yet I noticed your system had the PSU on the bottom of the tank. Was submerging the PSU intentional, as in was there a specific benefit you were aiming for?

I really look forward to seeing how well this system performs for the next few months/years. From the number of people nay-saying submerged systems (too expensive, risky, ugly, etc.) it would be great to see one stand the test of time.

Off-topic: Great music for the video! I can almost picture Christopher Walken flying around in that tub of mineral oil.

[PCC-Jon]

Originally Posted by singularity

My only question is where did the optical drive go on the second machine? I see a CD or DVD drive sitting on top of the tank for the first machine but none visible for the second.

Last question: does the mineral oil eat away at the rubber on any of the capacitors and such? I thought that was one of the main cons about submerged systems, but this looks too cool to pass up. Thanks for showcasing such an awesome idea and any answers to these questions you can provide!

Hello singularity!

All the drives in this unit are external. The hard drive is ESATA, and the optical drive is USB2.0. This is necessary, as their moving parts would not function under oil. However, we're going to try dipping an old hard drive, and will let you know what happens!

We have not seen a problem with capacitors or wicking oil into small spaces where it can't be cooled, but we will be posting a follow up in about a month that will cover our observations with long term use.

[MaxMercury]

Wow, I'm speechless. Not only is the aquarium rig really cool, but your video of how you built it is really fun to watch. Fantastic, imaginative work!

-- Max

[PCC-Jon]

Special thanks to Digg.com for some amazing traffic starting last night when we made homgepage. The gap in the graph is because our server load was so high we had to turn off tracking for an hour or so just to keep our server alive

[stips]

Two days ago a friend tossed me the link to your mineral oil submerged system, amazing! I'd never even heard of oil submerging computers, period heh so this has been quite a learning experience.

Afew thoughts, what if the bubbler were moved directly under the processor? Maybe two of them, a second bubbler directly under where the sound and graphics cards would be. Wouldn't that cool those areas even more plus address the concern an above poster had about the oil not circulating in the small areas of the board?

My friend and I were having abit of fun last night talking about this oil rig of yours, imagining putting it in a second larger fish tank and having the larger tank full of water and fish

Thanks again for the amount of detail you put into the writeup and also the video, please keep us updated as I have an alienware tower next to me with heating issues that could use a dip