Case Mod - In Progress Mineral Oil Submerged Computer - The Final Pics - 12/12/08 - Finished

I have been busy on dealing all kinds of meths that I would like to clear up before year end ,and I didn't really have chances to post following logs.

However, friend of mine just sent me a message sayng that my humble mod project was chosen as one of the mod of the month at the bit-tech.net.

Wow, what a surprises this is. I had never expected that my unfinished project log would be selected by bit-tech.net. It is a real honor.

So I have decided to finish my log since I have the day off.

This is not why my project was chosen, but to give people visiting my project log a completed log and not to waste their valuable time.

Also, I would like to express my appreciation for everyone reading and leaving nice and warm comments. I would like to thank you the bit-tech team for providing me a place to expose my work and giving me an awesome experience. It is my great gift for this Christmas from you guys.

I wish you all have great days before this year 2008 ends.

 

Part 4 – Power cables, Hardware Assembly and additional information

Hello everyone, welcome to part 4 of the main mineral oil system. (It has been a long ride but this is the last part before final pics)

To supply all the power to the 120 mm fans and blue neon light (Blue CCFL) at the bottom part (the “bottom box”). I needed 14 wires. To be exact, each fan has +/- wires and RPM signal wire ,and the blue neon light has 2 wires(+/-). So in total, 14 wires.

Since the wires looked too messy and took too much space, I’ve decided to use my old printer splitter and the printer cable.



First thing you need to do is take out the female connector.

To do that, take out the wires from the female connector by using the soldering iron. After this is done, you can take out the female connector as well.



After taking out the female connector, cut the printer cable. As you can see in the picture below, there are many wires coming out of the connector but you can see that they are divided into two colors only.



Now after connecting the female connector with the printer cable, use the electrometer to see the order of the wires from the connector. (This gets quite tedious)



When the order is figured out, put them in bundles of 3 (of course in an order), and solder them to the 3 pin male connector. Finally finish them with heat shrink tube.



For the fan wires from the Kamameter, solder female connectors to the female printer connector and finish them with heat shrink tubes.



As for the blue neon with sound activator, the wiring is same as above.

For the top part (top “box”) I am going to be installing an aluminum tray. There I will make couple holes for the female printer connector and the switches.







After I finished drilling the holes, I installed the switches and the female connector (as you can see in the picture below). Then I soldered the power switch and the reset switch with the female connector for easier connection.





Below is a picture of me testing to see if the wires have been properly set up. Here, I have connected the power supply, the kamameter and the sound activator all together.



The test above went quite well. Now, I installed the aluminium switches & connector tray to the rear of the top box. Here you see that there is a female connector sticking out. Well this is the port for the power cable (printer cable) to connect to the bottom box.



The casing is done, and now it is time for installing the hardware. From our experience, all of us already(probably) know how hardware is installed so let's skip the boring part, and I am just going to point out the most important parts, whereas, the rest is self-explanatory from the pictures.

First, I got rid of the heat sink of the 4850 video card that I am using. Then, I got rid of the thermal grease. What I used to remove the thermal grease was the mineral oil, and it should be explained why.





It is very important to get rid of the thermal grease before putting it in the mineral oil because it will completely dissolve in the oil and make the oil murky. Also, as you already know, some thermal grease is conductive ,and it might cause a short circuit. This applies to other hardware with thermal grease on it like the CPU and CHIPSET. Just make sure you clean it first before it goes in the mineral oil.

Yes...I know what your question is.

You probably wonder if the CPU or GPU works OK without thermal grease. I'm not an expert, but I think the gap between the heatsink and the CPU or GPU filled with mineral oil is not different from being filled with thermal grease anyway since the thermal grease is a foreign material made of silicone with all kinds of chemicals to fill the tiny scratches on the CPU or heatsink for improving heat transference. If thermal grease's heat transference is better than air, so is the mineral oil.

Next is the power supply. It is important to set up the fan in the power supply to circulate the oil the way you want. In my case, when the heated mineral oil passes through the radiator, it will cool down. Since I don’t want the cool mineral oil to be sitting at the bottom, I have decided to change the fan in the power supply upside down so that cool mineral oil gets circulated to the top.





To save up some space, Instead of using regular power cable, I’ve decided to solder the wires including grounding wire to the power supply directly. And the other ends of of the wires, I have connected them with the excess connector on the top tray.





After I connected all the power cables from the power supply to wherever they are needed, as for the rest of the wires that are just sitting there, I cut them off.






The pumps that connect to the radiator are 5W 12V DC PUMP (MAX FLOW 5 LPM, and MAX HEAD 1M) Since it takes some time for the oil to heat up and cool down, 5W pump with two 120 mm radiators and 1 meter length tube were enough to make the temperature of the oil to be 6-7 degrees cooler after the oil circulated through the radiators.





Below is a picture of a finished hardware tray. It shows 2 hard-drives with 2 “breathing hole” tubes, and 4 temperature sensors for the CPU, the video-cards area, the radiator outlet, and the oil (pump inlet). As for the power on/off switch on the back oh the power supply, it doesn't work as a switch becasue I diretly soldered all necessary wires to the power supply.

 

Very nice work, and again great detailed instructions/log. I like your wiring... color-coded heatshrink... you must do this a lot!

my only wish would be for the parallel printer cable connection on the top to be hidden, arranged to point 90 degrees downward so it doesn't stick out so much when connected.

 

Thank you for your continuous interest...ModMinded.

For the parallel printer cable...Your idea is great. Why didn't I think about hiding the connector? However, it is too late now....

Next time, I will definitely hide or arrange bulky connector. Thanks a lot.

Final pics are coming, and I hope that I don't disappoint you.

 

An Amazing work ... lot of hard work and nicely well detailed...!!!
+rep

 

Excellent use of a printer cable.

 

I Simply love this mod!!!!
Very detailed, and very interesting
Subscribed!!

 

I'm glad you enjoyed it. the word 'Amazing' makes me nervous and embarrassed.

3Rs...Reuse, Recycle ,Reduce???

Thanks for your subscription. Final pics are coming.

 

Part 5 - The Final Pics

DISCLAIMER: When you build a mineral oil cooling system, you are putting your system at risk, so make sure you think it over before making the final decision. Additionally, you should note that your hardware MAY no longer be covered by the warranty once you have dipped it in the mineral oil. Furthermore, there have been no official tests which show that mineral oil is safe for the life of a computer system. Please understand that building the mineral oil cooling system, is at your own risk. Just take everything into consideration before making your final decision and if you do end up building one, good luck.



Hello everyone, welcome to final part of the mineral oil submerged system. It has been a long ride but this is the last part. This is really kind of sad ,but everything that has a beginning has an end.



Before I begin with the technical stuff, I just like to emphasize that I am 100% satisfied with the system that I’ve built. Since the day I finished building the system, I haven’t come across any problem. In addition, the time I spend on my computer has become more enjoyable because now the system is almost noise free(since I have 4 fans on the radiators, It can't be 100% noise-free) and dust-free.

Anyways, I really appreciate everyone’s attention to the hard work I’ve done. Hopefully this will help many of you.

Here is the list of the hardware I have used for my system. They are:


- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor 3.0GHZ Wolfdale
- ASUS P5Q-E Motherboard
- Corsair XMS2 Dominator 4GB 2GBX2 PC2-8500 DDR2-1066
- 2 X ASUS Radeon HD 4850 Crossfire, Stock Cooler
- 2 X Western Digital SE16 500GB SATA2 7200RPM RAID0
- Corsair TX750W 750W ATX



The image below shows the hardware tray inside the acrylic container. As you can see, the pump is set up at the top so that the hot oil passes through the radiator at the bottom. I purposefully built the access to the pump on a front facing panel so that it will be easier for me to check how the pump works.



You can also see the radiators located at the bottom part.



On the back of the top part, there is the power switch, and the power connector (printer cable connector) for the fans and blue ccfl(neon) in the bottom part.





Here is the zoomed in image of the bottom part. Here you can see one of the two hard-drives, and the Y shaped fitting that joins the two separate tubes from the breathing holes together.



Below is a picture of two 120mm radiators and two stop fittings. Stop fittings are used to make disconnecting easier when I clean or change the radiator or 4 fans. It is better to dust off once in a while to get a steady cooling effect. However, I don't need to worry about the hardware in the oil since they are always dust free. : )



Below is a picture of 4850’s fans circulating the oils in the container. The temperature of the video cards went from 76 degrees Celsius to 39 degrees Celsius as soon as they touch the mineral oil. Simply amazing.



Here is my workstation. As you can see there is my mineral oil cooling system. The weight of the oil is quite heavy, so I used a hand pump to carefully put the oil in the acrylic tank. The system stores 28 liters of mineral oil, so it is almost impossible to move.



For those who are curious to know the temperature of the system, in a room temperature of 26 degrees Celsius, the temperature of the oil is 28.5 degrees Celsius (system not turned on). When the system is loading Windows, the temperature of the CPU is 36 degrees Celsius, the video-card (I) is 36 degrees Celsius, and the video-card (II) is 38 degrees Celsius.

When the system is left on for 10 hours just doing a daily work, the temperature of the video-card (I) is 50 degrees Celsius, the video-card (II) is 52 degrees Celsius, the CPU is 51 degrees Celsius and the oil is 45 degrees Celsius.

I will probably do more detailed tests. However, with the system running for 8 hours doing 3D gaming and 3D Mark tests, the temperature of the oil entering the pump stays at 50 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the temperature of the oil is 6-7 degrees cooler after the oil circulated the radiators.

Below is a picture of 4850 completely merged in the mineral oil.



Here the 120mm fan of the power supply is moving slowly while the hard-drives that are setup in a configuration of RAID 0 are noise-free. Simply, They are dead silent.



Below is a picture of the system in the dark with the Blue CCFL turned on.












This is the end of my mineral oil cooling system overview. Although it took me 2 months to complete this project, I am quite satisfied with the result. I definitely think it is worth going through all that trouble to have an noise-free(almost) and dust-free system.

For the readers and bit-tech forum members, I greatly appreciate your interest. This is probably my thousandth time saying this, but hopefully my project log has helped you out in a variety of ways.

I would like to thank you the bit-tech team for providing me a place to expose my work and nominating my humble mod project for the Mod of the month - November 2008. I also would like to thank everyone who voted for me. It is my awesome experience and great gift for this Christmas from you guys.

Anyways, stayed tuned for my next project as I am about to build my 2nd mineral oil cooling system.

I wish you all have great days before this year 2008 ends.

Merry christmas ,and may the great modding force be with you.

Until next time, CYA

 

Just saw the final pics/writeup and I am not disappointed... more importantly, I hope you're YOU'RE not disappointed! Really cool and I'm not just talking about the temps. I'd be interested in seeing updates later on, to see how things are going and if you find any areas you'd redo.

That parallel power cable is hidden well as is against the wall. Overall nice look!

What are you thinking regarding your next one? What did you learn from this one that you'd change for the other? Aesthetically, I'd like to see the metal in the frame/tray a different color, black or chromed rather than just the standard bare metal, and maybe closer to the width of the top and bottom piece. I really do like the way you'd set up the base with the removable panels!

Also what are those tubing connections sold for? I think you mentioned it earlier, but I'm feeling lazy.

 

No, really!

Looking at your report for the temps, i think what you need is more coling capacity on those radiators. 6 or 7 degrees temp diference is not really impressive to be honoust. Still, your temps seem to be ok, so no wories huh?

I really enjoyed reading this, and i'm loking forward to the next. Thanks for sharing!

 

looks great. awesome worklog. congrats on finishing

 

It looks fantastic, very nice work. Personally I thought the temps would be slightly better but it is still quite cool. Very extreme cooling and a very extreme result, beautiful.

Kinda reminds me of the guy who hooked his water cooling loop to a pump in his swimming pool lol.

 

Extraordinary work have you accomplished!!!Something out of the ordinary.What thikness does the oil have?Do the fans spin easily?

 

Good luck in MotM and thanks again for posting such a detailed work log!

 

Outstanding work! There are that many oil submerged mods out there and I don't think I've seen one built even close to as good as yours. Truly amazing!

 

Simply amazing work.

The temps seem fine to me, maybe the cpu is a little hot but the gpus are looking excellent.
Maybe if you do another oil cooled PC you could get a small car radiator to circulate the oil around, I am sure you wouldn't need any fans to cool it then.

Again, amazing work you should be very pleased with the results.

I just wonder what it would look like with UV LEDs and some UV additive? If there is an UV additive that is 100% non conductive and non-pcb-staining.

 

When Amari were building their mineral oil PC, they replace the stock coolers on the GPU/CPU with medium sized ones, and then removed then fans becuase the mineral oil is denser and harder tio push than air, so the motor bearings will wear out quicker.

That aside, what a brilliantly executed design!

 

This is one of those mods where all I can say is: NO WAI!!!

 

well done

It's a fantastic job!

Love It