Scratch Build – In Progress The Mineral Oil PC - 3/24/2011 - More leaks :(

*Swoops in from months of absence*

Good to see the log up and running once more, granted it took a bit to catch myself up


Will it be ready for MillionmanLAN 9?

 

AS5 worked, but dissolved in the oil gradually, or at least the excess did. That required me to put a coffee filter on the outlet tube to clear my oil up again.
Currently I'm using ASCeramique, which provided similar temps but so far has shown no sign of dissolving in the oil after being submerged for months and undergoing several thermal cycles. I really need to jury-rig a power source for my cheapo aquarium thermometer so that I don't have to replace battery after expensive button-cell battery to know what the oil temps are these days... But back "during it's prime" the oil temps with a dual 120mm fan setup would reach about 90F, with the CPU sitting at around 36-38C at idle, load temps would reach close to 68C after a few hours and continue to rise if left at 100% load. It's possible that the pump/radiator setup was inadequate to cool all 8~ gallons of oil, but it's more likely that my room at the time was just friggen hot (average temp 85F :V).
And I left the stock fan on it. I figured even SOME movement would beat pure convection.

I can assure you that a high-output pump will pump the oil just fine.
As for wether or not a fan can push oil through a heatsink, the answer is most definitely yes, it can. On my rig where the CPU heatsink is about 1.5 inches from the surface, you can see a nickel-sized "bump" on the surface from where the oil is being forced out of the heatsink, not bad for only spinning at 200~RPM.

 

Putting one of these at the bottom of the case and facing up could be potentially interesting...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213008

It would either be really awesome effect or a huge mess. Or both.

I really want to try it (or a couple) when I build mine. Guess I'll need a good fan controller.

 

I want to go, but I'm not sure if it's worth the trouble. It's a major hassle to drain the oil from the tank and transport the whole shebang to Louisville. I had fun last time, but it was still a pain in the rear.

Interesting... I love hearing about other people's experiences with oil cooling. Do you have a project log or a blog somewhere so that I can read more about it? There really isn't a whole lot of information out there for weirdo's like us

I used AS Ceramique myself. If what you say about it not dissolving is true, then I needn't have worried about sealing the GPUs and CPU. With Alligator's help (thanks!), I place an order for that Indigo Xtreme solid metal TIM. When I drain my tank to install it, I'll also remove the seals.

That's a 175CFM fan. The fan I put on my CPU heatsink is rated 130CFM @ 3000RPM. In my case, it can barely push the oil through the heatsink. It spins at 206RPM. I think it worked better when my the heatsink was vertically oriented because the fan would just be helping the natural convection; it's horizontal on this motherboard. I was thinking about adding a second fan to help out.

So anyway, no, it won't make a mess

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835213008

I was looking more at the RPM. That one is 8000 RPM with a 175 cfm.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835221017

That one is 19000 RPM with a 23.4 cfm. Granted it might not be able to move as much air but I just picture oil being pushed through more quickly with faster blade rotations. I'm sure my physics are off but it looks like an awesome oil volcano in my head.

Here's a video someone took of the 8000 RPM one. Granted it's air, but look at what it does to the blanket from that far away.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ShowV...8676&videoFileSize=3264311&title=Video Review

 

So, what needs to be sealed with silicon before submerging in oil aside from capacitors? And how often do you need to change the oil if you need to change it at all?
-Nos

 

There was no real reason for me to log or blog the process of making this thing.
Step 1: Buy fishtank/pump/heater-core/fitting/tubing/mineral oil/misc. fishtank stuff.
Step 2: Salvage motherboard tray from old crappy tower.
Step 3: Cut tray because it's too long otherwise.
Step 4: Cut a sheet of plexiglass to mount tray.
Step 5: Bolt tray to plexiglass.
Step 6: Mount motherboard and related doo-dads to tray.
Step 7: Take casing off of power supply.
Step 8: Route HDD cables through PCI slots in back of IO shield.
Step 9: Connect stuff.
Step 10: Add misc. fishtank stuff (gravel, fake plants, Easter Island head)
Step 11:Solder fittings to heatercore.
Step 12: Zip-tie fans to heatercore.
Step 13: Install pump/heatercore.
Step 14: Plug in.
Step 15: Turn PC on.
Step 16: Have a Pepsi.
Step 17: Add oil and make note of temperature changes.
Step 18: Tinker until PC outlives its usefulness.

And when it's all said and done you end up with this ugly beast. :V


And that was it. No sealing of CPUs, no caps breaking free of their mounts, no catastrophic melt-downs. Just a fishtank with a soon-to-be leaky radiator. :V

 

HAHA, awesome. I have a feeling that's pretty much what mine will look like.

Have you had any problems with the oil wicking up the cables?

 

None so far. Though there have been instances where oil would have splashed up onto the USB/network/PS2 connectors so anything I plug into those becomes slightly greasy. :V

 

I sealed the caps, and a few corners in the plexiglass tank; that's it. I shouldn't ever need to change the oil. Oil in transformers and circuit breakers doesn't need changing for >20 years usually. Arcing makes the oil go bad; there's no arcing occurring in my tank

Looks like a lot less work and a lot more fool proof than what I did Maybe I went wrong when I missed step 16...

I have not had any oil wicking.


My Indigo extreme kit came in this week. Been busy with senior level enginering courses, so I haven't had the chance to mess with it until today.


The problem is that the indigo extreme needs to be applied when the motherboard is flat. Seeing as how I can't just tip my case over (bad Bad BAD), I have to remove the motherboard first. So I drained a few gallons from the tank, pulled the motherboard out of the oil, and am now waiting for as much oil as possible to drip off before I remove the motherboard from the tray.

 

Yeeaahhhh, letting it drip dry enough to lay it flat and unseal everything is going to be fun. Can't wait to see it though

 

You got the indigo! Awesome! can't wait to see how this turns out!

 

i'm interested to see how the temps go with the indigo but i would have thought that laping the CPU block and just letting the oil fill the air gap between the heat sink and CPU would be enough?

 

The Pepsi and little Easter Island head are the key components of this project.

 

Dammit I knew I was missing something.

Great news! Got the Indigo Extreme installed and made a few modifications to the GPUs. Temps are excellent now! Woohoo, I can actually use my computer for its intended purpose.




Following the very specific directions for the indigo extreme, I applied the TIM to the surface of my chip. The TIM itself comes in a hard plastic case and has protective plastic on both sides of it. Solvent (HFCs from the smell of them) wipes are provided in order to get the base of the heatsink and the CPU as clean as possible.


This elaborate setup is needed because dumb#$%&#$ Windows 7 apparently installed some important files on my RAID array instead of the SSD. Le sigh. Rather than move the hdds to the motherboard (which I would have rather set up on the floor than on top of my case...), I moved the mobo to the hdds.


Indigo extreme requires high temps to melt it in order to spread it evenly over the CPU. Prime95 /w 8 threads on a passively cooled heatsink. Toasty.


The moment of truth! These temps are after 100% CPU load and 100% load on both 5850's for ~45 minutes. Oil temp is 37C. Most excellent. The whole machine is pulling 445W from the wall.


To help push the oil through the CPU heatsink, I moved the fan that was pushing oil onto the GPUs onto the back of the CPU heatsink. I don't think it was doing any good in its old location.


To help reduce the GPU temps, I removed the silicone seals, reapplied AS Ceramique and reattached the fans and shrouds. I remove the grill on the side of the shroud in order to remove oil-flow impedance.






Here you can see the GPUs. I removed the GTS250, It was too close to the edge of the tank to get adequate circulation. Additionally, It was blocking the oil intake on the second 5850. So out it went!


Oil in/out temp after about 1.5 hours of full load on the CPU and GPUs. Not bad.


Now... who's going to clean up this mess for me?

Before:
CPU: 60-70C idle, 98C under load and throttling to prevent overheating
5850s: 80C idle, 99C under load and throttling to prevent overheating
GTS250: hit 127C idle before throttling itself down to 157mhz and hovering around 90C

After:
CPU: 35C idle, 65C load
5850s: 35C idle, 55-60C load

All that's left to do is see how this beast overclocks...

 

Glad to see it's all sorted.

And I love your room

 

WOW. That is just plain sexy. I'm glad the Indigo works that well. 65C load in oil is friggin' amazing. I'm sure removing the seals helped a lot but the Indigo has got to be helping a lot as most other load temps I saw for people were between 70 and 90. I'll definitely have to pick some Indigo up when I do mine. (Though I'm tempted to go ahead and order some now since it comes with 2 applications.) Thanks for being the test subject, hehe. Totally worth $10 to see all that in action.

EDIT: Does the blue plastic from the Indigo stay on there or are you supposed to remove it before applying the HSF?

 

Thanks

Cheers mate. Yeah, the blue sticker thing remain in place even after the reflow. I believe its purpose is to hold the solid TIM in place before the reflow. But the instructions never say to remove it, so I didn't

Here's some pics that I forgot I took. I snapped them before I installed the Indigo Extreme though, so the GTS250 is still there.










Slow shutter without the nasty flash using a tripod is really the way to capture the glow.

 

WOW! That's some seriously good modding there.

How heavy is the computer when its full of oil?

 

For anyone curious about the Indigo Extreme it is on sale at Silicon Valley Compucycle for $17.99 and free shipping. I just ordered myself one.
http://search.store.yahoo.net/cgi-bin/nsearch?catalog=svcompucycle&query=indigo extreme