The Mineral Oil PC

Aaaahhhhh yessssssss. This is easily the best work log on this website, I just love the idea so much. The funny thing is I was checking the bit tech thread earlier this morning to see if there were any updates :eek:
 
Totally missed this thread during it's original run. Reading it now reminds me of the liquid submersion stuff (often using various 3M liquids) that a few people were experimenting with back in 1998-2001. Many of those guys, too, had major headaches and gave up.

This thread is an interesting, hilarious, and heartbreaking read. Props to you sir for soldiering on!
 
AthlonXP said:
MOAR PICS!
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I think there are ~350 pics so far, dude.

master noran said:
Aaaahhhhh yessssssss. This is easily the best work log on this website, I just love the idea so much. The funny thing is I was checking the bit tech thread earlier this morning to see if there were any updates :eek:
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Cheers sir! I'm hoping to have the machine up and running again in 2-4 weeks. I just have to replace the tubing & fittings, recap my motherboard, and put it all back together.

coconutboy said:
Totally missed this thread during it's original run. Reading it now reminds me of the liquid submersion stuff (often using various 3M liquids) that a few people were experimenting with back in 1998-2001. Many of those guys, too, had major headaches and gave up.

This thread is an interesting, hilarious, and heartbreaking read. Props to you sir for soldiering on!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I almost gave up, but I have so much time and money sunk into this that I decided I ought to give it one more shot. I probably spent close to $1000 on it originally and I estimate these repairs will be about $150. I suppose it's worth it.

Viton O-rings and caulk: $16
Viton & Teflon Tubing: $26
Brass Valve: $12
Polypropylene fittings: $20
Replacement caps: $28

Keep watching!
 
I just received my viton and teflon tubing today:
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The teflon is really stiff, but it'll be ok for what I have in mind. I also bought 20' of heat shrink.
 
Been messing with my tubing. The old stuff was shrinking and getting stiff. I was afraid it was going to get brittle or crack or something. So I bought some teflon tubing and viton tubing from Amazon to replace all the old stuff.

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I also bought a new drain valve. The old one was barbed and the barb was too small for 1/2" ID tubing. This one is threaded and is the proper size.

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Installed in place of the old one. I had to drill the hole a little bigger. It's much higher quality than the old one.

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Here's the other side of the valve. Bending the teflon tubing was tricky; I had to use a heat gun to get it soft enough to bend, and then use cold water to bring the temp back down so it'd stay put.

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Here's the other runs I replaced. I ordered new T's so the silicone for the temperature sensors can get a good grip on the plastic. These old ones are covered in oil.

That's all for now. I'm waiting on the new polypropylene fittings. Once they're here I'll swap them in and then leak test.
 
Glad to see you picked back up on this project after all the issues you had. Its awesome extreme custom case cooling.
 
formula409 said:
Glad to see you picked back up on this project after all the issues you had. Its awesome extreme custom case cooling.
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Thanks!

I'm not dead! I've been trying to decide if I should attempt replacing the caps on my motherboard, or just get that MSI board with the hiC-caps. In the meantime, I've done a little work:

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I bought new T's and chopped off one of the barbs. I inserted the temperature sensor and sealed it with silicone.

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And here they are in place. Hopefully this new Dow Corning 735 holds up better than the high temperature RTV I was using before.

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And as you can see, I decided to go with the MSI motherboard. I found a deal on it that I couldn't resist:
MSI Big Bang Fuzion Mobo: $359.99
MSI GTS 250 1Gb $139.99
Combo Discount: -$160
Rebate on GTS250: -$10
BCB: -$10
Total was $319.98 with free shipping. So I basically got $40 off the price of the mobo and got the video card for free. Sounds sweet to me!

And I got the CPU from Microcenter for $200. They're $280 at Newegg o_O
 
I got a GTS250 for "Free" with my MSI Big Bang mobo. I think I'll use it for PhysX in conjunction with my 2 ATI 5850's.

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So it needs to be prepped :dremel:

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Don't want these cheapo underpowered fans in my oil. Besides, they make the card take 3 slots instead of 2.

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I sealed around the caps with a generous amount of Dow Corning 735 silicone. This will prevent oil from getting into the rubber thats on the bottom of the caps.

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Since I had the HSF off anyway, I replaced the TIM with some Arctic Alumina. Then I ran a bead of silicone around the top of the shim to prevent oil from getting to the GPU.

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You can make out the squished bead of silicone on the shim here.

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The card reassembled.

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Both of my 5850s will get the same treatment. Here's the bare card.

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There weren't as many caps to seal around; only 4. I replaced the TIM here too.

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And here it is without the shroud and fan. This is how it'll sit in the oil. The natural convection currents will take care of the cooling.

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Letting the silicone set. Once I'm ready to get my case running again, I'll do the same thing to my 2nd 5850.
 
Good luck on round 2 !

-------

Next time you seal up a motherboard and stuff for this , you should try this :

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/422a.html

A small drop on the bottom of the electrolytic caps will 'wick' underneath the capacitor quite nicely.Provides a very good seal , and it looks much better.

:D
 
FrEaKy said:
Nice work so far bro! :)
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Thanks!

BrainEater said:
Good luck on round 2 !

-------

Next time you seal up a motherboard and stuff for this , you should try this :

http://www.mgchemicals.com/products/422a.html

A small drop on the bottom of the electrolytic caps will 'wick' underneath the capacitor quite nicely.Provides a very good seal , and it looks much better.

:D
Click to expand...

Hm, I'll give it a look the next time around. My new motherboard doesn't have conventional caps, so I only need to do this to the video cards. Thanks for the tip!
 
master noran said:
Badass, can't wait for the next update.
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Not exactly a major update... But anyway. Excuse the low quality pics, took them with my cell phone.

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My motherboard is going to crowded.

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Leak testing the tank! If all goes well, I'll move my pc into the oil on Tuesday.
 
oh snap! really good to see this thing getting some more attention. been following it for most of a year now i think. cant wait to hear how it went!
 
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Putting everything into the case.

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I had to modify the bracket on the GTS250 on the end. It was a double height, now it's single height. :dremel:

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Fired up the system for the first time. It has no active cooling so I only let it run long enough to see that it worked.

Excuse the poor cell phone pics :(
 
You sealed the capacitors on the motherboard. Do you need to make a similar mod on the internals of the power supply?
 
Wahoomcdaniel said:
You sealed the capacitors on the motherboard. Do you need to make a similar mod on the internals of the power supply?
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Negative, my motherboard does not have regular capacitors, thus I did not have to do anything to it. Take a look here: http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-big-bang-fuzion-lucid-hydra-review-test/ See the little rectangles next to the CPU socket? Those are the caps.

As for the power supply, no. It does not have caps with the rubber base that hates oil. With my previous setup, only the capacitors on the motherboard were affected by the oil; the caps on the video cards, power supply and sound card were all fine.
 
What are you going to do about sound? I see that the sound riser that comes with it has the other style solid cap that was giving you fits on the other mobo. USB? :confused:
 
brasherman said:
What are you going to do about sound? I see that the sound riser that comes with it has the other style solid cap that was giving you fits on the other mobo. USB? :confused:
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I did the same thing to the sound riser that I did to the GPUs ;)

Worked on the case a bit more tonight but not as much as I had wanted. I really wanted to finish it today, but my electronics design lab is sucking hardcore, so I didn't get home until lateish.

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I decided to dedicate a fan to circulate oil directly over the GPU heatsinks. Seeing as how there are three GPUs, there is a lot of heat that needs to be dissipated. So this is the mounting bracket I made for this purpose.

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I bolted it to the top plexiglass "lid".

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And here it is again with the tray down.

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And from the front.

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I made installed these little pieces of bent aluminum to hold the wires going into the tank in place. I was having problems with them not staying put and the zip ties getting snagged, so these should fix that.

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I also made a new hard drive mounting bracket. The only difference between this one and the old one is that the drives are now mounted top side up (when the lid is closed). Previously, with the drives upside down, the sata and power plugs were so close to case top that I had trouble getting the plugs in. This fixes the problem. :thumb:

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It's almost ready! There are a few things left to do: mount the SSD, clean the tank, clean the aluminum, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting at the moment.

Till tomorrow...
 
When a project like this gets close to completion I begin to have mixed feelings about it. On one hand I'm happy that it's going to completed and we can see the finished product. On the other hand it's going to be completed and there won't be that joy seeing the next update to the progress.

Great work on this, I hope it runs like a top.
 
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Filling... (~3 gallons)

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Filling... (~5 gallons)

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Full! (~7.5 gallons)

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Houston, we have liftoff!

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Fan spinning slowly (~300rpm is my guess, no RPM sensor though)

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Weeeeeee.

Installing Windows 7 at the moment. Can't wait to OC this behemoth. 270W idle power draw.
 
It would be awesome if you posted some youtube videos in HD of this thing in action and the oil circulating around if it is even visible to the naked eye!
 
Will definitely try to get a video up soon. However, it sprung a leak late last night (right before I went to bed) so I drained it. The tank is not leaking, and I doubt one of the fittings is leaking, so it's probably one of my temperature sensors or the bulkhead fittings. I won't be able take a look at it until I get home from class later today.

Neither is difficult to fix, but if it's the temp sensors, I'll need to take some time to redo the seals with epoxy (instead of silicone) which would require me to completely clean the polypropylene T's. If it's one of the bulkhead fittings, I'll just need to tighten the nut or re-seat the o-ring. However, if it's something else (I don't even know what) it'll take more time/effort to fix.
 
I can't find the god damn leak on my case. The silicone "caps" on my sawed off T's are not leaking. The fittings and T's in the front of the case are not leaking. The left side radiator is not leaking. I don't think the bulkhead fittings on the bottom of the tank are leaking but I tightened them anyway (but it's kind of hard to tell without the tank being full and providing pressure). The only potential leak spots that I haven't been able to check yet are the right side radiator (unlikely, it's made from brass, copper and steel and it wasn't leaking before) and maybe the NPT fitting on the drain.

Stumped.
 
Time to build a recirculating loop that takes leaked oil from the cookie tray and pumps it back up and into the top of the case ^_^
 
Spare-Flair said:
So, what temperatures are you getting?

Also:
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Oil temp hovers around 28-32C depending on time of day.
CPU temp is ~32C idle, 70C load.
GPUs idle at 50C (GTS250), 44C (secondary 5850), and 62C (main 5850). Load temps on 5850s is 90C
"System temp" 34C idle
MOS temps: 26-29C idle

Reason temps are higher than normal is because oil convection doesn't really kick in until there's a large temperature difference. Also have to remember that I'm cooling everything with a liquid that is ~10-15C above ambient temp, so everything will be a little warmer than you're used to.

As for that crack, that's a result from fact that the supporting L-channel is slightly wider than the top section. (1mm or so)
 
Great project man. This is really the perfect thread for everyone that has seen an oil computer to read. The issues you've had, and the money that needed to be spent to build the thing in the first place, and then to fix the issues, and then the risks involved really put things into perspective. Even something built with pretty good care in the first place can have problems :) This is the best oil cooled build I think I've seen though. Did you ever consider pumping the oil directly over the parts instead of using fans? I would think that would be more effective. You could even attatch only small waterblock-like heatsinks to the CPU and GPUs and just jet oil at them, I think that would actually yield pretty good results. Did you ever consider maybe making one wall out of metal? Like having one side made of aluminum with fins on the inside and outside for additional passive cooling?

Keep up the good work :)
 
ben333 said:
Great project man. This is really the perfect thread for everyone that has seen an oil computer to read. The issues you've had, and the money that needed to be spent to build the thing in the first place, and then to fix the issues, and then the risks involved really put things into perspective. Even something built with pretty good care in the first place can have problems :) This is the best oil cooled build I think I've seen though. Did you ever consider pumping the oil directly over the parts instead of using fans? I would think that would be more effective. You could even attatch only small waterblock-like heatsinks to the CPU and GPUs and just jet oil at them, I think that would actually yield pretty good results. Did you ever consider maybe making one wall out of metal? Like having one side made of aluminum with fins on the inside and outside for additional passive cooling?

Keep up the good work :)
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Cheers mate! I think I'd have a lot easier time if I were to start all over from the beginning. Round 2 would definitely be cheaper and go more smoothly. I've learned a lot.

Re: The waterblock idea
I had the same idea back when I was still messing around in SketchUp. I think some of the earlier drawings even had waterblocks on them. I was torn between that and big passive heatsinks. In the end, you can tell which direction I went: forced oil movement over heatsinks. It's impossible to say which cools better, but I think my big fans provide necessary oil movement throughout the case to ensure equal temperatures in the tank.

The aluminum side is a great idea! The left side would be ideal to make aluminum; it's big and doesn't provide any viewing benefits as plexiglass. Will definitely consider doing this if I make a 2nd oil cooled case (can't say it's very likely, this one has been a royal pain the ass)

And now for some fun math. I think this is all correct, anyone recently take a heat transfer class? I wanted to figure out the flow rate of the oil

Properties of oil:
Specific gravity: 0.9 g/cm^3
Heat capacity: 1.966 J/(K*g)

Power draw of computer: 270 W = 270 J/s
deltaT of oil In/Out temp: 1.94K

(270 J)/s * (cm^3)/(.9 g) * 1/(1.94 K) * (K*g)/(1.966 J)
Everything cancels but the cm^3/s and yields: 78.66 cm^3/s
I plugged that number in Wolfram alpha to convert to gallons/hour and got 74.81gal/h

I want a few more data points before I accept that as definite. Also, not 100% of the heat is dissipated in the radiators, so it's not entirely accurate but I feel it's a decent approximation. The data sheet for my pump, the Eheim 1250, says about 250gal/h for 2ft head, but that doesn't take into account any pressure drop due to rads, tubing, etc.
 
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I found a leak! (Not sure if it's the only one or not, so I didn't say 'the' leak). Up at the very top of a corner, the joint between the two sheets of acrylic is not 100% tight. It looks like the top 1.5" isn't quite sealed. I drained the tank to about 2/3 and I'm waiting for the oil to drip away so I can glob some silicone in that corner.

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Hard to take a picture of it, I think I kind of got it in this shot, you can see the small gap.

I never ran into this leak before because the last time I was messing with this case (5 months ago) I didn't fill it as high. Also explains why it didn't leak when I was leak testing (didn't fill it this high) and it also explains why I couldn't find it when poking around in the bottom compartment.
 
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