If you don’t like the idea of spending an outrageous $5,000 on a ready-made PC filled with cooling goo, Puget Systems has a DIY kit priced just $315.
[We've] been running a mineral oil computer for over a year with no ill effects. In a more recent project, it has allowed us to run an extremely high end system at under 50C with virtually no noise. It has also allowed an overclock of a QX9770 from a stock frequency of 3.2GHz, to an overclocked frequency of 4.6GHz!
Shipping with the aquarium tank and cover, a motherboard tray, power lights and cabling, hard drive mounting brackets and optional lighting kits, Puget’s deal lacks only one thing: the giant bucket of mineral oil you’ll need to make the magic happen.
The recommended method for checking for excessive heat levels is as follows: when concerned, lower a wire basket of sliced potatoes into the enclosure. If they quickly become delicious, the oil has overheated and you should stop playing video games.
Aquarium Kit [Puget Systems]
…This is all fine and dandy, but this case would be a mess for anyone who frequently mods and upgrades his system. Thick rubber gloves would have to be used to pick the Mobo up because the oil would turn those rough solder points on the bottom side into ginsus!
When will they come out with one for xbox?
Can you have a little diver with treasure chest deal in there?
Treasure chest, yes. Fishes, no.
What about robotic fish?
You could even solder little lasers to their heads…
Mineral-oil fried potatoes taste like burning.
Actually they taste like laxative…
You wouldn’t make fries, you’d make ‘chips.’
#6 FTW!
Seriously, do not cook food in mineral oil. You will crap in your pants. It will be horrifying.
Wow, there are so many things in the world that I would never even imagine might exist.
Cook the potatoes in castor oil. NOW you’re talkin’!
mineral oil with heated circuitry steeping, and leaching heavy metals and pcbs,
for potato “CHIPSETS… with that NEW COMPUTER TASTE!”
having built a system based on their version 1 submerged system ( http://fashiondisaster.org/2007/07/12/fishtank-computer-needs-a-name/ ), I vote that this kit is worth the money. Cutting the custom acrylic sheet and fitting a motherboard tray and all the other customizations aren’t impossible or too high on the difficulty level scale, but somewhat tedious. I would buy the kit if I did it again.
I didn’t find any pix of the cables coming in and out. How do they prevent wicking of the oil out of the tank in the cables that come out (e.g., keyboard, mouse, video, audio)?
So do I understand correctly that power supply and all are dunked? The photo seems to show a fan still attached, is that correct? Is it still used? Is a fan necessary, and would the motors burn out quickly since oil is so much thicker than air?
@15 Anon,
The fans are generally left as is, so they do still turn. They aren’t really necessary, as the motion and heat capacity of the oil takes care of the cooling, as intended, but they also don’t really hurt anything either. I would imagine that they would burn out sooner than your standard fan exposed to the open air, but it’s not instant.