Oh no, not a Gordon project! What kinda crazy shenanigans can he be getting into this time? Well, it involves a fishtank, $100 of mineral oil, a car heater core (similar to a radiator), a submersible water pump (or oil pump in my case), and a $1000+ computer?
Without further ado, here are some pictures of my fully working (and very much overclocked) computer. I love it, and have already gotten some complements on it being pretty cool.
It runs at around 36 celsius at idle, but gets to around 65 celsius when I'm pushing it. It still needs some tweaking (like a built-in fan case for the heater core and something to hold the tubing in place, but it is working great.
Here are some pictures of our actual FISH tanks. Mine is the one with the volcano.
14 comments:
Wow. What more is there to say. Holy Cow.
Very cool. So do you really need the CPU fan? I wonder if you could cut energy costs that way. Anyway, it looks good!
That is too weird. Your computer is built under water? Good luck with the fish tanks.
I am really lost on the under water computer....would you explain more??? Your real fish tanks look great though!
Ok, the computer isn't under water. Water would ruin it. It is under mineral oil. Mineral oil is a non-conductive, non-corrosive liquid that transfers heat pretty well.
by submerging it in this oil, the computer is forced to heat up all the oil before it can get very hot.
Since we have a pump that will pump the oil through our small radiator (technically a heater core), it also has to heat up the heater core along with all the oil.
By blowing air through the radiator, we cool the radiator fairly fast, thus keeping it cool (and the oil, cpu, graphics card, etc... along with it).
The biggest downside is that soon wicking may occur with the cords. wicking is the process by which a liquid can travel up a small tube or hole (it is how water can travel up toilet paper if you submerge only the very end of it). Eventually oil may drip out of the power plug (not looking forward to that, but I have something in place to keep me informed BEFORE it happens)
Hope that makes more sense.
oh, and another of my fish died this morning. I only have 1 left
:'(
Nice work Gordon.
So with our 55 gallon fish tank what kind of computer system could we run through there?
Or maybe we should just keep the fish in there. oh well
It is true that fresh water fish enjoy a little salt in the water, but not table salt as it has iodine in it and fish dont like that. get the salt that is meant for freshwater fish tanks.
The good thing is that you and Jessica are still in the phase that you care, I am way past that. My fish are lucky to get feed everyday (they do have an automatic feeder but it only feeds them small amounts). And now that my 3 giant suckers all died after many good years, the new giant one cant handle all the algae and I actually have to clean the glass now. It is very annoying, I guess I should go buy some more sucker fish. OH WELL.
Good luck with the computer and fish. Hey maybe you can develop and fish that can live in mineral oil.............then they can service the computer..................sweet!!!
I did use the aquarium salt :), I know better than to use table salt :P
Well put this comment under the wrong post so figured I better move it up here lol
The best way for you to stop the wicking effect from the oil would be to hard wire a connector to the power supply and have the plug in be at the top of the tank. Then you would just plug the power cord into that connector. This will end up stopping the suction you get from the capillary effect that causes the wicking.
Yeah, I've seen that done. I plan on doing it once we move into the new house, but for now it should be fine.
I also plan on directing the flow of the cooled oil better in the future so there is a better flow around the cpu
I hope you computer doesn't die like you fish. It would be expensive to lose six computers. I guess it is a good thing that only fish are dying. Ha Ha. or I guess I should say lol. Hope the oil thing doesn't happen on the new carpet.
Is there a point though?? Does it run faster or something?
The point is:
1 - it is cool
2 - it allows me to overclock
overclocking is the process of making a computer run faster than it was designed to run (mine went from 2.4 Ghz to 3.2 Ghz or so)
When you overclock, it creates more heat, which you have to remove from the processor or it will get ruined. There are other (and better) ways, but I wanted to do it the fun way.
That is so rad!
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