Oil filled pc - weird

Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german enough
to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408

wrote:
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german enough
to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


My German is not that good any more (not that it ever was if you were to
ask my teacher) but there are online translation facilities available
that might help out. My biggest question is "why would anyone bother to
use oil cooling with a 550 Celeron?". It isn't as though it is ever
going to run hot enough to need it. If he was dealing with a massively
overclocked P4 it might make some slight sense to me (in German or not).

As for working, yes it should. Any non-conductive liquid will carry heat
away. Cray mainframes used to use an inert fluorocarbon liquid costing
$100+ per gallon to carry heat away from the tightly-packed CPU units.
Virtually any electrical utility transformer is filled with oil for heat
conduction and a bit of added insulation capacity. I certainly
wouldn't want to do any maintenance on a computer that had been stewing
in vegetable oil though...
--
John McGaw
[Knoxville, TN, USA]
http://johnmcgaw.com

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 12:16:07 -0400, John McGaw
wrote:

My biggest question is "why would anyone bother to
use oil cooling with a 550 Celeron?".

I am running a 2.4 GHz Celeron D with the retail box cooler and the
hostest I can get it is 53C.

wrote:
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german enough
to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


This is short-sighted. How is the oil cooled once it absorbs
heat from the electrical components? All the setup has now is
convection of the oil and conduction to air at its top surface
and conduction through the glass walls of the aquarium - nothing
at all better than a forced air draft past the electrical components.
When he starts using some components that actually do release
appreciable heat, he'll have to start pumping the oil past the
components and then through an oil-air or oil-running water heat
exchanger (i.e. "radiator"). What he has now makes no thermal
sense.

*TimDaniels*

wrote in message
...
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german enough
to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


I have seen that, or similar, a couple of times over the last few years. No
reason why it shouldn't work.

wrote:
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german enough
to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


Well...
huge power transformers are oil filled...
so i guess it should work...
but it's not too likely one could work on the machine again...

then...as mentioned...the celeron runs pretty cool !
they can work with just a large heatsink and no fan at all

John McGaw wrote:

wrote:
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german
enough to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


My German is not that good any more (not that it ever was if you were to
ask my teacher) but there are online translation facilities available
that might help out. My biggest question is "why would anyone bother to
use oil cooling with a 550 Celeron?". It isn't as though it is ever
going to run hot enough to need it. If he was dealing with a massively
overclocked P4 it might make some slight sense to me (in German or not).

As for working, yes it should. Any non-conductive liquid will carry heat
away. Cray mainframes used to use an inert fluorocarbon liquid costing
$100+ per gallon to carry heat away from the tightly-packed CPU units.
Virtually any electrical utility transformer is filled with oil for heat
conduction and a bit of added insulation capacity. I certainly
wouldn't want to do any maintenance on a computer that had been stewing
in vegetable oil though...


It'd also have to be a good radiator...
And what if the oil seeps into his hard drive? The viscosity will produce
drag, requiring more power for his motor to spin the drum, thereby
producing more heat!!!

Nope, the right thing to do is to put some kind of foam in it.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 11:36:26 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
wrote:

wrote:
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german enough
to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


This is short-sighted. How is the oil cooled once it absorbs
heat from the electrical components?

That old system doesn't produce much heat. It was very
nearly low enough to be passively cooled. With such a low
heat generation rate it is sufficient to simply spread the
heat out to a larger surface area (all sides of the oil and
enclosure).


All the setup has now is
convection of the oil and conduction to air at its top surface
and conduction through the glass walls of the aquarium - nothing
at all better than a forced air draft past the electrical components.

True, the whole thing is a novelty rather than a good
design. That's not a "new" system build though, I recall
that linked system from well over a year ago.... we don't
even know if it's still working today.


When he starts using some components that actually do release
appreciable heat, he'll have to start pumping the oil past the
components and then through an oil-air or oil-running water heat
exchanger (i.e. "radiator"). What he has now makes no thermal
sense.

Actually it makes perfect thermal sense. The goal in any
cooling system is not to create some hypothetical "perfect"
solution only from the standpoint of keeping components
cooler than they need to be. Temp is not a "contest", it
merely needs stay cool enough to remain stable and with
aceptible lifespan. Within the context of that particular
(Celeron 5xx) system it would only be worse to pump the
liquid- because it doesn't need a pump and adding one just
increases expense and components subject to failure.

You are correct that a significantly higher heat build would
require more attention to removing heat, but only what is
necessary towards keeping it reliable. Not that a giant
aquarium is in itself a good solution, but adding further to
it with pump and radiator with no specific, realized gain is
just traveling even further down a road not needed relative
to optimized air cooling.

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 16:08:32 -0500, philo
wrote:

wrote:
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german enough
to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


Well...
huge power transformers are oil filled...
so i guess it should work...


Sure, but they're designed to hold oil. I think the odds
are high that this guy took pictures right after it'd been
built but we can't be sure it even ran for a week like
that., as parts like capacitors may not take so kindly to
being immersed in oil.

Look threw the pictures the hard drive is not in the oil. You would be
corect though if it was.
Joe

"Analabha Roy" wrote in message
...
John McGaw wrote:

wrote:
Erm, is this actually going to work - anyone here understand german
enough to translate?! I'm intrigued...

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=25408


My German is not that good any more (not that it ever was if you were to
ask my teacher) but there are online translation facilities available
that might help out. My biggest question is "why would anyone bother to
use oil cooling with a 550 Celeron?". It isn't as though it is ever
going to run hot enough to need it. If he was dealing with a massively
overclocked P4 it might make some slight sense to me (in German or not).

As for working, yes it should. Any non-conductive liquid will carry heat
away. Cray mainframes used to use an inert fluorocarbon liquid costing
$100+ per gallon to carry heat away from the tightly-packed CPU units.
Virtually any electrical utility transformer is filled with oil for heat
conduction and a bit of added insulation capacity. I certainly
wouldn't want to do any maintenance on a computer that had been stewing
in vegetable oil though...


It'd also have to be a good radiator...
And what if the oil seeps into his hard drive? The viscosity will produce
drag, requiring more power for his motor to spin the drum, thereby
producing more heat!!!

Nope, the right thing to do is to put some kind of foam in it.