6 ms·

Mineral Oil Cooled PC (2014)

74 points by LorenDB 2y ago

perihelions 2y ago
- "Unfortunately our mineral oil aquarium PC kit project has been alleged to infringe on the patents held by a company who holds several patents related to mineral oil cooling of PCs." What risible clowns. How could you dream of patenting this—oil-immersion cooling, in computing, goes back *at least* to 1961 [0] (and there's probably even earlier prior art, I can't find citations for the vacuum-tube era but it'd be very likely they had tried something like that). It's the most obvious solution in the world. "Oil-dunk hot thing for more cold" is a bronze-age blacksmith's wisdom. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7030_Stretch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7030_Stretch ("The memory was immersion oil-heated/cooled to stabilize its operating characteristics")
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- perihelions 2y ago
  My comment was a bit harsh as I wrote it, but, it's genuinely so depressing to read about the cool things people create, and then seeing them vanish from the internet, as morals-less lawyers swoop in and claim various falsehoods—on the calculation that the victim won't have the resources to fight against professional patent trolls. Against experts who specialize in legal extortion, such as this example. - "...regardless of how we felt about the validity of this patent pressure, we could not devote the time, finances and energy to take up that battle" These types of predators are the natural enemy of HN.
- tantalor 2y ago
  You could patent this, but it would be on specifics of the process & design, like how the chassis are constructed (down to the fabrication steps), special/unusual components, and exactly how the heat dissipation works. It should be basically impossible for some hackers in a garage to accidentally infringe on a patent without reading it. If it was infringing, it would be 1) extremely unlucky, or more likely 2) the patent was fatally vague to begin with, and should be invalidated.
atmanactive 2y ago
Been there, done that. Useless in a home/lab environment. For a data-center - maybe. In my experience, the oil is far from odourless. It seems that way at first, but after a while it saturates the room/house with very annoying smell. Several months later, and I had to get rid of that smell. Even went as far to build stainless steel tanks with gaskets used for car motors. But, when airtight, the whole thing looses it's thermal properties and starts overheating again. I guess because of pressure build-up. So, it is either endure the mineral oil vapors, or nothing. On top of all that, pray you never need to replace/upgrade a component... getting the whole thing out of the oil and cleaning it up so you could handle it again - a nightmare.
- imglorp 2y ago
  I mean, you can still get Flourinert (!!) and you can pretend you have a Cray. But more seriously, would distilled water work? It should have minimal conductivity in theory. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40045180/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40045180/
  - MisterTea 2y ago
    I think distilled water would begin to leach metals and whatnot from the PCB making it conductive again. Certainly would need to be continually monitored and watch for corrosion. Flourinert is super expensive, we use it at work for gross leak inspection and filing a single small tank is i think 3-4k USD.
    - qwertox 2y ago
      Distilled water is pretty inexpensive, so flushing it once a month or so would probably work.
      - dan_can_code 2y ago
        I just had the funny thought of flushing my PC like a toilet.
  - 2y ago
lovegrenoble 2y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ZiiS 2y ago
More moden take https://immersion-cooling.thermaltake.com/ https://immersion-cooling.thermaltake.com/
- LorenDB 2y ago
  Wow, I had no idea you could get such a turnkey kit today! I seriously doubt I'll ever have a need for an immersion-cooled machine, but I will definitely dream of the cool setups that could be built in this case.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bruce343434 2y ago
  I really doubt that the fan motors in typical PC components, designed to move air, were made to endure the relatively extreme viscosity of oil.
  - ZiiS 2y ago
    At this point you are running thousands of dollars of sensitive electronics outside their design and testing whilst voiding your warrenty. Wearing out a few fans is probably tolerable.
  - yellowapple 2y ago
    The authors of the article report that the fans ran just fine in oil, contrary to that same assumption.
  - toast0 2y ago
    Try it out and see has worked for a lot of people. Not all fans are engineered with no wiggle room, and likely most would fail sooner, but on the other hand, an immersed computer is more likely to run continuously, and startup is harder than continuous running. The oil likelu provides better heat disipation for all parts of the fan as well, which could also prolong life. Otherwise, with better disipation, you can probably remove fans from many components, possibly swapping heatsinks in some cases.
hinkley 2y ago
I used to have that tank. Biowheel filtration is the only way to go.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
chris_va 2y ago
If you really want to have fun, use ln2 (and make sure you have a well ventilated room, unless you want to asphyxiate).
hypercube33 2y ago
My buddy and I did this with a $1/ gallon fish tank, 8 gallons of horse laxative (heavy mineral oil - real cheap way to buy it in bulk) and a spare gaming pcs guts. it worked but wasn't impressed after it heat saturates - you definitely need to cool the oil after say 8 to 12 hours otherwise it probably is worse than air cooling. the other downside is you absolutely need to dishwasher anything that was submerged and it makes one hell of a mess.
- hadlock 2y ago
  We did this in the late 90s with an old 486 to see if it actually worked. That's the earliest I recall seeing this. We played doom on it. As you note, it created a giant mess and pretty much immediately went in the trash as soon as we'd proven it worked.
- cyberax 2y ago
  I tried that approach and my experience was not positive. Over time, the oil embrittled the plastic parts on the motherboard so that the PCI slots just crumbled. The smell was not an issue for me, I put the entire contraption onto a balcony and used a long VGA cable.
bitwize 2y ago
Fluorinert was used as a coolant in some 80s/90s computers, including one of the first SFF PCs, the Ergo Brick.
grazing_fields 2y ago
[dead]
egberts1 2y ago
It has been 25 years since the first PC immersion into a cooling tank. It should be available for wide-spread commercialization, patent-wise.
Snacklive 2y ago
when i was a kid i loved these setups. Now i just panic at the idea of loads of mineral oil everywhere Still it's cool to see people making it work

74 points by LorenDB 2y ago

- "Unfortunately our mineral oil aquarium PC kit project has been alleged to infringe on the patents held by a company who holds several patents related to mineral oil cooling of PCs." What risible clowns. How could you dream of patenting this—oil-immersion cooling, in computing, goes back *at least* to 1961 [0] (and there's probably even earlier prior art, I can't find citations for the vacuum-tube era but it'd be very likely they had tried something like that). It's the most obvious solution in the world. "Oil-dunk hot thing for more cold" is a bronze-age blacksmith's wisdom. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7030_Stretch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_7030_Stretch ("The memory was immersion oil-heated/cooled to stabilize its operating characteristics")

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
perihelions 2y ago
My comment was a bit harsh as I wrote it, but, it's genuinely so depressing to read about the cool things people create, and then seeing them vanish from the internet, as morals-less lawyers swoop in and claim various falsehoods—on the calculation that the victim won't have the resources to fight against professional patent trolls. Against experts who specialize in legal extortion, such as this example. - "...regardless of how we felt about the validity of this patent pressure, we could not devote the time, finances and energy to take up that battle" These types of predators are the natural enemy of HN.
tantalor 2y ago
You could patent this, but it would be on specifics of the process & design, like how the chassis are constructed (down to the fabrication steps), special/unusual components, and exactly how the heat dissipation works. It should be basically impossible for some hackers in a garage to accidentally infringe on a patent without reading it. If it was infringing, it would be 1) extremely unlucky, or more likely 2) the patent was fatally vague to begin with, and should be invalidated.

atmanactive 2y ago

Been there, done that. Useless in a home/lab environment. For a data-center - maybe. In my experience, the oil is far from odourless. It seems that way at first, but after a while it saturates the room/house with very annoying smell. Several months later, and I had to get rid of that smell. Even went as far to build stainless steel tanks with gaskets used for car motors. But, when airtight, the whole thing looses it's thermal properties and starts overheating again. I guess because of pressure build-up. So, it is either endure the mineral oil vapors, or nothing. On top of all that, pray you never need to replace/upgrade a component... getting the whole thing out of the oil and cleaning it up so you could handle it again - a nightmare.

imglorp 2y ago
I mean, you can still get Flourinert (!!) and you can pretend you have a Cray. But more seriously, would distilled water work? It should have minimal conductivity in theory. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40045180/ https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/b40045180/
- MisterTea 2y ago
  I think distilled water would begin to leach metals and whatnot from the PCB making it conductive again. Certainly would need to be continually monitored and watch for corrosion. Flourinert is super expensive, we use it at work for gross leak inspection and filing a single small tank is i think 3-4k USD.
  - qwertox 2y ago
    Distilled water is pretty inexpensive, so flushing it once a month or so would probably work.
    - dan_can_code 2y ago
      I just had the funny thought of flushing my PC like a toilet.
- 2y ago

lovegrenoble 2y ago

[flagged]

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

ZiiS 2y ago

More moden take https://immersion-cooling.thermaltake.com/ https://immersion-cooling.thermaltake.com/

LorenDB 2y ago
Wow, I had no idea you could get such a turnkey kit today! I seriously doubt I'll ever have a need for an immersion-cooled machine, but I will definitely dream of the cool setups that could be built in this case.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bruce343434 2y ago
I really doubt that the fan motors in typical PC components, designed to move air, were made to endure the relatively extreme viscosity of oil.
- ZiiS 2y ago
  At this point you are running thousands of dollars of sensitive electronics outside their design and testing whilst voiding your warrenty. Wearing out a few fans is probably tolerable.
- yellowapple 2y ago
  The authors of the article report that the fans ran just fine in oil, contrary to that same assumption.
- toast0 2y ago
  Try it out and see has worked for a lot of people. Not all fans are engineered with no wiggle room, and likely most would fail sooner, but on the other hand, an immersed computer is more likely to run continuously, and startup is harder than continuous running. The oil likelu provides better heat disipation for all parts of the fan as well, which could also prolong life. Otherwise, with better disipation, you can probably remove fans from many components, possibly swapping heatsinks in some cases.

hinkley 2y ago

I used to have that tank. Biowheel filtration is the only way to go.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

chris_va 2y ago

If you really want to have fun, use ln2 (and make sure you have a well ventilated room, unless you want to asphyxiate).

hypercube33 2y ago

My buddy and I did this with a $1/ gallon fish tank, 8 gallons of horse laxative (heavy mineral oil - real cheap way to buy it in bulk) and a spare gaming pcs guts. it worked but wasn't impressed after it heat saturates - you definitely need to cool the oil after say 8 to 12 hours otherwise it probably is worse than air cooling. the other downside is you absolutely need to dishwasher anything that was submerged and it makes one hell of a mess.

hadlock 2y ago
We did this in the late 90s with an old 486 to see if it actually worked. That's the earliest I recall seeing this. We played doom on it. As you note, it created a giant mess and pretty much immediately went in the trash as soon as we'd proven it worked.
cyberax 2y ago
I tried that approach and my experience was not positive. Over time, the oil embrittled the plastic parts on the motherboard so that the PCI slots just crumbled. The smell was not an issue for me, I put the entire contraption onto a balcony and used a long VGA cable.

bitwize 2y ago

Fluorinert was used as a coolant in some 80s/90s computers, including one of the first SFF PCs, the Ergo Brick.

grazing_fields 2y ago

[dead]

egberts1 2y ago

It has been 25 years since the first PC immersion into a cooling tank. It should be available for wide-spread commercialization, patent-wise.

Snacklive 2y ago

when i was a kid i loved these setups. Now i just panic at the idea of loads of mineral oil everywhere Still it's cool to see people making it work