You want deep fried cpu with that?

May 12, 2005 8:29 AM

What do you mean, I can't make my PC run completely silent?
posted by NekulturnY (41 comments total)

Silent computer? You're soaking in it!
It also makes great fries...
posted by Lord Kinbote at 8:38 AM on May 12, 2005

Some quick and dirty translations:

yes! it's really a computer completely in vegetable oil!
It works because oil doesn't conduct electricity.
The fans are still inside for circulation purposes.
Before construction, everything was carefully cleaned with compressed air.
Pure bordeom drove me to do this. Actually, it was one of those ideas that happened after too many beers with friends.
After I researched it a bit online, I discovered that I'm not the first person to have this idea. And that it supposedly works great. So I tried it out, and lo: it works
The big advantage is: the processor doesn't make a peep. It's a pleasure to work in the room because it's absolutely silent. I left the fans in, so that the oil circulates better.
posted by Ljubljana at 8:39 AM on May 12, 2005

I read enough German to get by. Do you think that many other MeFites are able to (weder unser Deutsche und vielleicht Nederlandische Bruedern noch Schwestern)?
posted by beelzbubba at 8:40 AM on May 12, 2005

It isn't a new idea.
posted by Berend at 8:46 AM on May 12, 2005

I've fried a motherboard before but never like this
posted by ElvisJesus at 8:47 AM on May 12, 2005

mmmm....now Mefi smells like french fries!
posted by stenseng at 8:51 AM on May 12, 2005

Yum, vegetable oil. Nothing like like using an oil that has to be completely replaced every few days! ;-)
posted by shepd at 8:51 AM on May 12, 2005

Microchips
posted by nylon at 8:52 AM on May 12, 2005

Shit. I have to agree with shepd again? Vegetable oil will go rancid quickly.
posted by terrapin at 8:54 AM on May 12, 2005

Thanks for that, Ljubljana. I so wanna try this!
posted by blendor at 8:58 AM on May 12, 2005

Re: rancid oil

I never changed the oil since 1 year

Any ideas on how to get drives immersed?
posted by blendor at 9:05 AM on May 12, 2005

Slick.
posted by furtive at 9:06 AM on May 12, 2005

Any ideas on how to get drives immersed?

You don't - not without putting them in a hermetically sealed shell, anyway. There are airholes in the drive casing (it's not a vacuum in there) and while those holes may be small enough to keep oil from getting in quickly, it will get in and wreck your drive.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 9:09 AM on May 12, 2005

guy called drffreeze [sic] was doing this back in ~98/99. and of course things like power transformers have been filled with oil for a long time.

mineral oil works just as well and is obviously not going to go rancid. (there is some cool stuff made by 3m which is what is actually put into industrial transformers, but that shit is expensive as shit...)

in any case, good to see that someone has been keeping the dream alive!
posted by dorian at 9:15 AM on May 12, 2005

It would be worth considering if there were hope for silencing hard disks. So... it seems that it might be a bit less messy if you just used a silent power supply.
posted by SteveInMaine at 9:35 AM on May 12, 2005

Oil solves every problem known to man.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:55 AM on May 12, 2005

What a disgusting idea. Where are the squid?
posted by davy at 9:58 AM on May 12, 2005

What do you mean, I can't make my PC run completely silently?
</grammarian>
posted by Doohickie at 9:59 AM on May 12, 2005

Just wondering - what is it about the oil immersion that kills the hard drives? Are the drive tolerances to high to allow it to function correctly in the thicker oil rather than air? (I'm thinking of the fast moving parts within the hard drive.) If so then I wonder if an older, slower drive would work okay (my first 10 mb drive that was the size of a shoe box comes to mind...)
posted by wfrgms at 10:09 AM on May 12, 2005

Dorian: You are probably thinking of Fluorinert.
posted by darksquirrel at 10:14 AM on May 12, 2005

dorian: but that shit is expensive as shit

The good news is, that shit is also cheap as shit.
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:32 AM on May 12, 2005

I know some people that are making a linux cluster for ab initio molecular calculations using this concept. Their motivation was cost and size, the plan is to sink about 30 motherboards in a fish tank full of mineral oil and cool the oil with a chiller ( they even thought about putting the fish tank in a small fridge or freezer. One hard drive, the motherboards connected with gigabit ethernet and it will boot through the network. Should be much cheaper and smaller than rack systems or separate linux boxes.
posted by 445supermag at 10:38 AM on May 12, 2005

wfrgms, I'm not an expert, but I think the bernoulli effect is different in liquids. The bernoilli effect is, of course, what keeps the heads in your drive off the platters.
posted by shepd at 10:39 AM on May 12, 2005

You know what would be more interesting? To run this using hydrogenated oils, or lard. So when the PC is not in use, the oil cools and congeals into a big chunk of marbly-veined grease, then thaws dramatically during use. Gives you something to look at while waiting for MeFi to time out...
posted by meehawl at 11:00 AM on May 12, 2005

I used to work at a place that had a Cray-2. The entire system is immersed in Fluorinert, and you could see the heat diffraction coming off the boards. Coolest. Computer. Ever.
posted by neckro23 at 11:10 AM on May 12, 2005

Does the oil get hot enough to, say, deep fry some chicken? Distribute this system to impoverished countries, and there could be a Nobel prize in it for ya.
posted by LordSludge at 11:20 AM on May 12, 2005

shepd and wfrgms, I believe (and this is off the top of my head so take it with a grain a salt) that the increased viscosity of the fluid (around 1000 times that of air) would create high shear stresses on the spinning surfaces and there in no way the small motor in the drive could handle that load.
posted by Dr_Octavius at 11:30 AM on May 12, 2005

Huh. Well that's not something you see everyday. I had no idea such a thing was possible.

But wouldn't the fan motors burn out? They're not meant to handle the viscosity of oil...
posted by Specklet at 11:33 AM on May 12, 2005

Ya, proper electric oil pumps would be more appropriate.

But I think part of the, um, "beauty" of this project is that it's such a kludge its simplicity. Take all the noisy bits, dump em in a fish tank, and fill with veggie oil. Done.
posted by LordSludge at 11:49 AM on May 12, 2005

For those who would rather not go to such extreme measures, there is Silent PC Review. My multimedia server is built with their methodologies and I can't hear the thing more than 12 inches away.
posted by zsazsa at 11:54 AM on May 12, 2005

Run silent, run deep (fried)
posted by bashos_frog at 12:10 PM on May 12, 2005

I'm going to be really upset if the term "Mazola party" gets hijacked by a bunch of nerds submerging their motherboards.
posted by Gamblor at 12:12 PM on May 12, 2005

terrapin head asplode? :-D
posted by shepd at 12:17 PM on May 12, 2005

Do you think that linseed oil or stand oil (commonly used for oil painting) would be a better choice considering that it doesn't become rancid as quickly?
posted by Jon-o at 2:04 PM on May 12, 2005

Do you think that linseed oil or stand oil (commonly used for oil painting) would be a better choice considering that it doesn't become rancid as quickly?

Linseed would be Effing Awful: not only does it polymerize upon sustained contact with the air but the stuff is a spontanous combustion hazard in fairly small quantities (leak + carpeting, say). And lord, the smell off a tank of that stuff would knock you down from a half block off.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 2:20 PM on May 12, 2005

Hmm, you're right...
I think it smell rather nice, though...
posted by Jon-o at 2:27 PM on May 12, 2005

I can read alterslash.org for this stuff.
posted by BrotherCaine at 3:40 PM on May 12, 2005

But does it run Linux?

Yeah, I saw the Knoppix CD too.
posted by grouse at 4:57 PM on May 12, 2005

my thanks darksquirrel, that is exactly the nasty liquid of which I was thinking.

also: dr ffreeze did note as well the helpful convection effect of leaving the various mobo fans submerged in the soup.
posted by dorian at 6:03 PM on May 12, 2005

Cool, but the laptop version is going to be messy on pants and skirts.
posted by dg at 8:15 PM on May 12, 2005

You have to put motor oil on the drape runners.
posted by theonetruebix at 5:57 PM on May 13, 2005