Deep fried PC anyone???

[whurlston]

happening sometime in the near future, somewhere in the netherlands, local pet store:
- "hmmm, sorry, do you have some exotic fish?"
- "sure, what are you seeking?"
- "well, they'll need to stand temps near 40°"
- "are you american? that would be near freezing temp, sorry, we don't have arctic fishes"
- "no, no, 40°C"
- (gapeing) "warm water aquariums are around 24°C, so sorry, i've never heard on any exotic fish surviving such temps"
- "<muttured on> damned, still gotta cool it! <muttured off> any fish living in mineral oil? perhaps some fish living inside an oil well? they would need to be fast, must avoid getting cought in the fans..."
...cut... driving away frustrated... next stop at the local toy store, searching for some good looking dummy fishes imported from china...

I haven't laughed that hard in a while.

[Ted the Penguin]

LOL,
I was thinking of visiting a pet store tomorrow...... guess it's gonna be a toy store then.... darn. In search of toy fish without "made in china" printed on them, I hate it when they do that.
Oh, next problem to solve, they must be able to float IN the oil not ON TOP of it

solution! drill a hole in the toy fish and fill it with lead until its neutrally buoyant

[gEd]

I think mackerel are an oily fish

(grabs coat also..)

[bgowland]

I think mackerel are an oily fish

(grabs coat also..)

Yep, and you can buy them in tins from the supermarket - no need to go to a pet shop.

Cheers,
Brian

[flyswatta]

I was seriously on the verge of doing something like this myself for the PVR (make it dead silent). I had a container picked out, located a source of mineral oil, and had a PC all lined up.

The wife had something to say about having a vat of mineral oil in the living room...

[bgowland]

I solved the fish problem.....

If you have enough space in your living room (or wherever), use an aquarium within an aquarium. Here's how...

Build a PC system in an aquarium with the mineral oil etc. Use a bigger aquarium (deeper, wider, longer) to hold the first. Mount the mineral oil PC aquarium on a stilt-like frame so the top of it is raised just above the bigger aquarium for access etc. Fill the bigger aquarium with water and put fish in it.

Depending on the thermal conductivity of the material the PC aquarium is made of, you'll get some regional warming of the water in the outer aquarium. After that, the usual use of pumps, aquarium heaters, aerators etc. will keep your fish alive without them having to survive in mineral oil.

I reckon if you mounted the PC aquarium no more than about 3 inches above the bottom of the outer aquarium and perhaps about 3 inches back, there'd be plenty of space for the fish to swim under and around the front (to show they're there) but the PC would still be in full view.

Cheers,
Brian

[SuMo]

@bgowland: now we're talking !

the only thing is I'm a little dissapointed with myself, why didn't I think of the aquarium within a aquarium......... off to the therapist for a "aquarium" session :p

[bgowland]

...the only thing is I'm a little dissapointed with myself, why didn't I think of the aquarium within a aquarium

Yeah well, I was in the middle of programming a web page where a Table web control kept re-sizing its columns when I didn't want it to. It was annoying me so I took some time out to view the forums.

I saw flyswatta's post about his wife not wanting a vat of mineral oil in the living room and I thought, 'People have vats of water in their living room if they've got an aquarium'. So that was the answer.

I had a beer, posted my message and fixed my web page problem - all good here.

I've been talking to some fish today but, unfortunately, most of them are pretty nervous about having a vat of mineral oil in their aquarium.

One of them even said he wouldn't want to be in an aquarium in flyswatta's living room - with or without the vat of mineral oil.

Cheers,
Brian

[K.S.]

Build a PC system in an aquarium with the mineral oil etc. Use a bigger aquarium (deeper, wider, longer) to hold the first. Mount the mineral oil PC aquarium on a stilt-like frame so the top of it is raised just above the bigger aquarium for access etc. Fill the bigger aquarium with water and put fish in it.

Depending on the thermal conductivity of the material the PC aquarium is made of, you'll get some regional warming of the water in the outer aquarium. After that, the usual use of pumps, aquarium heaters, aerators etc. will keep your fish alive without them having to survive in mineral oil.

nice idea, but i doubt it will work. if you really want to do it, a glass aquarium will most likely be the only viable option for the inner sanctum (i'm not sure how plexiglass or any other plastics behave on long term contact with mineral oil, might get brittle). that way you'll again be stuck with temps around 40°C... but you can get around that too ;-)
buy a big aquarium for the fish, buy a medium aquarium to fit into the big one. fill the medium aquarium with air, aka leave it empty . that way you get your thermal damping. put the inner sanctum into the medium aquarium. if the glass relays to much heat to the outer aquarium you can put the inner sanctum on styrofoam, else you get the "heater" for the outer aquarium for free if your box is running 24/7. you could even get a sensor for the water (that would defenitely have to be water-resistant) and depending on outer temp change your cpu voltage/workload using speedfan the other way around

btw: if i really get bored (no, that's not enough ) get ready for some reports (it started sizzling / it ended up in smoke, created some nonrecurring nice-to-look-at patterns in the oil / hurray it worked)...
oh, is any engineer among us with experiences regarding plastics => long term behaviour on exposure to mineral oil?

i've got an old rig with onboard graphic i'm not using any longer & i think i have a plastic box laying around with just the needed proportions, so i might give it a try and throw the motherboard & PSU inside if i find some affordable supply of mineral oil here...

[K.S.]

ps: you would be amazed how far WAF can get you... i've told my wife about it & maybe it'll take the old aquarium from my father (no fish in danger, relax ), she just looked at me & said "you're not kidding, right?"
the outer looks of the solution don't really matter as the current machine is allready behind the tv-cabinet