Make an Oil-Cooled PC in a Fish Tank
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We've covered taking your PCs temperature . Now Puget Systems in Seattle has a project that keeps your computer cool and does so in an artful and visually pleasing way. Even better, they showed how you can do it yourself.
The mineral oil-cooled PC looks like it is full of water, but it isn't. Mineral oil won't corrode electronics and it is perfectly safe to run them submerged in it. Mineral oil also absorbs a lot more heat than water does, and the liquid equalizes the temperature of the components better than a fan moving air would. But what makes this as artful as it is is the look you get -- as long as the oil is protected from dust, it will look clear indefinitely. According to the folks at Puget, it's been running for years without a problem.
The whole thing is not hard to build, even if you add a radiator. That can be done in a variety of ways -- all that has to happen is that the oil gets out of the tank and cooled down somehow, and pumped back in.
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Each weekday on TechNewsDaily, That's Useful! finds practical new gadgets, computing hardware, apps, appliances and other electronics that make sense and simply make life better.
