Slashdot Mirror
Oil-Immersion Cooled PC Goes To Retail
notthatwillsmith writes "Everyone's seen mods where someone super-cools a PC by submersing it in a non-conductive oil. It's a neat idea, but most components aren't designed to withstand a hot oil bath; after prolonged exposure materials break down and components begin to fail. Maximum PC has an exclusive hands-on, first look at the new Hardcore Computer Reactor, the first oil-cooled PC available for sale. Hardcore engineered the Reactor to withstand the oil, using space-age materials and proprietary oil. The Reactor's custom-manufactured motherboard, videocards, memory, and SSD drives are submersed in the oil, while the dry components sit outside the bulletproof tank. The motherboard lifts out of the oil bath on rails, giving you relatively easy access to components, and the overall design is simply jaw-dropping. Of course, we'd expect nothing less for a machine with a base price of $4000 that goes all the way up to $11k for a fully maxed out config."
"Everyone's seen mods where someone super-cools a PC by submersing it in a non-conductive oil. It's a neat idea, but most components aren't designed to withstand a hot oil bath; after prolonged exposure materials break down and components begin to fail. Maximum PC has an exclusive hands-on, first look at the new Hardcore Computer Reactor, the first oil-cooled PC available for sale. Hardcore engineered the Reactor to withstand the oil, using space-age materials and proprietary oil. The Reactor's custom-manufactured motherboard, videocards, memory, and SSD drives are submersed in the oil, while the dry components sit outside the bulletproof tank. The motherboard lifts out of the oil bath on rails, giving you relatively easy access to components, and the overall design is simply jaw-dropping. Of course, we'd expect nothing less for a machine with a base price of $4000 that goes all the way up to $11k for a fully maxed out config."
From TFA: "The U.S. Patent Office does indeed show Klum, CTO Chad Attlesey and CEO Al Berning with a patent for liquid submersion."
You gotta be kidding me. I've seen "PC in a tank of oil" on Slashdot half a dozen times. Or is it not a real technology company if they don't have at least one bogus patent on an obvious process?
rushes off to patent "Method for legitimizing a company and attracting venture capital by means of a transparently invalid patent application"
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
The storage provided by the manufacturer is SSD (three of them, in RAID) and is submerged, but they have bays for removable drives you might want to add on your own. Also, in response to your comment about resetting the CMOS, they have a button that does that on the case (behind a little plastic door so you don't accidentally hit it).
They probably mean bullet resistant aka Lexan.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Here's the main claim from the patent:
7,414,845 Attlesey, et al. August 19, 2008
Circuit board assembly for a liquid submersion cooled electronic device
1. A liquid submersion cooled computer, comprising:
The only novelty here seems to be in putting the connectors in the removable lid.
Incidentally, the cooling liquid isn't an "oil" at all. It's one of 3M's Novec engineered fluids, probably HFE-7500, which is 3-ethoxy-1,1,1,2,3,4,4,5,5,6,6,6-dodecafluoro-2-trifluoromethyl-hexane. It's usable for cooling up to 150C, nonflammable, does not irritate skin, does not contribute to global warming, ozone depletion, or smog, and the MSDS even says "Ingestion: no health effects are expected". 3M developed it as a replacement for PCBs and perfluorocarbons like Fluorinert. So it can be used safely by the idiots who overclock.
It's also oozing with potential patent abuse:
U.S. Patent No. 7,403,392: A portable, self-contained liquid submersion cooling system that is suitable for cooling a number of electronic devices, including cooling heat-generating components in computer systems and other systems that use electronic, heat-generating components.
How delightfully generic and self evident. Nobody has ever thought to immerse components in liquid to cool them.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
It was thought that the mineral oil on these PCs would eat at the Rubber seals or the contacts on the motherboard and cause the PC to fail over time. This isn't true. Here's a link to the year-after report on a oil-based PC that Puget Systems built: http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php#update3
The most important part:
"# There is no sign of weakening of rubber seals or PCB. We have found that prolonged exposure to mineral oil does not eat away at any components. However, you will notice in the pictures that the voltage module for the LED light has fallen down. That module was stuck in place with nothing more than a sticker -- it took 9 months for it to come down! We're amazed it stayed up that long, but definitely recommend you do not rely on stickers or tape to fasten anything. Zip ties will be more solid and long lasting."
The Buick thing is easy - it tells you what size engine is inside. The V6's have three holes on each side, and the V8's have four. And yellow and blue make green, so you can see when it is sealed. I thought that was well covered by the "yellow and blue make green" ad campaign.
Wow, a 7 digit ID - let that be a lesson in the perils of procrastination.
So, I actually interviewed here prior to the product launch, and got to see this (under NDA, of course). The motherboard is SUPER proprietary, a joint venture between Hardcore Computer and Tyan (which makes pretty decent equipment, IMHO). Of course, it does still take standard CPUs/RAM. But just in case there are any doubters out there, I've been to the facility, seen the board-level techs they have on staff, and played with, first-hand, one of these suckers. They've put incredible R&D into this (took them a couple of years to finally get to launch). I'm not an employee, just someone who's seen these and was pretty impressed. Also feeling vindicated, since I knew from the second I saw it that this would end up on Slashdot :-)
They also use SSD's because they aren't mechanical and can be immersed, allowing you to actually cool your hard drives, which is sort of the point.
I'm not sure whether the time is right for this technology, or even whether it's a particularly good idea, but there's a good reason for the SSD's.
Liquid submersion cooling system:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=2&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=Attlesey.INNM.&OS=in/(Attlesey)&RS=IN/Attlesey
Circuit board assembly for a liquid submersion cooled electronic device:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PTXT&S1=Attlesey.INNM.&OS=in/(Attlesey)&RS=IN/Attlesey
From the first, a notable claim that relates to their "super high-tech secret oil":
8. The electronic device of claim 1, wherein the dielectric cooling liquid is a soy-based dielectric liquid.
It seems to me a better design would be to mount the CPU(s), and anything else real hot, on the bottom edge of the motherboard. Then you only have to immerse the bottom portion of the board in a pool of oil. The upper portion, where the PCI boards plug in, can be conventional, thus not requiring special boards.
J
Regarding fire hazards: This is no problem, oil has been used for ages in heavy power switching equipment to quench the electric arc which is made when switching. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switchgear for a reference.
As far as the rest of your points - agreed :-) I don't see the added value too, except for bragging rights.
Oh boy - a dielectric fluid thread. My specialty. The post above is not really correct. I'm Engineering Manager of a company that makes dielectric fluids, including PCB alternatives. (www.dsiventures.com) PCBs in and of themselves are not so bad from a health perspective; the bad actors are the dibenzofurans and dibenzodioxins that are created when PCBs get overheated in an electric arc or when they contact very hot metal. PCBs have been found to be bioaccumulative, however. In the 1970s and 1980s, several alternatives were developed - polydimethyl siloxane (silicone fluid) as well as High Molecular Weight Hydrocarbons. It's true that these fluids are not *non*flammable; they do have a flash and fire point when measured by ASTM Method D92. These fluids have a fire point > 300 C, however. I've performed a lot of experiments on burning and exploding transformers; in order to get a tank of these oils to burn, your building pretty much has to burn down around it. So a fluid doesn't have to be nonflammable, such as PCBs, in order to be safe; we could sit down over lunch and come up with a test method that would burn an iron bridge, but that doesn't mean that it's going to happen in real life.