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."
There is a joke involving Natalie Portman and hot oil here, but I just can't quite find it :(
When I am web surfing and playing solitaire, I can't afford to have my CPU or graphics card overheat. And don't even get me started on email.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Bulletproof? Seriously?
Seriously? Space age materials?
Did anyone inform them that the space age was the 1960s?
FTA: every centimeter of the machine oozes custom computing.
I hope that's all it's oozing.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
"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."
RTFA - Drives are in separate bays for easy access. HDD's would not fare very well in oil, even proprietary super secret oil. Quite the impressive piece of hardware. - Your not on trouble shooting does raise a good point though. Seriously, what do you do when you have a problem with this thing? And redundant PSU's? They must know that these will be the first to go, and a tremendous pain to replace.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
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).
System is worth $11k today, maybe $2k by 2010. Super high-end systems that are not designed for professionals (or servers for datacenters) just have never made sense to me. The depreciation is just too great on a computer.
Not to mention it will be worth $0 when the oil containment fails.
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Ignoring for the moment what will happen when you tell someone your plans for the weekend are to oil up your new computer.....
I know that air cooling has its limitations, but there is something nice about knowing your computer is not going to spooge all over your desk or floor. And working on this thing will be a real nasty mess.
But if you are an alternate fuels kind of person, then your diesel Smart and your PC can both smell like french fries.
Seriously, if they have to ship this thing empty, how to you return it for warranty work? I promise you that UPS or FedEx will not be happy if your package begins oozing oil in their truck. This may be the best thing to hit town since, oh, Orgasm Queen of the SS (Godwin and porn in one post!), but I will wait a few years before I will buy an oil cooled PC.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
your money goes to support vladimir putin, hugo chavez and saudi wahabbism
do the patriotic thing and buy a domestic american wind immersion pc
and if you aren't in an area where a wind immersion pc is practical, follow t boone pickens' lead and get yourself a natural gas immersed pc
eh... on second thought, maybe not such a good idea, a natural gas immersed pc, heh
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dead fan -- I'm sure that's a problem with an OIL-COOLED box. I suppose the extreme PC users you know would also complain that they wouldn't be able to vacuum the dust from their heat sinks, too.
Now, a dead oil circulation impeller, that's a completely different animal.
John
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.
From the article:
the machine should never really run higher than ambient room temperature if all is well
How long after you switch it on does the ambient room temperature make it up to the operating temperature of the pc?
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
First off, the summary reads like a press release, as does TFA, is slashdot that desperate for cash these days? Secondly, the PC itself seems like a pretty useless gimmick.
I don't understand who is supposed to be buying this thing at $4k-$11k.
Hardcore overclockers? OK the thing has excellent cooling, but not much better than you could achieve with a decent watercooling rig at a fraction of the price. This group will be put off by the proprietry(and probably overpriced)upgrades and the difficulty of actually opening the thing, not to mention the pricetag.
Gamers? Why would they pay this much over the odds for a system that's at best 10% faster than a commodity system? Again, this group will be put off by the lack of a decent upgrade path.
Silent PC enthusiasts? This group might be interested at first, the one thing an oil filled PC might arguably be useful for is silence. But at $4000+, you've got to be joking, there are already very good solutions at a fraction of that price.
Ultimately I just don't see any need for this kind of cooling system, PC's just don't run hot enough that it's worth dealing with the hassle.
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."
Can we demand an open-source version of the oil for us hardcore geeks?
No, it runs SL/IX and the main processor is made by Texaco Instruments.
There is a shell scripting language but the interface is a bit crude.
There will be a Mobil Computing version next year.
I'll stop now.
AT&ROFLMAO
Problem 1: Fire codes. To date, nobody has come up with a non-flammable insulating oil to replace PCBs (carcinogenic, nasty stuff). Oil is flammable and, in combination with electrical equipment, a very bad idea. Generally, it is not allowed within occupied ares outside of fireproof vaults.
Problem 2: Specific heat content of oil. Its not as good as water by a long shot. So, for equipment that operates below 100C, water can transport much more heat than oil. CPU and GPU water coolers are common technology. So what good is oil?
Problem 3: This doesn't eliminate fans, pumps, heat sinks, etc. that eventually move the heat into the surrounding air. That stuff still makes noise. Apart from some custom systems that plumb coolant to remote heat exchangers where the noise isn't a problem, this thing will still have fans. So what did we gain?
Problem 4: How much power do those kewl blue LEDs consume? Here's an idea ....
Have gnu, will travel.