im going to oil cool my pc :)

[MD]

it has been done before - many times, so im sure its just insanity you have...

[charleski]

might have something to do with the fact water conducts electricity.

Actually *pure* distilled water doesn't conduct current as it has no free ions. But add the tiniest amount of salt and it will conduct enough to damage delicate electronics. A few drops of sweat on the board as you build the PC could be enough.

I thought that hard-drives are sealed air-tight, so they should be safe to put in the oil, though obviously optical disk drives will have to stay out.

The problem with vegetable oil is that the fatty acids oxidise over time, which is what makes them rancid and smell (most bacteria can't grow in oil to the best of my knowledge). There are vegetable oils with a very long shelf life, though these are the saturated types and also have a high melting point and you don't want the oil turning solid in winter. Castor oil is supposed to be very stable, but according to Wikipedia it's also a very effective dielectric (and is used in capacitors), which is also something you don't want.

Mineral oils are far more stable, but usually not transparent. I did a bit of googling, and it looks like you can get specialist lubrication oils that are transparent though. Here's a link you might want to check out (look at the entry for 'TURMOTEMPOIL 400 series').

Let us know how the project goes, and post some pics!

[Madafwo]

I can do you a deal on some used stuff, already stinks of chicken mind

and is black as hell.

[scrandman]

as above im going to make my pc air tight take all my heatsinks off then fill it up with cooking oil.

I think you should leave the heatsinks on. Remove the fans from them by all means.

[Hottentot]

Crazy!!

You will have to keep the oil moving or you will get localised hot spots ie you CPU which will probably fry. (I could say that you will have fried chips, but I won't).
My system uses a silicon oil for cooling but in my case (hah) I just used a normal watercooling set-up and replaced the water with oil.

[chuckskull]

as above im going to make my pc air tight take all my heatsinks off then fill it up with cooking oil.

Nah you want the biggest heat sinks you can find(scythe ninja, XP-120 etc). Thenif you want to OC,buy a pack of those stick on VGA heatsinks and cover anything that might get hot in them. DFI's are pretty good at this normally, but dont forget GFX card etc.

Otherwise, you're crazy, your room will stink and good luck.

[pr0p4g4nd4]

lol sweet! I can't wait for pics

[chrestomanci]

I thought that hard-drives are sealed air-tight, so they should be safe to put in the oil, though obviously optical disk drives will have to stay out.

Hard drives are not sealed, they have a small breather hole (the one that says do not cover) so that they can equalise pressure with the outside. If not then they would become pressurised when the weather changed, and in extreme cases might burst on implode, especialy those laptop drives with tinfoil for casings.

This is also the reason why hard drives have maximum altitute limits (usualy 10,000m), as the heads fly on a cushon of air over the platter, and will crash it the air gets to thin. There used to be special sealed HDs for aircraft and space use, but these days flash memory is used instead.

[FatalSaviour]

Do you want us to get started on speccing you a nice new Conroe rig rainbow?

Best of luck though...sounds good!

[rainbow]

i have some conroe parts on the way dont you worry about that, i got my pc which is in spec, then got this oil one that i got from work for free , then my conros one should be here soon i hope

it wontr be long now, wne mate and me are in work tmoz the building commences

[krazy_olie]

Good luck, maybe the smell will add to the atmosphere of some games

[eddyr]

I feel an inspired "Chip Shop Tycoon" coming along....

[rainbow]

u better know i did use to work in one for a while

[eddyr]

Ah, it all makes sense now then!

[Will]

Good luck! Rather you than me

[owen1978]

While your at it could u do us a fish & chips

Thanks!