[Case Gallery] Oil PC (pool cooled)

[chooky]

To view this case mod, go here.



Specs:
E8400@3870
XFX 780i mobo
4GB Kingston 8500
2 x Asus EN8800GT
3 x WD2500AAKS in Raid 0
ASUS DRW- 20B1LT
27" Soniq LCD
Silverstone Strider ST60F 600W

Mods:
The cooling system has been an evolution from pumping oil through an air cooled radiator to evaporative cooling with a bong (something like this http://www.overclockers.com.au/techstuff/a_bong/) to peltier cooling (next to PSU) and finally to my 20,000L above ground pool pumping water to a heat exchanger (orange fans left of tank), peltier and home made CPU heat block. The Pugent system that inspired me is a bit misleading and makes it sound too simple. It is easy to cool a low end PC but a high end OC'ed to the max PC produces a lot more heat which is rather difficult to extract from oil. The pool cooling is great because it now makes the whole setup dead quiet, maintenance free and all the heat is transported out of my non-air-conditioned office. I did not have a large budget for this project and found it is more fun inventing and scrounging bits for free anyway. I am particularly proud of the CPU and peltier water blocks which i got for free from an electrician friend who had some broken brass solenoid valves. I lapped the base soldered a cap over the hole where the coil was and hey presto a water block. The peltier works well in this environment as you don't have any condensation to worry about. I still have a bit to do like add another fan on the heat exchanger to bring down the temp a couple more degrees. The oil temp is currently 2 C higher than the pool 23 C, ambient 15C - 25C.

[silkstone]

Wow that's one large res for your pc

[crtecha]

Wow thats awesome. Do you run it like that alot and does the chemicals from the pool effect any of your blocks?

[chooky]

Its my main gaming PC. I didn't use an old PC to prototype I just jumped right in! There was a few moments hesitation before pouring oil all over my beloved gaming rig but its turned good. No component failures. I have an inline filter to stop any bugs and leaves getting in my blocks and radiator. The pool isn't salt water. I can't see it harming anything, but I have been wrong before.

[crtecha]

Originally Posted by chooky

Its my main gaming PC. I didn't use an old PC to prototype I just jumped right in! There was a few moments hesitation before pouring oil all over my beloved gaming rig but its turned good. No component failures. I have an inline filter to stop any bugs and leaves getting in my blocks and radiator. The pool isn't salt water. I can't see it harming anything, but I have been wrong before.

I was thinking the chlorine and chemicals to keep algae and stuff down

[kenkickr]

I'd hate to see what the tubes look like after doing a shock treatment to your pool. That's cool man.

[chooky]

I guess the chlorine will keep it all clean and shiny. I guess the greatest danger is that it dissolves my aluminum radiator/heat exchanger! Plenty more at the wreckers.

[johnnyfiive]

Thats insane hah 9/10

[ZenZimZaliben]

Very creative!

But is 3.8Ghz really the highest you can achieve with all that? Peltier, WaterCooled with a swimming pool for a res, all submerged in oil? I would think that E8400 would be cruising at 4.0+ ghz?

[chooky]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

Very creative!

But is 3.8Ghz really the highest you can achieve with all that? Peltier, WaterCooled with a swimming pool for a res, all submerged in oil? I would think that E8400 would be cruising at 4.0+ ghz?

That would be great but believe me I have tried everything to get it stable at 4.0 ghz and just can't. I guess I got a dud something!

[ZenZimZaliben]

Have you asked for help around here? The XFX780i is capable of pushing a Quad easily to 475FSB, so it should be able to hit dang close to 500FSB on a Core 2. Maybe can help, seems like you have so much potential that isn't being used.

[h3llb3nd4]

OOO did you get the idea from pudget systems?

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

Originally Posted by ZenZimZaliben

Have you asked for help around here? The XFX780i is capable of pushing a Quad easily to 475FSB, so it should be able to hit dang close to 500FSB on a Core 2. Maybe can help, seems like you have so much potential that isn't being used.

Able to push it to 500.. cant make it stable though.

[Binge]

Fun but pool chems will destroy copper. Good idea.

[chooky]

Thanks for all the kind words guys! I can get it to boot at 4.0ghz but can't get it stable.

Here is an Everest info while running Prime95 small FFT's:

Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Professional x64 Edition 5.2.3790 (Win2003 Retail)


--------[ Overclock ]---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CPU Properties:
CPU Type DualCore Intel Core 2 Duo E8400
CPU Alias Wolfdale
CPU Stepping C0
Engineering Sample No
CPUID CPU Name Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
CPUID Revision 00010676h
CPU VID 1.2250 V

CPU Speed:
CPU Clock 3869.7 MHz (original: 3000 MHz, overclock: 29%)
CPU Multiplier 9x
CPU FSB 430.0 MHz (original: 333 MHz, overclock: 29%)
Memory Bus 547.2 MHz
DRAM:FSB Ratio 14:11

CPU Cache:
L1 Code Cache 32 KB per core
L1 Data Cache 32 KB per core
L2 Cache 6 MB (On-Die, ECC, ASC, Full-Speed)

Motherboard Properties:
Motherboard ID 09/09/2008-XFX-6A61IY03C-00
Motherboard Name XFX MB-N780-ISH9 (2 PCI, 1 PCI-E x1, 3 PCI-E x16, 4 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Dual Gigabit LAN, IEEE-1394)

Chipset Properties:
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce 780i SLI
Memory Timings 5-5-5-15 (CL-RCD-RP-RAS)
Command Rate (CR) 2T
DIMM1: Kingston 2G-UDIMM 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-18 @ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 @ 200 MHz)
DIMM2: Kingston 2G-UDIMM 2 GB DDR2-800 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-18 @ 400 MHz) (4-4-4-12 @ 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 @ 200 MHz)

BIOS Properties:
System BIOS Date 09/09/08
Video BIOS Date 12/24/07
Award BIOS Type Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Award BIOS Message (7B1N2P08) XFX nForce 780i 3-Way SLI
DMI BIOS Version P5P

Graphics Processor Properties:
Video Adapter Asus EN8800GT
GPU Code Name G92GT (PCI Express 2.0 x16 10DE / 0611, Rev A2)
GPU Clock (Geometric Domain) 691 MHz (original: 600 MHz, overclock: 15%)
GPU Clock (Shader Domain) 1674 MHz (original: 1500 MHz, overclock: 12%)
Memory Clock 993 MHz (original: 900 MHz, overclock: 10%)

Temperatures:
Motherboard 29 °C (84 °F)
CPU 60 °C (140 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #1 59 °C (138 °F)
CPU #1 / Core #2 60 °C (140 °F)
SPP 51 °C (124 °F)
MCP 47 °C (117 °F)
GPU1: GPU Diode 52 °C (126 °F)
GPU2: GPU Diode 53 °C (127 °F)

Voltage Values:
CPU Core 1.37 V
+3.3 V 3.20 V
+5 V 4.92 V
+12 V 12.09 V
+5 V Standby 4.85 V
VBAT Battery 3.06 V
3.3V Dual 3.20 V
FSB VTT 1.38 V
DIMM 2.20 V

haha pool cooled, im giving you the nobel prize for ingenuity 10/10

Voted 10/10, because "pool cooled system" is one of a million, and I guess I have to search a long time to see something similar.

[chooky]

Got my PC running BF2142 stable at 4Ghz at last. I was poking around the OC forums and a guy reckoned he had no trouble getting 4Ghz with 500FSB and X8 multiplier. I had been running X9 multiplier to keep the FSB down. So I tried it and it works great! 4Ghz gets me into >19000 3DMark06 3DMarks http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=10524743

I havn't pushed it any further yet!

[ex-dohctor]

Wicked!

[DaMulta]

One of the coolest mods I've seen in a while

10/10

[PEPE3D]

I voted 2/10 because:

It is an abortion.