• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

[Case Gallery] mineral oil on the cheap!

shadapar

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
40 (0.01/day)
Location
grand rapids, mi
To view this case mod, go here.



Specs:
Amd Sempron 1250
Gigabyte GA-M61PME-S2P
1GB DDR2 800
Scythe SCORC-1000

Mods:
Modified the eclipse system 3 lid a tad by removing some internal structure supports, removed the red LEDs from the tri color fans, used industrial velcro strips to mount the power supply and hard drives externally and then added some aquarium rock, buried an airstrip in it, routed the cables and hoses behind the motherboard, and filled with 2 gallons of light viscosity mineral oil.

The purpose of this mod was not speed or cooling. Its a pure endurance testbed, I'm looking to see if I can get 2 years of reliable service out of this. I didn't submerge the power supply, as its mainly the motherboard, cpu, and memory I'm intrested in testing at this time. At this time its only running off of an 80Gig WD IDE drive but in the future I'm planning on removing that and adding 2 1TB WD SATA II drives for network video storage. Building one of these new from scratch would run around $425 US dollars including mineral oil and wi-fi card. I built mine on a budget of less than $200 by using a lot of parts I already had on hand, and it still looks good. Besides being a test bed, the Gee Whiz factor has a lot to do with why I built this.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Athlon2K15

HyperVtX™
Joined
Sep 27, 2006
Messages
7,909 (1.24/day)
Location
O-H-I-O
Processor Intel Core i9 11900K
Motherboard MSI Z590 Carbon EK X
Cooling Custom Water
Memory Team DDR4 4000MHz
Video Card(s) ASUS TUF RTX 3080 OC
Storage WD WN850 1TB
Display(s) 43" LG NanoCell 4K 120Hz
Power Supply Asus Thor 1200w
Mouse Asus Strix Evolve
Keyboard Asus Strix Claymore
i like the concept,im not sure i understand the purpose of the fans? sweet job though
 

shadapar

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
40 (0.01/day)
Location
grand rapids, mi
the purpose of the fans is...

....to help to circulate the oil and light the thing up.
 

Athlon2K15

HyperVtX™
Joined
Sep 27, 2006
Messages
7,909 (1.24/day)
Location
O-H-I-O
Processor Intel Core i9 11900K
Motherboard MSI Z590 Carbon EK X
Cooling Custom Water
Memory Team DDR4 4000MHz
Video Card(s) ASUS TUF RTX 3080 OC
Storage WD WN850 1TB
Display(s) 43" LG NanoCell 4K 120Hz
Power Supply Asus Thor 1200w
Mouse Asus Strix Evolve
Keyboard Asus Strix Claymore
thank you for clarifying, i dont know much about the mineral oil setup myself
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 10, 2007
Messages
2,139 (0.35/day)
Location
Austin TX
Processor i9 11900k
Motherboard Maximus XII Apex
Cooling Custom Liquid W/ 360x60 Radiator
Memory 32Gb Team XTREEM ARGB 3600 b-die
Video Card(s) Waterblocked MSI RTX 4070
Storage Intel 900p 480Gb + 4tb Intel 670p
Display(s) LG C2 evo 42"
Case Geometric Future Model 8
Audio Device(s) HD58X + Sennheiser GSX 1000
Power Supply Corsair RM 750x
Mouse Steelseries Aerox 5 wired
Keyboard Akko Mod 007b HE
VR HMD Samsung Odyssey+
Software Windows 11
Gave you a 7 for the nice way you set it up, i like seeing the rocks at the bottom :p i do however think the fans will be the first to go out
 

h3llb3nd4

New Member
Joined
Feb 15, 2009
Messages
3,323 (0.60/day)
Location
Durban, South Africa
System Name My mobo is Laughing at me
Processor E7400
Motherboard P5KPL-E Bios flashed to 0601 (Piece of poo!!)
Cooling Thermalright Ultra 120a
Memory GENERIC 2 GB DDR2 800
Video Card(s) NONE!! Beat that!!
Storage 500GB SAMSUNG SATAII, 250GB SAMSUNG SATAII and o'l crappy 4gb maxtor
Display(s) ACER X223W Q
Case AEROCOOL ZERODEGREE (planning to mod)
Audio Device(s) REALTEK ONBOARD
Power Supply GIGABYTE 460W
Software Win 7 x86 build 7022
Benchmark Scores Super Pi 1m 17.000 :(
Ahh so you saw what they did in pudget systems... nice!
 

shadapar

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
40 (0.01/day)
Location
grand rapids, mi
it's a mini

Mine's a mini though, puget uses the eclipse system 6 which is a 5-6 gallon tank, this is the eclipse 3 which is a 2-3 gallon tank
 
R

Reditus

Guest
Gave you a 7 for the nice way you set it up, i like seeing the rocks at the bottom :p i do however think the fans will be the first to go out

I duno, because when fans have trouble spinning, they get hot and die, bu they are not going to get hot in the oil, so they should be fine.
Will find out tho, lol ;)
 

shadapar

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
40 (0.01/day)
Location
grand rapids, mi
fans

Dunno if they'll fail or not. if they do fail I think it's likely to be because they were $4.99 a piece instead of getting hot. look at it this way...the bearings will always stay lubed....
 
  • Like
Reactions: xvi

newtekie1

Semi-Retired Folder
Joined
Nov 22, 2005
Messages
28,472 (4.25/day)
Location
Indiana, USA
Processor Intel Core i7 10850K@5.2GHz
Motherboard AsRock Z470 Taichi
Cooling Corsair H115i Pro w/ Noctua NF-A14 Fans
Memory 32GB DDR4-3600
Video Card(s) RTX 2070 Super
Storage 500GB SX8200 Pro + 8TB with 1TB SSD Cache
Display(s) Acer Nitro VG280K 4K 28"
Case Fractal Design Define S
Audio Device(s) Onboard is good enough for me
Power Supply eVGA SuperNOVA 1000w G3
Software Windows 10 Pro x64
Instead of the fans, I would have bought a small water-cooling pump, with one hose at the left side of the tank, and the other at the right. This would circulate the oil around the tank.
 

shadapar

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
40 (0.01/day)
Location
grand rapids, mi
I have two pumps somewhere in my house.. I haven't managed to find either. Not to worried about it though, the main test is durability.. when i find it i'll probably hook it in with a radiator because i get asked that a lot. intrestingly enough the airstrip I used is good for dropping the oil temp almost 10C. I found that intresting. I think it wouldn't drop the temp quite so much in a larger tank. I'm considering running a test later (when I have the money, yay me, after 8 years I'm a victim of corporate downsizing at the moment) where I'll buy two tower heatsinks and a hefty pelter and sandwich it with the cold side in the oil and the hot side above.
 

shadapar

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
40 (0.01/day)
Location
grand rapids, mi
parts list

A part's list is below, except I used a different WD HDD and wi-fi card, I already had most of my components or picked them up off of clearence racks. to build mine at cost ($400, I spent way less) you'd need the following:

GIGABYTE GA-M61PME-S2P $50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128383
AMD Sempron LE-1250 CPU $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103189
Transcend JETRAM 2GB $25 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820208283
Scythe SCORC-1000 $50 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185064
LOGISYS Power Supply $30 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817170017
Western Digital Hard Drive $35 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136195
Antec Tricolor Fan times 2 $12 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835209010
wireless card for $17, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166020

Eclipse System 3 Aquarium $48 http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752385
Air pump $6 http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2754091
Airline Tubing $2 http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752198&keepsr=0
Bubble Walls $8 http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752294&keepsr=0
Aquarium Gravel $2 http://www.petsmart.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2752290&keepsr=0

Mineral Oil, 2-3 gallons $37 (for 2) http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp...02|14619|43436?listingPage=true&Special=false

You'll also need 8 1/8" or smaller bolts to mount the fans, some idustrial strength velcro, and the power and reset switches from an existing computer case. you can make one with parts at radio shack, order one for around $25(ridiculous) or buy a whole dang case to get the switchs for $24 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147127 )

Hope you like!
 
Last edited:

shadapar

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
40 (0.01/day)
Location
grand rapids, mi
update

after approx 2 months I developed a class 1 leak, which was the result of a micro fracture in the acrylic. I drained the oil, (messy!) cleaned the case somewhat, especially the leak site, and epoxy sealed the micro frature.(yeah i know silicon is recommended, but my thought process is the epoxy I used is used by my dad, who got the idea from my uncle, who is a plumber, sure its grey but it's water proof and amazingly strong, perfect for a fracture) its currently refilled and appears fine after several hours. note to anyone doing this though, don't store the mineral oil outside if its cold. I booted this guy up and evrest intially reported a CPU core temp of -2C... yea negative two, its sitting at 6C right now and will probably be a bit of a long night as i won't be able to trust the seal til the case is completely warmed up.
 

chooky

New Member
Joined
Mar 23, 2009
Messages
23 (0.00/day)
Location
Brisbane, Australia
System Name My Oil PC
Processor E8400@4000
Motherboard XFX 780i
Cooling 20,000L Swimming Pool
Memory 4GB Kingston 8500 @ 1100
Video Card(s) 2 x Asus 8800GT @ 700/1000
Storage 3 x WD2500AAKS in Raid 0
Display(s) 27" Soniq
Case Fish Tank
Power Supply Silverstone Strider ST60F 600W
Software XP Pro x64 SP2
Benchmark Scores 3DMark06 19000@1024x758
I'll buy two tower heatsinks and a hefty pelter and sandwich it with the cold side in the oil and the hot side above.

I tried this on my oil PC but found that too much condensation was produced. So I put a water block on the hot side and submerged the lot.

 
  • Like
Reactions: xvi
Top