How to Build an Oil-Cooled Aquarium PC

Systm is the Do It Yourself show designed for the common geek who wants to quickly and easily learn how to dive into the latest and hottest tech projects. We will help you avoid pitfalls and get your project up and running fast.

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Thinking of taking to PC cooling to the next level? Check out this video and watch as the staff of Systm build a computer inside of an aquarium filled with mineral oil. This surpasses the efficiency of water cooling, although it may not be the most convenient setup.

From Revision3:

We've done some serious air cooling and water cooling of PCs... but we've never immersed one in oil.

So we jumped at the chance to drop one of our PC into Puget Systems Aquarium Module, build out a nifty looking aquatic PC, and see for ourselves what it does for CPU cooling.

The results? Better than we expected, but not nearly as good as we could get if we added in a pump and radiator!

If you can, buy your mineral oil in bulk from a vet or farm co-op... anyplace that sells supplies for horses. In the city we spent over $100 buying 42 16oz bottles, about twice what it would have cost in gallon bottles. Owch!