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Using a oil in your PC cooling system
SupraGuy:
There is a good reason why car engines don't use oil in the cooling system.
Think about it. oil seems to provide some obvious advantages. It doesn't freeze, won't boil until MUCH hotter than the engine shoud ever get. Doesn't store oxygen to rust the insides of your engine block, nor does it conduct electricity to have problems with copper/aluminum/iron galvanic transfers, it inherently lubricates moving parts, and on top of all that, it's even lighter than water... And yet the preferred coolant is still water. Why is that? Simple. Because water can hold and transfer larger quantities of thermal enegry faster, so it's a more efficient coolant.
Oil may be superior to air, but would still be inferior to water. The only inportant downside to water is what happens if it leaks, but I believe that with reasonable precautions, that's unlikely to be a big deal.
kitamesume:
the reason why we were talking about oil cooling on a pc to begin with is because of leaks, and the reason why car engines work with water as coolant is because it can be wet with water to begin with, unlike a pc when wet, will go up in smokes.
zat0x91:
--- Quote from: bork on March 11, 2011, 05:54:25 PM ---Nice response.
Some people do not know and will try it because they heard about some talking about it. Not everyone will research what can and cannot be done. I just looked up the two common types of tubing that are used in most cooling systems and pointed out that both are only suitable with water base cooling.
--- End quote ---
Why would you even bother with oil for cooling? You can't run it through a radiator and when running higher end components, it'll just overheat.
Hell, just a single radiator with a silent fan, decent cpu waterblock, and a low powered pump will out perform it easily. High end air coolers like Thermalright will probably do better than low end watercooling kits and obviously oil cooling.
--- Quote from: kitamesume on March 11, 2011, 07:59:18 PM ---the reason why we were talking about oil cooling on a pc to begin with is because of leaks
--- End quote ---
That's why you leak test your computer without it running (jump start psu through paperclip + 24pin for the pump) for at least 48 hours if not more.
Leaks don't magically happen unless you're using terrible compression fittings like Thermaltake or you're feeling risky and run your loop without any clamps. People have done it successfully for long periods of time and still haven't had a leak; you better hope you don't have any sharp turns with your tubing.
You should be running distilled water in your loop with maybe some biocide or silver coil if you don't want bacteria and shit growing in there or you can waste $20 for a bottle of coolant that you're going to be replacing in 6-8 months. So say it gets on your video card, you can just shut off everything immediately, soak it in alcohol and dry it out. There's been numerous amounts of people who have done that with success.
The "danger" of watercooling is greatly exaggerated; it just requires fucking research to be done before hand. Xtremesystems has an amazing watercooling section that I've looked at for the past four years.
Lupin:
--- Quote from: kitamesume on March 11, 2011, 07:59:18 PM ---the reason why we were talking about oil cooling on a pc to begin with is because of leaks, and the reason why car engines work with water as coolant is because it can be wet with water to begin with, unlike a pc when wet, will go up in smokes.
--- End quote ---
Pure water doesn't conduct so nothing get shorted. Submerging your PC in anything with impurities will short components.
rostheferret:
I remember once helping a friend run a cooling system using vegetable oil. Didn't work so well. We burnt the chips in the oil and made the graphics card smoke :( (It was an old system he was trashing anyway, else we wouldn't have done it).
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