This is a mineral oil submerged computer. Mineral oil is a liquid that looks and behaves like water but does not conduct electricity, hence why it is safe to run electronics inside it. The mineral oil also aids to control the temperature of the entire system, by soaking up and removing heat away from hot components like the CPU.
You might have already seen my first computer, which was also an aquarium computer. Something mighty unfortunate happened to it… This new aquarium computer is built with all the lessons learned from the first. Please continue reading to find out the details
Remember my Aquarium Computer? I thought the SSD looked boring, so I put a old-school HDD inside with all the guts exposed, and wired it electrically to spin and swing when there is hard drive activity (when the HDD activity LED blinks).
My trusty laptop is showing its age. 8 GB of RAM is not enough for the amount of 3D stuff I do now, and it can’t run the latest games at all any more. Since I got a full time job now (instead of a constantly travelling student), it’s time to get a desktop PC (first PC build, yay). But the process of building a PC is pretty boring, it’s just an exercise of picking out compatible parts for the right price. I decided to make it slightly more interesting by submerging the entire computer in a fish tank full of mineral oil.
Short Story (long story later, technical details and stuff):
Intel i7 4790S, Nvidia GTX 970, H97M chipset, Corsair CX600M. Built onto a polycarbonate tray that is then dipped into a fish tank full of mineral oil. Fancy features like bubbling treasure chest, NeoPixel LED strip, oil pump+radiator, temperature monitoring, removable SSD.
