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I just can't figure out why anyone would think that this is real, just b/c he's got his computer parts dunked in a tank.

As has been said before this is not a new trick by any means. Any non-conductive oil will work, in this case sunflower oil. If the tank is kept sealed then there is much less chance of the oil going rancid (if you are using a non-mineral oil). One thing that has been mentioned here that is not true: You CAN'T use distilled water as it will tend to leech ions from anywhere it can get them from, eventually become conductive and fry your components.

Also you can't submerge the hard disks in the oil as they are not completely sealed - there is a hole with a microfilter to keep the air pressure equal to the outside pressure and this will allow oil to get in.

The reason this is used commercially is because oil has a higher specific heat capacity than air - also it ensures that all components can be cooled well. There is also less noise and no dust can be drawn into the system from nasty fans. The oil itself can be pumped away to be cooled by either a radiator or a phase-change system (fridge).

Have a look at this website for some guys who did a similar project using a synthetic ester.

Did they not used to have a stripped TV working in a bath of polyfluorocarbon liquid as part of an infomercial for a PFC lubricant? That's another non-conductive heat removing fluid.

This really works, but organic oils are a bad idea as said before, they fall apart and form a sludge. I use a custom plexiglass box to cool 6 computer powersupplies, which inturn are used to supply power to my thermal electric cooler for my CPU, Northbridge, and GPU. Those powersupplies run at full load, 1050 watts of DC current, they generate alot of heat, and scary voltages, and I have yet to have one short out or burn out. I'll link a website of my setup when I dunk my motherboard in oil, due to the fact that I have horrible condensation/ice buildup on the motherboard due to the -10c to -40c temperatures that my computer runs at. For you nonbelievers, just wait =)

To all the people out there that keep asking "is this possibe" just think about. How isn't it? As stated by i think about at least 8 different people oil is non-conductive (or conducts very little, we should hope) that it wouldn't short circuit the computer components.

One issue i do have with this is that doesn't oil absorb water from the atmosphere? My friends father (total geek) did a test of this about 4 years ago. He got vegetable oil and put it into a cup and has let it sit there up untill now. After 2 years the oil had water molecules mixed inside it from absorption from the atmosphere. Now normally that wouldn't be a problem because water is in fact more dense than oil, but even so after many many years you would still have small amounts of water molecules suspended inside the oil. So im guessing that the "oil computer" has to obviously have its oil changed every so often months. Which would really shit me as i am poor and lazy and don't like to re-do things that i have already set up.

I also read somewhere about someone who put dry ice on the bottom of the oil as to keep the oil cool. Because it sublimes and is never a liquid it would just pass through the oil, whether or not its conductive i have no idea. He overclocked it to about 2 times as fast as the core speed. He eventually poured liquid nitrogen over it and the whole system stopped... Would have been interesting though...

Coolanol is a very very effective oil used to cool down radar jamming equipment. I used to work with it in the Air Force, but on a different plane than the one listed. Coolanol is a heavy duty cooing agent. and yes...it is an oil. it is perhaps the most viscus fluid that I know. one drop on the floor spreads out to several feet.
So, although i do think oil will cool his system, I doubt very much that the fans would operate for very long before burning out do to the viscosity of the vegetable oil.

http://multimediapcs.blogspot.com/2005/07/computer-cooled-with-mineral-oil.html

I started testing cooling using mineral oil. I am still making sure everything will work fine in the oil. I plan on seeing how far I can overclock it.

Ok people, lets try this, oil is not conductive. If it were your car would not run, yes I said your car. The coil for a car is basically a capacitor and stores electricity and is filled with, brace yourself, oil. Also to answer another question, yes it does cool the computer and very well infact. Someone else was inspired by the german guy that did this and this one did it in english as well as took video, so you can see the fans turning even while he's filling it up, so no its not photoshopped.

http://haphazardhacks.blogspot.com/2005/07/ever-since-i-first-saw-oilcomputer-i.html

If any non-conductive material would do, would it be possible to run a computer in a bath of some supercold liquid, such as liquid CO2 maybe, and get the advanatages of superconductivity?

Or is this why they use liquid Nitrogen in some electronic systems?

Man, this isn't a hoax...if you think oil conducts eletricity...think again...oil doe NOT conduct eletricity, it conducts heat though....but i dont think the hdd needs to be heat dissipated though, cause cpu and gpu are generally the only things that require extreme heat dissipation... i dont think the fans even are plugged in in the picture, why would you need fans?

Yeah this is real, but you use mineral oil not veg oil as stated before. I did this myself in 99-01 with an old (Well not that old at the time) Celeron 400.

I got the idea from this site: http://64.45.45.116/index.html

Actully it does work. Olive oil doesn't conduct..

For all non-believers:
1
set up a bowl with tabwater
set up a bowl with oil

2
buy yourrself a voltmeter, wires, battery, lightbulb (small one)

3
make a circuit with the bulb, voltmeter, wires and battery

4
leave two wires unconnected
close the circuit by placing the wire-ends in the water, LET THEM NOT TOUCH EACH OTHER!

5
watch your volt-meter

5b
add salt to the water (1 spoon or so), stire the water

6
step 4, but with oil

7
redo step 5

conclusion: oil does not short-circuit
conclusion 2: oil is an insulator
conclusion 3: added salt in the water = lover insulation (=higher conduction)

WARNING do not try this with ac homepower! you get killed or wounded!

Can anyone say: Science Project? I've tried this a time or two before with older systems (K6 crap). For my upcoming Junior science fair, I'm going to build my old P4 system into a fish tank. I'll use mineral oil and go all out with the fake aquatic plants and fake fish/ light kits. Woot.

how about some kind of adaptor that lets you put
your processor off your mother bord then you could cool it all sorts of ways!

ITS DONE!!! I built my Oil PC! I'll post pics on my homepage, and post that addy here as soon as I can find my digicam. Here are the stats:

1800 mhz Pentium 4
Nvidia Geforce 4 MX420 64 meg video card
256 M/bytes PC2700 DDR RAM
And a measly 6.2 gig hard drive which has just barely enough space for Windows XP Professional and some proggies like winamp and some good MP3s.
No oil yet, waiting a couple of weeks until my HS science fair to fill it up, but it looks really trippy.

Hey. The thing works. But it works WITHOUT any fans. To do this oil tank REMOVE ALL FANS. There is no need for fans with oil.

Besides, assuming the fans don't burn out from the resistance first, wouldn't they just turn oil into vaseline or margarine?

I wonder what he was thinking as he was pouring a bottle of cooking oil all over his new motherboard...