I deep fried my computer...

Sc4freak

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(click on the thumbnails for a larger pic)

I don't know why I'm posting this, I just thought I might share one of my stories with you guys. I had recently read a few articles on submersion cooling, where you take your computer and dump it into a tub of non-electrically-conductive oil. It seemed to work really well, and was cheap. So I saw it as a type of poor man's water-cooling.

I bought a large aluminium oven tray and 9 litres of canola oil.



Since I didn't really want to screw up my good computer, I tested it out on an old Pentium II 266 with Nvidia Riva TNT2 Ultra. I placed the motherboard in the tray, and began pouring canola oil all over it, until it was partially submerged.



And it worked. The computer booted into Windows 98 fine, and I even started up good old Quake 3 and started playing.



But I soon became hungry for a fried snack - and since I had used all the oil in the house I couldn't fry myself anything. Then I had a brilliant idea. Why not use the oil that the computer's in?

I placed an electric stove under the aluminum tray, and turned it to full blast. Soon, the oil reached frying temperature and I dumped a few chips into there. Meanwhile, the computer was still happily chugging along running Quake 3.



Eventually, though, the strain of 120 degrees C ambient temperature and the load of Quake 3 caused the computer to overheat and crash. I rebooted it, and it loaded back into windows. Although Quake 3 still crashed when trying to play. At that point, the chips were ready. I turned off the heat and enjoyed my snack while I waited for the oil to cool so I could use the computer again.



Mmmm... toxicated fries...
 
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A camera recording would have been funnier to watch :)

PS nice row of shoes...
 
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I applaud you just for the sheer pure geekiness of the pursuit/endeavor, but...

The cook in me has to point out that the temp must have been way too low still for tasty fries and I'll bet you dollars to donuts those puppies were too soft & greasy. ;)

(Yeah, I make a lot of fried stuff. :rolleyes: )
 
We did this about 6 years ago. We had a fairly popular website called eimod.com, which was in the vain of HardOCP and Toms. It focused on overclocking and modding, when it wasnt such a big thing. Bah, if only we had'nt been two unemployed 16 year olds, we might have been able to afford that final server bill that put us out of business. You might have been posting this on OUR forum then. Such is life.

Anyway, we tried loads of different oils, from sunflower, to bike chain stuff, to car oil, to this really funky special oil that they use to cool electricity sub-stations. Only the "real" (and very expensive) stuff actually worked.

We also tried "poor man's LN2" cooling too. We got hold of one of those mini-bar fridges, and modded it to cool to the level of its little freezer, then modded it some more to hold the actual computer (sans case). Yeah, it was big, but it cooled my K62 400 to 0C rather than 33C. Biggest problem was condenstation. We managed to get hold of some industrial grade electronic safe spray on stuff that stopped water. Just had to remember to empty the bottom of the fridge every couple of days, cos it condensed quite a lot in there.

We went over and above every hardware site at the time. We had an RIP gallery before anyone else, where people would kill their machines in specatular ways and send up photos. Bullet holes in Celerons, sticks of dynamite in CDROM drives, stuff like that.

I miss EIMod :(

Edit : I actually managed to find the page where we note that other sites were copying our ideas :)

Quote : "We at EI are leading the field. All you have to do is look around the internet and see how other so-called 'professional' sites are blatantly ripping off our ideas. Tweaktown have 'damaged' a P75 (phew that's old). It looks suprisingly like our own, and very excellant RIP gallery."
 
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I seriously hope you didn't ACTUALLY eat any of those french fries. Computers, and as an extension, electronics in general, contain an amazingly large range of scarily toxic substances, many of which I assume will dissolve more or less readily into (hot) cooking oil.


Besides, anyone actually considering using cooking oil to immersion-cool a PC - DON'T!

The oil will oxidize (as well as likely become infested with various microorganisms like bacteria, yeasts and molds), and not only start to smell incredibly bad, it will also turn gummy-like in consistency. Just dipping it once into the oil pretty much means you ruined that component, as it's unlikely all traces of oil will be removeable...
 
Just dipping it once into the oil pretty much means you ruined that component, as it's unlikely all traces of oil will be removeable...

shouldn't subsequently dipping it into ~boiling-temp water remover the oil? - oil should surface on top of the water eventually.
 
Interesting endeavour. :D

You should note though, that normal, cooking oil is prone to peroxidation and in a month or two, it'll get all sticky and also conductive. So - the only usable solution would be either having the oil in nitrogen atmosphere or having paraffin oil (saturated higher (C8-C15) hydrocarbons).
 
shouldn't subsequently dipping it into ~boiling-temp water remover the oil? - oil should surface on top of the water eventually.
I wouldn't assume that to be the case, considering how oil might creep into small crevices/spaces, such as on the backside of ICs, inbetween component pins and sockets etc. Besides, do you really want to BOIL your electronics for a prolonged period of time? :p I dunno, but I'm not sure if caps and stuff really like that...
 
I betcha could get most of it off in a tub filled with a heavy grease cutting dishwashing liquid/hot water mix then rinsing in hot water.

(I can clean anything in my sink damn it! ;) )
 
That's exactly what I did. The components have been rinsed and are drying in the laundry. I'd be surprised if they still worked. :LOL:
 
Did you try the fries?
I hope you didn't...
That would be very bad for you!
A good portion of that motherboard is soldered with lead.
 
dont listen to these fools. enjoy your fries, put some mayo and lots of salt on it.. that will kill the lead and other toxic stuff :devilish:
 
That's exactly what I did. The components have been rinsed and are drying in the laundry. I'd be surprised if they still worked. :LOL:
Why not? What you did is about what is done to them before you buy them. Just make sure they're dry before you turn the power back on.

Solid state electronics can take large amounts of all kinds of punishment, when not turned on.
 
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