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Mineral Oil Cooling and Cleaning
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Mineral Oil Cooling and Cleaning

randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

Anyone have any experience using mineral oil for cooling a PC / Server / Rig? How do you clean that stuff?

Comments

  • If you're talking about circulation, I can't think of a reason to use oil over water.

    If you're talking about immersion, it'll slowly seep into unsealed components like capacitors and flip-chip dies.

    My previous life was at an oil company where I spent a lot of time in their laboratory. Viscosity testing of oil requires heating it to specific temperatures, which was done with an oil bath. The oil got nasty over time and required specific additives to prevent growth of bacteria in it. Something to keep in mind there. Oils made specifically for the usage like transformer oil might have a growth inhibitor in it already.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    @Damian said:
    If you're talking about circulation, I can't think of a reason to use oil over water.

    If you're talking about immersion, it'll slowly seep into unsealed components like capacitors and flip-chip dies.

    My previous life was at an oil company where I spent a lot of time in their laboratory. Viscosity testing of oil requires heating it to specific temperatures, which was done with an oil bath. The oil got nasty over time and required specific additives to prevent growth of bacteria in it. Something to keep in mind there. Oils made specifically for the usage like transformer oil might have a growth inhibitor in it already.

    I was thinking about immersion. It sounds great from a cooking perspective but the idea of handling oily gear is unappealing. Water cooling has limited capacity in a DC setting unless you have a large system to send that water outside for cooling. Which is complicated.

  • WSSWSS Member

    The best part is when you're having a 'hard to go' day, you can just pop the cap on your GPU, down some scalding hot goop, and shit yourself within a few hours to a day.

    It's completely skipping the whole line at the kebab shop!

  • randvegeta said: Water cooling has limited capacity in a DC setting unless you have a large system to send that water outside for cooling.

    It's not that difficult at a 2U+ form factor. See ciaratech.com/index-en.html for examples and https://ebay.com/itm/302546452489 has an internal picture where you can see the layout.

  • randvegeta said: How do you clean that stuff?

    You don't, once it's been oiled - it's sacrificed to the petroleum gods.

  • PUSHR_VictorPUSHR_Victor Member, Host Rep

    If you'll be submerging stuff, make sure to be aware of the capillary effect unless all is sealed well. The oil always goes up the cables and makes a mess. Also, some rubber compounds deteriorate over time because of it.

  • I use mineral oil every day in lab; would first clean with papertowels, then rinse with dichloromethane.

  • FHRFHR Member, Host Rep

    Czech provider Wedos.cz has been testing immersion oil cooling for few years. Seems they have figured it out.

  • It's not worth it, really.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    @Damian said:

    randvegeta said: Water cooling has limited capacity in a DC setting unless you have a large system to send that water outside for cooling.

    It's not that difficult at a 2U+ form factor. See ciaratech.com/index-en.html for examples and https://ebay.com/itm/302546452489 has an internal picture where you can see the layout.

    Still need to dissipate the heat. That might help keep the CPU a bit cooler but the server room temperature won't change. Need a solution that keeps everything at outside Temp.

  • WSSWSS Member

    @randvegeta said:
    Still need to dissipate the heat. That might help keep the CPU a bit cooler but the server room temperature won't change. Need a solution that keeps everything at outside Temp.

    Put it outside.

  • Have seen solutions where a big ass radiator was put into a rack door, cold water running through it. Less chance of a leak fucking up your expensive hardware, and if it fails, the server can still run for quite a while on its built-in aircooling. Also, server internals dont need to change.

    Put a big ass radiator-like surface on the roof, spray it with some water on the really hot days (evaporation removes more heat) and you're done.

  • randvegetarandvegeta Member, Host Rep

    teamacc said: Put a big ass radiator-like surface on the roof, spray it with some water on the really hot days (evaporation removes more heat) and you're done.

    Ehh... In HK, most DC's aren't in their OWN buildings. They normally occupy a few floors, a floor, or part of a floor, like us. So we have no roof access, and there are several floors above us which would make having roof access pretty much meaningless for the purpose of cooling.

    If we turn the A/C off, it would easily hit 60C in the server room. I don't think water cooling on the CPUs would help much. If we could pump that water through some large radiators sitting outside our windows, blowing a fan over it and having a large tank of water to maximise thermal load, then we could probably keep the water temperature at a reasonable level. But that's a pretty complex system of pipes that would have to go into hundreds of servers, and ultimately it only cools the CPUs, and not the other components, which still generate heat. I suppose it should mean less work for the A/C...

  • WSSWSS Member

    ..at least until KJ Ill decides that HK is in collusion with the US and decides to take you out.

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