Kids, don't do this at home. You have been warned

Feb 25, 2008 11:45 GMT  ·  By

Water cooling has always seemed useless to me, given the fact that I'm not too much of an overclocking fan. It also gives me the impression that water cooling would morph my computer into a car engine with pumps and impeller blades, and this is the last thing I would ask for.

No matter the picked up solution, system cooling seems to be on top of the wave nowadays, but what about decently cooking your entire gaming rig with some mineral oil? Sounds fun? Then have someone strap you on to the chair because the scenes you are about to see are extremely shocking if you are a computer enthusiast.

In order to get a "mineral-oil-cooled" system, you need some basic raw materials you might find in your garage: a transparent-plastic aquarium a little larger than a regular PC case, a motherboard tray to support your model of mobo, some old hardware you would care to sacrifice should anything go wrong (motherboard and power source), a patch of acrylic panel that will be the aquarium's top lid and, of course, lots and lots of mineral oil. Some other household skills are welcome, but you may have a friend do all the dirty work for you.

All you have to do is assemble the computer system inside the aquarium, add some proper lighting, then pour all the mineral oil on top of the hardware. Don't be afraid, it's not gonna blow up, as mineral oil lacks electric conductive capacities, but it will surely render your hardware useless for other designs. Optionally, you can add an extra oxygen pump to create fish-tank-like bubbles, although your computer will do just fine without.

Before proceeding, let me tell you that the best thermal results you're ever going to get are situated around 80 degrees Celsius, but oil is usually used for the opposite of cooling, namely cooking. However, it would add an unique touch to your desktop. The results are shown in the clip below: