Submersing a rig - page 5. | Bitcointalksearch.org

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 06, 2012, 02:20:24 AM

I never really understood the draw of watercooling myself. If you have a lot of money to burn, I guess.

Or other things are more important than simply pure performance at any noise level.

If you want max performance at cheapest possible performance then nothing beats air. Crank the fans up so it sounds like an industrial band saw and it can't be beat.

I have 4 rigs in the garage running like that. In my office I also have a workstation w/ 4x 5970 in a closed case which is quieter than a desk fan. In the winter in quietly produces 3.1GH and dumps 4000 BTU into the room. In the summer I move the radiator outside (though window) and it dumps the 4000 BTU outside the house.

SgtSpike

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Quote from: chromeguy on January 05, 2012, 08:38:51 PM

Quote from: SgtSpike on January 05, 2012, 08:20:12 PM

Quote from: chromeguy on January 05, 2012, 07:21:38 PM

i would rig it similar to current watercooled PC systems. using water as a heatsink, complete with pumps & radiator (or pipe it outside to your hottub)

otherwise you need to fork out huge bucks for the fully submersible oil solution like those guys did with that supercomputer.

If I understand you correctly, you mean pumping oil through a watercooling system?

If so, that's a very bad idea. Mineral oil has much worse heat conduction than water. You'd be making a liquid cooling system that is much more expensive than water cooling, and also much less efficient.

lol no, just watercooling.
which, imo, is an awful lot of mucking around to achieve slightly better cooling than a big heatsink.

I have looked into active cooling (peltiers) but there are condensation issues & they also suck alot of power on their own.

better really to just underclock until peak mh/$/power efficency & just keep buying more and more of them, rather than pressing one unit harder & harder??

Oh, watercooling, but using a pool as a reservoir then? That would work, so long as you kept your pumps and lines nice and free from algae and such.

I never really understood the draw of watercooling myself. If you have a lot of money to burn, I guess.

chromeguy

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Quote from: SgtSpike on January 05, 2012, 08:20:12 PM

Quote from: chromeguy on January 05, 2012, 07:21:38 PM

i would rig it similar to current watercooled PC systems. using water as a heatsink, complete with pumps & radiator (or pipe it outside to your hottub)

otherwise you need to fork out huge bucks for the fully submersible oil solution like those guys did with that supercomputer.

If I understand you correctly, you mean pumping oil through a watercooling system?

If so, that's a very bad idea. Mineral oil has much worse heat conduction than water. You'd be making a liquid cooling system that is much more expensive than water cooling, and also much less efficient.

lol no, just watercooling.
which, imo, is an awful lot of mucking around to achieve slightly better cooling than a big heatsink.

I have looked into active cooling (peltiers) but there are condensation issues & they also suck alot of power on their own.

better really to just underclock until peak mh/$/power efficency & just keep buying more and more of them, rather than pressing one unit harder & harder??

SgtSpike

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Quote from: chromeguy on January 05, 2012, 07:21:38 PM

i would rig it similar to current watercooled PC systems. using water as a heatsink, complete with pumps & radiator (or pipe it outside to your hottub)

otherwise you need to fork out huge bucks for the fully submersible oil solution like those guys did with that supercomputer.

If I understand you correctly, you mean pumping oil through a watercooling system?

If so, that's a very bad idea. Mineral oil has much worse heat conduction than water. You'd be making a liquid cooling system that is much more expensive than water cooling, and also much less efficient.

RandyFolds

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Quote from: chromeguy on January 05, 2012, 07:21:38 PM

i would rig it similar to current watercooled PC systems. using water as a heatsink, complete with pumps & radiator (or pipe it outside to your hottub)

otherwise you need to fork out huge bucks for the fully submersible oil solution like those guys did with that supercomputer.

The big bucks aren't for the fully submersible solution, they are for the media that you do the submersing in. Standard computer parts, aside from platter hard drives and optical drives can all take the plunge without issue.

chromeguy

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i would rig it similar to current watercooled PC systems. using water as a heatsink, complete with pumps & radiator (or pipe it outside to your hottub)

otherwise you need to fork out huge bucks for the fully submersible oil solution like those guys did with that supercomputer.

SgtSpike

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Quote from: elrodvoss on January 05, 2012, 07:02:51 PM

I have actually looked into Oil submersion cases for several years and done some tests with them as well.

Ive never had the guts to drop 1200 computer system into a vat of oil, mostly that once you do, it takes ALOT of clean up afterwards and voids about every warranty there is.

A good site that has made custom cases for oil cooled systems is:

http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

They been doing it for a while and has gone from a modified fish tank to a fully customized case.

You can drop anything into the oil except anything that has a physical motor that spins. So Fans, Hard Drives, CD/DVD Drives, etc. You can drop in the motherboard, SSD, CPU, RAM, GPU, even the PSU (the fan is only to cool the heat sinks in the PSU). Plus you wont get shocked.

So you could get a big plastic tub, put your system into the tub and start filling the tub with oil and it will keep working. You still need something to circulate the oil or you will get hot spots and the oil will start to heat up. Now you put your rig inside a big aluminum box with fins and that would keep it "cooler".

The site above will have some nice videos that may impress you.

-elrodvoss

Well, I can see why a HDD or CD/DVD drive wouldn't work (HDD needs to be air inside, and there's those holes that say "DO NOT PLUG", and CD/DVD is obvious), but there's no reason you can't have a couple of fans running inside the system, including the one in the PSU. It won't hurt the fans. There's plenty enough oil to keep the fan motors cool, plus free lifetime lubrication!

DeathAndTaxes

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Gerald Davis

Quote from: ?? on ??

Guys... Im pretty sure he wants to put it in a water proof box. And sink into a pool of Really cold water

That would do nothing. The rig would cook inside the insulating air. Air is a horrible heat transfer mechanism. I mean horrible. Insulation isn't what keeps your house warm. Insulation just traps air which is amazingly good insulator.

elrodvoss

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I have actually looked into Oil submersion cases for several years and done some tests with them as well.

Ive never had the guts to drop 1200 computer system into a vat of oil, mostly that once you do, it takes ALOT of clean up afterwards and voids about every warranty there is.

A good site that has made custom cases for oil cooled systems is:

http://www.pugetsystems.com/submerged.php

They been doing it for a while and has gone from a modified fish tank to a fully customized case.

You can drop anything into the oil except anything that has a physical motor that spins. So Fans, Hard Drives, CD/DVD Drives, etc. You can drop in the motherboard, SSD, CPU, RAM, GPU, even the PSU (the fan is only to cool the heat sinks in the PSU). Plus you wont get shocked.

So you could get a big plastic tub, put your system into the tub and start filling the tub with oil and it will keep working. You still need something to circulate the oil or you will get hot spots and the oil will start to heat up. Now you put your rig inside a big aluminum box with fins and that would keep it "cooler".

The site above will have some nice videos that may impress you.

-elrodvoss

byronbb

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HODL OR DIE

lol from youtube comments:

put 4 gtx 480, overclock them, and then you would be able to make french fries in it.

jake262144

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Quote from: ?? on ??

The problem with outdoor cooling is dirt and condensation, but a sealed oil submerged computer could be put outside into brutally cold weather. Some very inhospitable places could become prime data centers.

...until you need to hot-swap a hard drive double-quick

Quote from: PrintCoins on January 04, 2012, 04:58:18 PM

Wouldn't the surface area of the oil and tank quickly dissipate the heat? If you turn off a deep frier, its temperature drops pretty fast (if not insulated).

Dissipate a few hundred Watts (at best) worth of heat by surface area? Surely you must be joking.

Are we supposed to have a sensible thread here or some goddarned fantasy?

RandyFolds

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Quote from: casascius on January 04, 2012, 02:30:45 PM

I would expect that even if you started out with pure water, that enough substance would dissolve off the equipment and into the water to make it not stay pure for very long. It takes very little impurity to make water conductive. You would need an endless stream of distilled water.

Deionized water is a very aggressive solvent, meaning that it will strip things right out of the air. It is pretty much instantly ionized when you put it into a container unless it is quality borosilicate.

SgtSpike

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Guys... Im pretty sure he wants to put it in a water proof box. And sink into a pool of Really cold water

I'm pretty sure not, since he specifically mentions "pure" water.

P4man

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Thats easy. Fill your hot tub with mineral/baby oil. Seriously, think about it Cheesy

casascius

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The Casascius 1oz 10BTC Silver Round (w/ Gold B)

I have an outdoor hot tub that consumes lots of electricity... if I had a feasible way to dump my mining output into the hot tub (heat I already want to pay for), I would still be mining. (And yes I could probably rig my video cards with copper tubing i.e. DIY watercooling, but it's not a worthwhile priority for me.)

P4man

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Quote from: PrintCoins on January 04, 2012, 04:58:18 PM

Wouldn't the surface area of the oil and tank quickly dissipate the heat? If you turn off a deep frier, its temperature drops pretty fast (if not insulated).

Yeah, but you dont keep the miner turned off, do you?

People have tested this in aquaria, and even standard gaming PCs with a single videocard will heat up the oil to 50+C.
edit look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXdvHA3tr5U

Cant tell what videocard that is, but its either IGP or something really lowend. After a few hours he stopped the test when the oil reached 50C.
An 800+W mining rig will probably make it literally boil.

A square box just doesnt have enough surface area and no airflow over it to get rid of that kind of heat. Hermetically seal your mining PC and see what happens. Nothing good I assure you (even though an alu case is a far better heatconductor than a plexiglass one)

PrintCoins

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Quote from: jake262144 on January 04, 2012, 03:08:28 PM

Quote from: P4man on January 04, 2012, 02:47:50 PM

A radiator will be absolutely crucial. Otherwise you will just be making a large fryolator to fry french fries in.

"fryolator", beautifully said P4

Robokhr, you transfer the heat from the rig to the oil tank. Now what? The heat will build up unless you transfer it away.

Wouldn't the surface area of the oil and tank quickly dissipate the heat? If you turn off a deep frier, its temperature drops pretty fast (if not insulated).

jake262144

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Quote from: P4man on January 04, 2012, 02:47:50 PM

A radiator will be absolutely crucial. Otherwise you will just be making a large fryolator to fry french fries in.

"fryolator", beautifully said P4

Robokhr, you transfer the heat from the rig to the oil tank. Now what? The heat will build up unless you transfer it away.

P4man

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Quote from: PrintCoins on January 04, 2012, 02:41:07 PM

It doesn't look like the radiator is needed, but just helps a little more.

A radiator will be absolutely crucial. Otherwise you will just be making a large fryolator to fry french fries in.

PrintCoins

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Quote from: smracer on January 04, 2012, 02:32:34 PM

Why does that guy that submersed his computer in mineral oil still have the fans running?

You need need to circulate the heat away from things. Instead of pushing air, they are pushing oil. Fans don't cool things (even in air) they move the heat that builds around your devices away. Oil will pull the heat out of your devices quicker.

A good thing to note in the video is that this is perfectly silent. This is probably a blessing to many miners that have a continual din in the background.

It doesn't look like the radiator is needed, but just helps a little more.

Keep in mind, your room that you have this in will still be exactly as hot as before. This just makes the local area around the chips drop to the ambient temperature in the room faster. (Rules of thermodynamics still apply).

Interestingly, this probably would make running a rig outside a better option. Put an inch of space below your hardware in the tank for any possible accumulated water, put a lid on it, and it should be able to weather the outside world better than a machine not suspended in an oil bath. (But please, keep it out of direct sun.)

Topic: Submersing a rig - page 5. (Read 5768 times)