Hard drives and water, the saga begins...

Bob_the_lost · Post by **Bob_the_lost** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 4:08 pm

Now, as we all know there are a few ways to silence a hard drive. The premier method is suspension, which works well. The second favourite is mass damping, which works too, but generally results in higher temps and a lot more work.

I read the saga of the two lads who filled a computer with cooking oil a long time back and the recent remake by toms (dont' get me started on that abortion of a "totally silent PC"

). I read the articles and found them interesting, but both times they failed to silence the one part of the computer that always made noise, the HD.

Apart from the obvious problems with electricity and water hard drives have an additional problem, they need to breath. The little "blow hole" as i shall refer to it needs to be unobstructed for the drive to spin properly, possibly due to pressure differentials and all sorts of dull thermodynamics.

Well it struck me that it might be possible to do it anyway, to seal the hard drive in a thin, flexible oil proof container (just in case the HD is not oil-tight), from here to be known as a plastic bag, and then submerge it in oil with a snorkel for the blow hole.

To cut a long story shut it works, i've got a very, very crude system by my feet as i type, the hard drive is imersed in water with a drinking straw providing fresh air to the blow hole. The design needs a lot more work, the eventual plan it to suspend it in the 2 litre icecream tub that it's in now, i will post piccies as this goes on.

Right now if you can picture it the HD is double bagged in and is standing vertically, with the top submerged in the tub and the tops of the bags reaching to the surface. It'll be redone with heavier duty bags and some proper sealant so i can leave it completely submerged soon.

Unfortunatly it's an old, old drive (10Gig quantum fireball) and i can't get a temp reading off it, but it feels warm/lukewarm to the touch as opposed to my conventional drives which are rather warm.

If this all works well then i'll switch the water out for oil, reinforce a fish tank and then get the first (that i've heard of) fully submereged oil cooled computer...

thetoad30 · Post by **thetoad30** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 6:43 pm

Not that I'm counting, but last I've checked I never saw a PSU submerged either... unless I missed something somewhere.

Would be pretty cool if you could do that too.

You're snorkel idea is excellent. That's the first thing I thought of when you said submerge the hard drive. In fact, I'm pretty sure that if you can successfully seal off the hard drive "hole" with a snorkel, you won't need that oil bag. Most drives are air-tight except for the hole, as the hole is needed for pressure changes and temperature expansion/compression. Even this hole is extremely filtered and protected so as not to let in a single spec of dust.

Devonavar · Post by **Devonavar** » Sun Jan 15, 2006 11:53 pm

@thetoad30: This is the one that I know of (done by Rusty075 on this forum). PSU was submerged along with everything else.

@Bob_the_lost:

Is it possible that the Fireball just runs cooler because it doesn't spin as quickly as modern drives? What is the RPM spec for that drive?

Stephen7372 · Post by **Stephen7372** » Mon Jan 16, 2006 1:10 am

check this out for a submerged PC

http://www.house117.co.uk/oilpc

ronrem · Post by **ronrem** » Tue Jan 17, 2006 11:52 am

Last summer we had a fun thread,somone had done an oilbath using Olive Oil. I'd suggested some basil and garlic so it would smell tasty. Perhaps you could tell the approximate temp by smell? I also suggested a snorkeled enclosure,a sealed box. i wasn't willing to trust a plastic bag. Plastics don't always hold up to oil well. I would probably settle for a rectangular tupperware type box. 1/2" clear plastic tube is sold at most hardware stores. That's the snorkel. the IDE cable would ideally be the round type,the secong generation can be SATA, The container would need some cuts for the connectors,and they then all need to be well sealed in,likewise the lid needs to be sealed in. Regard it as a permanent assembly,use a molex extension. Seal with CONSTRUCTION ADHESIVE,the kind applied with a caulk tube. Glue the lid good,put plenty where the snorkel and the wiring cable enter the box. Give it at least 24 hr to cure. You have an oil ready HDD.

The box will likely have enough air to float,so you will want to tie it down to the floor of the oil tank.

Badger · Post by **Badger** » Sat Jan 21, 2006 9:26 pm

I've had the air holes on both my hard drives blocked off for some time by hot/cold gel packs sandwiching the drives inside an aluminum enclosure. Temps are lower than sitting bare in the case.

I think if you do want to submerge them, the best way would be to go as ronrem was saying, I think... stick the drives in one sealed enclosure then submerge that enclosure in oil or water or what have you.

~El~Jefe~ · Post by **~El~Jefe~** » Sun Jan 22, 2006 12:20 pm

oil will eventually kill the computer.

this project is for whiney brat computer geeks who are paid off to push products, like Toms.

eventually, it will dissolve something or conduct something somewhere. fill a capacitor, cause resistance and heat to build up in some small electronic. HD's sometimes have breather holes, spindles on the bottom that spin, (the old ones especially).

plus, it will get rancid after a while. Psu's are never submerged, nor do they have to. if you have enough money to waste on doing an oil computer, you then have enough to buy an antec phantom 350 and just have sit in the open air where it will remain cool. 2.5 hd in a steel box suspended, and thats about it I would guess.

shoebox9 · Post by **shoebox9** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 4:02 am

With all respect El~Jefe, that was a clueless post.

Firstly, oil cooling can be VERY inexpensive- secondly a PC won't necessarily disolve.

Proving both points- a German guy has had a PC (including the PSU) submerged in the cheapest canola oil he could find, for almost 2 years now. Still works perfectly.

The h/drives have always been the tricky part- and the oil needs to be cooled (ie pump oil through external rad, mount TEC to side to tank, etc) if submerging the h/drive in a sealed enclosure. Otherwise the drives get cooked in the oil. This has happened even with lowish heat CPUs in a small fish tank.

Drive enclosures don't need a snorkle as long as they have a moderate volume of air, or are made from flexiable plastic. Air happily expands/contracts, which is all the "breathe" hole in the drive is designed to allow. (The air inside the drives expands as the drive runs/heats.)

So- just use either a metal container with a bit of space, or a plastic one and seal it up. If the container is plastic it will flex anyway, although a metal one would conduct the heat away better. Metal external drive cases have been used before with no problems apart from either cooking the drive in 50dC oil, or not sealing up the ends/cords well enough. Get these bits right- and you have a totally, totally silent system.

Cheers,
Shoebox9

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 1:36 am

sorry if this is riddiculous, i think i still have some alcohol in my system from last night

,

but what would happen if you put a computer in a refridgerator?

shoebox9 · Post by **shoebox9** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 2:49 am

I've done it, as have lots of others.

The problem is most fridges don't have anywhere near enough cooling power to handle a modern (ie 200-400w heat load) PC. They are built for cooling non heat producing stuff.

It could work if you water cooled your CPU externally to the fridge- it could make for a very quiet setup.

The second problem is condensation- but this is poorly understood and greatly over-rated as a problem. The only time it would occur is if you open the fridge door with everything still chilled. Simply turn off your system & wait till it warms up (ie overnight) before opening the door, and you'd get no condensation issues. Before people bag this out- I've tried it, please don't toss sh%t if you haven't.

Putting your PC in a freezer and phase change cooling the CPU externally to the freezer (ie Vapochill sits next to a freezer with a whole drilled for in it's side for the flexiable pipe), would be a great way to improve over clocks, but the phase change community don't seem to have realised this yet.

Cheers,
Shoebox9

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 3:27 am

Putting your PC in a freezer and phase change cooling the CPU externally to the freezer (ie Vapochill sits next to a freezer with a whole drilled for in it's side for the flexiable pipe), would be a great way to improve over clocks, but the phase change community don't seem to have realised this yet.

I think the phase change community (is there such a thing?) are well aware that low temps are necessary for insane overclocks (see THG's liquid nitrogen experiment), but probably need their freezers to put food in. Also, most hard drives aren't rated to operate below 0 degrees C.

Also, how would you run all the cables from the computer to the monitor (which is presumably outside the fridge)? You would have to drill holes in the fridge walls, which would compromise its cooling ability.

shoebox9 · Post by **shoebox9** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 3:49 am

Drill holes, insert tube, plaster/silcone gaps around tubes, insert cables through tubes, plaster gaps inside tubes (this way it's still not hard to change cables later if needed).

Even a good chest freezer would probably not cool a cutting edge rig without CPU heat below zero. They just aren't built for it, but would achieve a better result than a fridge the same size.

The benefits would be-

* Rest of system say 5dC, meaning better O/C potential from m/board, RAM, & GPU bits.

* Greatly REDUCED condensation issies due to most of the water vapor in the sealed packet of air already having condensated onto the frezzer's cooling plate. (Just remember to let the system warm up again before opening the door.) Condensation issues are one of the serious O/C'ers main headaches.

Cheers,
Shoebox9

nici · Post by **nici** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 4:00 am

You could always seal the holes you drilled in the fridge after putting the cables thru them.. But i dont think a fridge is a good idea from a silence point of view, they are pretty noisy after all. Even the most expensive and quiet ones make more noise than a pretty standard PC with a quiet HDD, PSU and CPU cooling..

shoebox9 · Post by **shoebox9** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 4:56 am

You can buy fridges that are virtually totally silent. They run on either gas or electricity (usually both), but they have less cooling power than normal compressor based fridges.

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 5:01 am

well, if i win the lottery, i know what kind of experiments to invest my money into....

El Doug · Post by **El Doug** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 3:53 am

shoebox9 wrote:Proving both points- a German guy has had a PC (including the PSU) submerged in the cheapest canola oil he could find, for almost 2 years now. Still works perfectly.

Speaking from my culinary background, canola is a highly unsaturated fat! That stuff goes rancid in the kitchen in 2 weeks if not properly contained. 2 YEARS? That guy has a strong stomach

shoebox9 · Post by **shoebox9** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 4:00 am

Maybe keeping at a constant 45dC helps somehow? I've not done this so I really don't know. Lots of biological processes have a smell peak which then tapers off, maybe this is the same? The pics obviously don't show the degree of odour- large or small.

You can buy canola oil varients which have a higher saturated fat ratio, perhaps this would improve things? I'm no expert on oils.

Cheers,
Shoebox9

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Thu Mar 02, 2006 6:14 pm

I believe mineral oil will not go rancid.

EndoSteel · Post by **EndoSteel** » Fri Mar 03, 2006 12:41 pm

nici wrote:But i dont think a fridge is a good idea from a silence point of view, they are pretty noisy after all. Even the most expensive and quiet ones make more noise than a pretty standard PC with a quiet HDD, PSU and CPU cooling..

Well, if you already have a fridge with several "below zero" sections, what difference wil it make if you use one of them to cool your PC?

klankymen · Post by **klankymen** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 2:08 am

Ok, different Idea, how about a HDD sealed airtight in some kind of box, and that box suspended in a vacuum?

there needs to be air around and in the HDD for it to actually work, but that would all be in the box. then the only connection that would carry sound waves would be the elastic, and the cables.

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:25 am

how about a HDD sealed airtight in some kind of box, and that box suspended in a vacuum?

How would the HDD get rid of its heat? Since it is surrounded by a vacuum, no conduction or convection is possible, only radiation, which is much less effective than the other two.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 3:32 am

Suspending a hard drive or entire computer in a vacuum would certainly eliminate noise spectacularly--but it's also a nigh perfect heat insulator. You'd have to figure out some way to pump the heat away.

Hmm...maybe you could turn the entire vacuum chamber into a vapor chamber. At the bottom of the chamber is a fluid pump which takes condensed liquid flowing down the chamber sides and pumps it up a small line to the top of the chamber. At the top, liquid droplets simply fall from the end of the tube onto the suspended computer equipment.

cass · Post by **cass** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 1:25 pm

alternatively just use some heatpipes to conduct the heat away to some radiators outside the vacuum chamber

jaganath · Post by **jaganath** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 2:12 pm

alternatively just use some heatpipes to conduct the heat away to some radiators outside the vacuum chamber

The heatpipes would burst in total vacuum, heatpipes are only partially evacuated.