personally, my fren tried replacing water in his water cooled pc with oil with low Viscosity! well it works!! he told me that "ppl out there is using water cooling, and yet they are affraid that oil cooling might leak... think about your water cooling..." if you think twice what my fren said to me, i think it's logical.
the only advice i got from him before he went oversea was, "try to use oil with low Viscosity so that the pump can actually circulate the oil..

its logic as long as water is replaced by any kind of fluid. but i dont think its a great idea, no offence pal.

1. air is lighter than oil
2. cooking oil floats on water

combining both fact (in term of density), we get : air<oil<water
obviously the water is the best thermal conductor since water molecules are closer to each other comparing amoung the 3 substance. so replace water with oil is no-no.

so whats the point of oil cooling as posted by TS?
if u read carefully, its oil submerging method - whole piece of mobo is dumped into the oil.
back to the air<oil<water thingy, normal mobo is air cooled, the best is water cooled, too bad water causes short circuit, so leaving oil as sole replacement. water & oil has pros & cons, depends how we utilise them.

other than that, even less viscous oil is use for closed channel cooling, it will still kill ur pump. flow rate & viscocity are 2 major consideration in selecting the right pump. if a centrifugal or direct displacement pump designed for water application is use for pumping oil or any fluid which is more viscous than water, it will increase the load of the pump's motor thus shorten the life span. so pls tell ur fren to stop using oil.

correct me if im wrong on above statement. cheers

This post has been edited by yamato: Oct 16 2006, 08:27 PM

yup. yamato's right. you need special pumps like gear pump or rotary pumps to do the job. normal pump also ultilise the fluid to cool the pump motor

one thing to note as well is the type of oil. the reason they use mineral oils rther than vegetable oils is because veg oils ultimately become rancid after a certain time period, if i'm not mistaken, especially so if the casing is left open.

and also, the selection of the type of oil used is critical as well because if you use an oil that is too reactive to plastics, you'll have a leak on your hands sooner than you think when using a plastic casing.

i've been fooling around with an idea for this for some time, and i'm glad i read the two posts above mine. i'll definitely start researching the type of pump to use when i have some free time (yay for Raya week!)

never considered though that the pump also uses the fluid to cool the motor...i wonder if there are pumps that dont require that much cooling, or if it might be possible to mount a fan to help the pump's cooling.