What oil should I use for mineral oil PC???

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cryptotooth

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I asked a similar question back in February this year, but have been very busy with college since then; now finally have the time to build my first oil-cooled PC. I've got all my designs drawn up and have some parts here to use. I have a tank, pump, radiator and everything on the way, but now the big question is, what oil should I use???
I don't have access to the transformer oil I thought I did, as it's very expensive, and it has a horrible amber tint to it. I have easy access to baby oil which is very cheap at my local Tesco, and knowing some of the staff, they have agreed to help me get around 5 gallons of it.
Is baby oil the best thing to use? I'm concerned about the lifespan of the machine, as it has to act as a display at college for a few months. I've heard of people using "white mineral oil" but that's expensive and surely isn't much different to anything else I could buy?

I've tested some baby oil and it didn't short out when poured into the power supply and on the motherboard, but will components or tank degrade over time with baby oil?

Has anyone tried building a mineral oil PC? If so, which oil would you recommend? is baby oil OK? any cheaper or better alternatives?

I promised I'd document my experience with building an oil PC as there's little advice out there on what to/not to use, hence why I'm asking here.
 
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DeadlyDays

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The thicker the oil the more heat insulation that will occur and it will cool parts less. You want fast heat transfer to the liquid, then you want the liquid itself to move on to the radiator in order to get rid of the heat. The thicker the oil, the slower/harder it will move. I'm also not sure how well the various oils would transfer heat.

Past that, you probably don't want any type of organic oil, because those would biodegrade.

Baby oil is pretty thick. I'm not sure what kind of pump you'd want to use or if a water pump could handle it without burning out?
 
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glitchmaster0001

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you could just go to walmart and buy a - load of great value brand mineral oil or you can just get baby oil. then thing is about baby oil is that it has a smell to it and i dont know if the stuff in it would harm the components in the tank. id say just stick with the walmart option. lol just go there and clear out the mineral oil rack. they sell it in 16 oz bottles.

though i wonder would it work with 5w-30 engine oil? if it did that would be sick lol.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/35582614?wmlspartner=wlpa&selectedSellerId=74&adid=22222222227023715019&wl0=&wl1=g&wl2=c&wl3=52574422151&wl4=&wl5=pla&wl6=84456326831&veh=sem
 
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DeadlyDays

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as long as it doesn't decompose and it doesn't conduct electricity it can be used. But whether you should use it is relative. Oil typically doesn't work as well at getting rid of heat in the system compared to water. Motor oil I believe doesn't conduct electricity, but it doesn't work well in a cooling system either. There is a reason you have coolant in your car and don't just use oil.

You want something that transfers heat well typically, and then the thicker the oil the harder the pump has to work. So you need a liquid pump that can handle moving oil instead of water.

But could be cool. From what I read online, baby oil is typically just white mineral oil with added fragrance, and as long as that isn't adding conductivity I don't see a problem in using it?

EDIT: I guess you also need to watch out for the additives for baby oil possibly effecting the materials in the components such as corroding them, etc. I think you'd want to use pure oil just for the safety of knowing it won't where there is a risk of an additive interacting with some material in the computer in a bad way.
 
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cryptotooth

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thanks for the quick reply guys!
I live in the north of England, so my nearest Walmart is about 3000 miles away. Over here we have ASDA but they may or may not have what I'm looking for. I've looked on the bottle of Johnson's baby oil I bought before and the ingredients are " [FPT1350] Paraffinum Liquidum, Isopropyl Palmitate, Parfum. " not sure if all of these are different things or just foreign languages for the same thing, but after reading up a little bit, I think they do put fragrance in it, but it didn't harm the parts when I poured it on a running motherboard this morning.
I also don't know how I'd get hold of "pure" mineral oil, but this baby oil is very thin actually, and it runs almost like water.

update:
I've looked on Tesco's website and they do a cheaper oil which consists of "Paraffinum Liquidum, Parfum (I think it's vegetable based fragrance)". would this be better than the Johnson's one? I've heard that most baby oils are 2% fragrance and 98% pure mineral oils.
 
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cryptotooth

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I will keep that option open, but that. although it may be better than baby oil is a little expensive: To fill my tank I need about 4 or 5 gallons. (About 20 litres) and that'll take me to over a hundred pounds.
 
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cryptotooth

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If you mean baby oil, then tesco's own may be better as its cheaper and lacks Isopropyl Palmitate. If you mean cheap mineral oil, I looked in a local pharmacy yesterday and they only had baby oil. I'm assuming that my next stop would be DIY shops, or even vets, as I hear they sometimes use it as a horse laxitive (there's a lovely thought). Not sure they'd order any for me though.

Is it worth pouring the entire bottle of oil I bought today over a motherboard and seeing what happens? If it survives I'll buy Tesco's own. This is the problem when people don't document things like this, those who want to do it have no idea what to get.
Or what if I got the big bottle from amzon and mixed it with baby oil...?
 
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cryptotooth

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Hello again! There's no chance of me moving house or anything any time soon. I'm not in a dorm on the campus or anything.
What do you mean by I can't move it? Surely I could just drain the oil straight from the tank to a container and move it that way. What aditives should I be looking out for?
 
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USAFRet

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Well, yeah, you could. But 30 gallons of mineral oil is about 230 lbs. Scale up if your tank is bigger.
Whether its in the tank, or in other containers, that still a lot of messy oil to move around.

Additives? You don't want any. No telling what the perfumes and other volatiles in 'baby oil' might do.
 
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cryptotooth

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You've got a good point with aditives. My tank's only approximately 5 gallons and isn't really that heavy. I guess to get 5 gallons, thats ~22 litres, would mean I need 5 of these:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/LITRES-WHITE-MINERAL-OIL-PHARMACEUTICAL/dp/B0145638Z8/ref=sr_1_8?s=kitchen&ie=UTF8&qid=1446181243&sr=1-8&keywords=white+mineral+oil

That's a lot of money really, and honestly I'm a bit stuck on whether I should stick with baby oil for cheaper, as I'm using an athlon ii 250 and a 7770 I got for free on a cheap motherboard, or get better parts and fork out for the pure oil. That's £150 though. I may do it if it's likely this thing'll be stable enough to sell though.
 
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cryptotooth

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I'll ask my dad in the morning what size the tank is (he's giving me it) and see how much oil I need to buy. I do have one other quiestion though, and that is, assuming I buy the pure mineral oil, can I put it in a glass tank and it won't degrade the glue that holds the pannels together? I'm likely using a plastic tank, but I could get a bigger glass one.
 
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USAFRet

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That's why you get 'pure' mineral oil.
If it were to degrade the glue, it would also degrade many things on your components.

What do proven oil tank builders use? Puget Systems, for instance.
"What mineral oil do you use, and where do you get it?
Answer: We use a White Mineral Oil from STE Oil called "Crystal Plus 70T"."
 
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giantbucket

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even the best purest mineral oil SUCKS compared to water. someone back up mentioned water and oil in a car - well, the water has a MUCH better thermal capacity, is cheaper, and when mixed with glycol can flow very well at a wide range of temperatures. motor oil, on the other hand, like any oil, has poor thermal capacity, and has additives for reducing friction and a surfactant (soap).

for people with a limited budget, this is a bad setup overall. it's way too expensive to do right and to maintain or fix if stuff goes wrong. and it's mostly for show anyways. there's no genuine need to cool the entire surface of the motherboard or gpu board or 99% of the stuff in your machine.
 
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cryptotooth

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I've talked to my dad and we're OK with spending money on this, but not the $600 it'd cost me to have 6 gallons of oil shipped to my house from the states. Are you aware of any UK based sites that can sell me this stuff cheap? Otherwise I'll just use baby oil and see how long it lasts.
 
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cst1992

cst1992

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I don't think you should take a chance with this. If stuff in there is going to corrode your parts, it won't take months to do it. And it won't last all that time you want it to.
What you're trying to do is enthusiast only, and it takes money. I have heard that custom watercooling loops that enthusiasts use cost over $500.

Anyway, that aside, if the stuff were to corrode, you won't just lose your PC, the stuff would float in the oil and ruin the looks of the PC as well.
I know I sound like a jerk here, but that's how it is. You want exclusive, you gotta pay.
 
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USAFRet

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I don't live in the UK, so I don't know any specific sources.

Baby oil? Before you go down that road...find someone else that has done this successfully with baby oil, and post the link here so we all can read it.
 
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giantbucket

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why would stuff corrode in baby oil? baby oil is primarily mineral oil, and water (which would cause corrosion / oxidation) doesn't mix in oil without some significant additives.

you could look into using LHM brake fluids as well, or ATF if you're into the red thing.
 
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USAFRet

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"primarily mineral oil". With included perfumes and other volatiles.
https://www.johnsonsbaby.com/oil/johnsons-baby-oil-with-aloe-vera-and-vitamin-e#ingredients
"Mineral Oil (huile minérale), Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Extract, Tocopheryl Acetate, Parfum, Water (eau)"

If you wanna drop your components in that, you go right ahead.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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I just clicked on the first one I came to. Personally, I don't care, it ain't my money or stuff. I'm just trying to keep the OP from potentially making an expensive mistake.

But as said earlier....find someone else that has done this with 'baby oil', instead of pure mineral oil.
Maybe it works fine. Maybe it doesn't.

If it does....surely someone else has cheaped out and done this with baby oil. Let's look at his stuff and see what happened.
 
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