And I'm not talking about just running some hoses through a case... I mean full PC submersion.



Being my biggest modding project yet, I want to do this computer mod. If you didn't watch the video, basically you take a motherboard mounting tray and fix it to an aquarium. Then using a non-conductive mineral oil, fill the the tank. You can read the site for more details, but bascially the vid covers the majority of it.

Seeing as I'm getting married in June, I think I'll wait till I've moved out of these appartments to do this... as this kind of computer probably doesn't prefer to be moved too much. But I am horribly impressed with this mod and would love to do this. It's around $150.

Very cool looking. The only issue I have is expansion. What a mess that would be. Of course almost everything is available USB so it might not be too bad.

Yeah, upgrading would need a little extra care... but I think that it would be easy enough to syphon out the mineral oil into a bucket. Specially seeing the tower will be on a desk. It would just take a little more time, and that's about it.

prolly why you'd have to overclock FIRST and mineral oil later... but that's pretty diyawesome. <3

I probably won't do any overclocking at first until I'm sure my system is stable enough just as is. I did get a hold of a digital temperature gauge that I'll be modding into the tank as well. I'm thinking about getting one of those sunken pirate ships that are used in fish tanks and mod the temp. gauge into the ship somehow. Anyways, I'll be doing this later this year, but I'm getting things together now.

I couldn't see the video, so I just skimmed over the pictures in the site. Seems like a cool thing to do if you know what you're doing (In other words, not something I would do)

Well, I just finished ordering all the parts needed to do the mod. I need to find a place to purchase mineral oil locally though. Getting the 6 gallons that I need online is going to be rather... pricy. I've heard that a vet clinic would be a good place to look. So I'll call around.

I probably won't actually DO this till some time after June, but getting the parts now at least shows my commitment to actually do it.

Also, aside from the pirate ship temperature mod, I plan to do something special with my CDrom. I obviously can't submerge it as well, so instead I'm going to route it to sit on my desk within arm's reach. But having just a plain CDrom sitting there will look a bit tacky, so I was thinking about getting an external case for it. But that seemed a little expensive. But I DID find something that seems rather interesting. A CDrom is only just a bit smaller than a Wii, right? Well, there's a good deal of Wii Skins that you can buy and slap on your Wii to make them look pretty awesome right?

Well, what if my CDrom looked like this? http://www.decalgirl.com/item.view/5221

Aside from that, I just need to think about getting a USB hub somewhere mounted on my desk, as well as a place from my Dex drive. Also, I'm going to have to get a little creative about where I mount my hard drives. They aren't SSD so I can't submerge them. But I do have an idea where I want them.

So you may be wondering what this extreemly dark/blurry picture is. It's all the parts I need for the case mod I'll be doing some time in June. This includes the fish tank, the custom motherboard tray, and a crap load of other little parts and pieces that I'm going to be using ouside of the original idea. All that's left is getting the 6 gallons of mineral oil... which will be fun to say the least.

When I do this, I'll be taking pics, videos, and record conversations with vets on my strange request. So it should be rather intersting to see play out. So yeah, I'll catch you back here in June when all this goes down.

oh hi

Heh, thanks for helping prevent triple-post madness.

So I started prepping some of the things that I'll be using in my mod. Seeing as my hard drives won't be SSD, I won't be submerging either of those. So I'm going to mount them in a rack behind the case. You know those clear file things? I got one of those and took a dremel to it and cut down the parts that stick up a bit.



That'll be mounted on the back, and both hard drives will rest in that. I've already seated the drives in it, and it'll fit quite comfortably. I have some rubber stoppers that usually come with the 3com managed switches we get at work, and will place them so they rest on the soft rubber.

The other thing I have worked on is the sunken pirate ship temperature gauge. And here's what I've got:


Blurry, I know... but that's kind of what it'll look like. I managed to stealth the wires inside the ship, so all you see is the face of the gauge.


Here's the inside, just in case you wanted to kind of see where the wires are going.


And here it is plugged in and working. You can't see the display due to my phone taking really crappy pictures, but it works just fine. I plan to run the wires under the rocks at the bottom of the case, so you should JUST see the ship and the display.

Seeing as I just got the mineral oil in today, I will probably be doing the full mod next week. I'll have a good friend (and fellow nerd) that I haven't seen in a while, swing by to help me out.

Very cool looking. Looking forward to updates!

Well... it is done. And as Murphy's Law states, it didn't turn out quite like I expected.

Here's the deal: I was going to take the parts out of Rachael's old computer and put them in my soon-to-be old case. So I stripped her parts out... then stripped mine out of my case. Then I started working on getting my parts all into the fish tank. After spending several ours trying, I found out that my motherboard had everything positioned on it (ram slots, atx power, jumpers, ect) in such a manor that I would not be able to get it... and the power supply in it.

As in... it just plain didn't fit. Period.

So what I ended up doing is putting my computer back the way it was. and I tried to put Rachael's computer in it. And here's BARELY fit. And that was without the rocks or the temperature mod.

So I successfully managed to submerge a computer in mineral oil... just not the one I wanted.


And what's worse, the camera I was using to record... it's card got full only 30 minutes in. And the footage isn't anything worth while. So all I'll be able to do is take video of the finished product.

I haz a sad.

Take that comp out, get a comp that fits (or a bigger tank) and redo it.

Quality video demands it.

I am in no way in a position to buy an entirely new computer. It may just be a few hundred dollars, but I've blown more money this month than any human should. And I would get a bigger tank if it weren't for the fact that the motherboard tray was custom made to fit THAT tank. Getting a bigger tank would mean having someone custom build a new motherboard tray. Not to mention needing more oil.

Later down the road, maybe. But I'm just sticking with what I've got for now.



Anyway, that's the vid.

Very cool. Never thought anything like that would work. Shows what I know.

Can't believe how long it took me to check this out. Nice mod.

Sims3 huh...