Oh no here I go again. Silly Idea Alert.

[nfored]

So once again I am here alone at 1:44am with little work to do, so my mind half asleep gives me crazy ideas. I am not going to be doing this, but I was just thinking of crazy ideas.

Using my fish tank as the water reservoir for a water cooled pc. When things get cranking on the PC manly during video encoding I can hit 50 Celsius maybe 60 if its super hot in the house.

60 C = about 140F. Do you think the heat would dissipate fast enough given the exponentially larger volume of water? It seems like with better water coolers it can keep the cpu at around 40c or 101f. These coolers do use radiators and fans to cool the water, but I think that's because its a closed system with a small reservoir.

With a reservoir of lets say .5 gallons being extremely generous on these water coolers I would think you would have to use a radiator to cool it off. If I gave it a reservoir of 250 Gallons thats 500 times greater reservoir , so I would think it would take longer to heat the water. This would give the water more time to dissipate the heat through evaporation.

The main worry is the copper in the water block, but would such a small exposure to copper, in conjunction with weekly 50% WC have an effect on the copper present in the water?

There is no real benefit here, it's not like it would allow someone to not use a water heater, or make the computer run cooler; this is just a crazy discussion topic.

 

[john73738]

only problem is that water cooled pc use an additive like anti freeze to keep the water less corrosive and conductive. Not doing this would destroy the water block pretty quick.

Had the same idea once and did the research. Killed that idea fast.

Did find this though from Puget Systems (sorry off topic but fun anyway)

 

[bob965]

only problem is that water cooled pc use an additive like anti freeze to keep the water less corrosive and conductive. Not doing this would destroy the water block pretty quick.

Had the same idea once and did the research. Killed that idea fast.

Did find this though from Puget Systems (sorry off topic but fun anyway)

The coolant running through the block could be a separate system from the aquarium water. You could run the coolant from the cpu to a sealed metal coil that you dip into the aquarium, and place in your filter outlet stream to transfer the heat. That way you're just using the aquarium as a heat sink, rather than a coolant reservoir. This would totally work.

 

[SemperFish]

I did not even know that there were water/liquid cooled PCs. interesting

 

[bob965]

I did not even know that there were water/liquid cooled PCs. interesting

What?!?! Man, people get crazy with that stuff. Transparent tubing with UV reactive coolant and blacklights in their cases and whatnot. Serious pc gamers have cooling systems that cost more than most peoples' entire pc.

 

[Drew_H2o]

From Million-Dollar-PC.com:

 

[nfored]

Dont for get about liquid nitrogen cooling for the super over clockers or Phase switching aka TEC cooling. Heck one guy when building his house laid multiple meeters of copper pipe in the concert and turned his houses slab into a heat sink.

 

[BoCoMo]

John I think the PC you showed was filled with Mineral Oil.

I think the idea would work if the tank was large enough and there was not anti-corrosive agents needed.

Keep the "silly" ideas coming!

 

[markx2005]

get a better cpu i say

 

[Muni]

Using the tank water to cool the computer would not work that great since most tanks are 75-82 degrees. It is a drop from the computer temp but probably would not provide enough heat transfer to be significant.

I've had 2 liquid cooled pc's myself and built about 6 others for friends. I have experience.