Hey teksyndicate - I was mashing potatoes and marshmallows together in my head when I thought of this:
I'm no genius, but I like to think outside of the box. Could this be an effective method to cooling your PC? Say you coat all of your components in a hydrophobic substance, toss your hardware into an aquarium (textbook mineral oil PC method), and fill it up with regular ol' water? Would that be effective, benefical, or even work at all?
Again, I'm no genius: I barely graduated highschool and haven't done gotten anywhere in life as of yet. Someone with smarts should throw in their input; thanks!
Also, is there anyone else who would like to see a mineral oil build from the guys other than me?
Probobly not, unless you had massive flow for the water. If you had no heatsinks at all, you would overheat very quickly. If you had a purely passive system, you might be able to get away, though, depending on your parts. Any active fans would be pointless in the water, obviously. Mineral oil is terrible at transferring heat, as well. Water would do much better, a hell of a lot better than air, but not in this situation of total submersion.
Im with brennan on this, would heat up way to quick. It would be like a big kettle after awhile. One would need to remove the heat via some sort of radiator or with a constant stream of fresh cool water.
It does not work at all. Anandtech did a test with a RasberryPi and they broke it...I have a NeverWet kit (the super-hydrophobic spray) and it kinda sucks...seriously. It's dangerous for your health, it can be worn off easily by soaps and body oils, and it leaves a cloudy look that feels weird.
Another way to deal with the cooling in a mineral oil build might be to drop in some dry ice in like these guys did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohwEkeWEOok.