I did this about 10 years ago with an old computer I had. I had the power supply, hard drive, and cd-rom mounted on the outside of the tank. It only lasted about 9 months. The mineral oil caused the plastic in the capacitors on the motherboard to swell and eventually leak. Also the mineral oil holds heat pretty well, I used a fish tank pump with a tube on one side and tube on the other side to create a flow but it still ran pretty warm.

 

It did corrode the capacitors for me. And it did seem to hold heat even with a pretty good flow I had going. The corroding could be marked up to the already old motherboard I used but other people had the same problems on the OC forums, a group of us did this about 10 years ago.

 

That sucks about the standoffs. I've learned to collect things like those and stash them in old pill bottles for future use/spares.

As long as you have the PSU unplugged, no shock hazard. I've taken a few apart, nothing to worry about. All the connections/soldier joints should also have plastic shields on them (just so the connections don't touch the metal chassis).

@Nocturnx - Not sure why the mineral oil would corrode the capacitors. I know that a few years ago the PC world was hit hard by cheap Chinese capacitors that popped prematurly.

 

still debating about the power supply. right now i'm trying to cut a top for the tank and the acrylic is just cracking and shattering as a cut, quite annoying. The stand offs i havent come across any in the computers i have so far, in my repair class in high school my teacher had bottle after bottle of screws and standoffs

 

Finished making a cover for it finally. I think aside from small issues i'm ready for oil which comes next week. Power supply i'm still not extremely happy about, i'm eventualy going to lay it down with a right angle plug. The cover looks cloudy because the plastic is still on the acrylic.

 

looks pretty cool.....

 

Yes, not necessarily corrode, but cause the rubber/plastic in the capacitors to swell and eventually leading to them leaking. I did this experiment many years before the whole Chinese capacitor debacle. I found this doing a search:

"Mineral Oil - Will penetrate o-rings and cause them to soften and swell. Does the same to any natural or synthetic rubber products."

Also here is a guy that did it and had the same problem with heat that I did. I used a high flow pump to circulate the oil from one side to the other but it still ran really warm. I would recommend getting a small radiator to help chill the oil. I used a small radiator from a chevette in my water cooled pc.

http://www.pioverpi.net/projects/argo/

 

With a project like this a radiator is common practice, i'm going to just get it up and running and see what kind of temperatures i'm getting

 

So far the tank is lookin' good!!

BTW - Looks like you have an IBM/Hitachi "DeathStar" drive. Out of the failed drives I've disassembled, Hitachi's are the ONLY ones I ever found to have dust bunnies with/on/around the hard drive platters (dust that made it in despite the small filtering element). I'm not a fan of Hitachi drives or anything that has an IBM or Lenovo badge on it. Just my opinion.

 

Looking good! Can't wait to see that full of oil