• zacher_glachl@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Could also be mineral oil wicking up the cable, there are the absolute madmen who opt for oil immersion cooling their rig

      • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        From what I know, the mineral oil builds are usually more for novelty than utility. Mineral oil isn’t a particularly good heat conductor, and it’s several times harder to push around than air is, so it’s not great for efficient thermals. It’s usually just done as a sort of “lol look at what I could do” build by people who have more money than sense.

        • zacher_glachl@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Agreed, the only argument for oil immersion cooling is, AFAIK, better energy efficiency which is of course not a real consideration for high end consumer grade hardware. A previous iteration of our national compute cluster was oil immersion cooled but the tradeoffs in maintainability etc. were not even close to sensible so the next iteration went back to regular server racks. And the iteration after that needed the floor space and finally dialed in the end of oily door handles and eerily quiet but oppressively hot server rooms.

    • EtherWhack@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      The cable is probably routed outside (likely towards the roof) in a humid environment with the indoors end being at a lower pressure. At night, when the air cools, the humid air would condensate and start dripping out

      • Feyr@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Or it’s just routed outside and it’s normal indoor cable. The sun made the cable brittle and the insulation shattered, leading to leaks