Maryland Teen Builds Mineral-Oil Cooled Computer

KAREN KEMP
Carroll County Times

WESTMINSTER, Md.—When Brandon Glorioso told his teachers he was going to build a computer inside a fish tank filled with liquid, some of them said it would never work.

Two weeks later, he proved them wrong. Glorioso, a senior at North Carroll High School, is already playing games on his custom computer, which he built entirely out of spare parts he had lying around the house. The only cost he incurred was $94 for a 4.5-gallon bottle of mineral oil to fill the tank.

The oil, which circulates through the system, is a critical component, Glorioso said. The 17-year-old Westminster resident said he came up with the idea when trying to find a way to keep a computer from overheating, which happened frequently when he and his friends played PC games.

The faster a computer processor runs, the more likely it is to overheat, which can cause its components to melt or catch fire.

Through several Web searches, Glorioso was able to find only four other computers in the U.S. that were constructed to be cooled using a mineral oil-filled tank. He figured he would give it a shot.

"I just wanted to prove it could be done," he said. "Something happened to the CD drive, so I pulled it apart and started going through it."

Glorioso's interest in building and fixing computers began at age 8, when he started having problems with an old computer his grandmother had given him. He was the only one who used it, and he wanted to know what it looked like inside. He said he built his first computer two years later.

Since then, he has built more than 200 custom PCs, constructed from parts pulled out of trash bins or given to him by friends or family. Building a custom cooling system, however, was a new undertaking.

Most computers are cooled by fans, but the number of fans he would need to cool the 3.4-gigahertz processor in his newly assembled computer would make the system loud and disruptive, he said.

Some people build water-cooled systems for computers, but those can be dangerous, he added. Mineral oil, on the other hand, is a nonconductive substance. Glorioso was able to submerge everything but the computer's power supply and two hard drives in the substance, which flows through pipes into a homemade radiator.

His grandfather Don Dixon, a retired contractor, built that part. Dixon said he has been very impressed by his grandson's ingenuity and dedication to the project. Glorioso spent at least 30 hours designing and building his device, taking photographs to document his progress and often staying up past 1 a.m.

"Once he gets something in his mind, he doesn't watch the clock," Dixon said. The computer has been running since April 6, and Glorioso's next step is to build an enclosure for the hard drives and power supply. He is also looking into getting a patent for the device.

Glorioso said he cautions people against attempting this project themselves. "If you don't know something about computers, you could get injured," he said. While he originally built the device so he could play games for a longer time, Glorioso said he hasn't done much gaming in the past couple weeks.

"To be truthful, lately I haven't had the time," he said. The teen is also a hip-hop dancer and drummer for an alternative rock band, and he builds and repairs dirt bikes as a hobby.

Despite juggling so many projects and activities, Glorioso is still happy to be the computer guru for his family and friends. They all come to him when they have computer problems or need a new machine, and he is always willing to help them out at no cost, he said.

After graduating from high school, Glorioso hopes to major in computer science at Towson University. He is anticipating a successful career and many more projects like the one he just completed.

The one thing he is not looking forward to is upgrading his new machine. "It's going to be incredibly hard to clean," he said.

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Information from: Carroll County Times of Westminster, Md.