Coding Passion

Let me explain my problem: I have a fileserver (just an old Pentium II with big disks) in my room and some time ago the cooler started getting really loud, so loud in fact that I had to shut down the server every night if I wanted to get some sleep. I don’t have to tell you that this wasn’t ideal, and I tried everything from the classic pencil blocking the fan (not a good idea) to keeping it on balcony (even worse…) but the thing that worked in the end is … olive oil!

The thing is, that with the time the cooler started getting out of center and unbalanced and I figured that if others can submerge their entire computers in oil, why can’t I just grease the Cooler a bit? Yes, being a student at ETHZ I’ve done the physics behind it, and I decided to give it a shot.

I stopped my server (hopefully never to stop it again after this one :D), detached the cooler, poored some olive oil on it while rotating it slowly, and attached it again to the machine to do a test run. At first it the oil just oozed back out again but it sooned stopped and I was able to mount it back onto the processor.

The result is astonishing: the cooler actually is quieter than the spinning disks (that will be my next goal ;)) and I can keep it on all night once again.