What NOT To Do With Overheating Systems

In my area of the world, which is Calgary, Alberta; known for it's short cool summers; we had one of the hottest in a long time, at least since 1998. I have had two of my PC's, one being my gaming box hit their temperature ceilings in most cases from the motherboard sensor on three occassions. I don't have air conditioning so when the temperature hits 30 degrees outside it can hit 36 degrees inside the house. With no airflow everything stagnates and stays hot. Anyone who has a plasma display knows these babies run super hot normally (in the winter I think of it as my fireplace) so imagine the grief one can expect trying to run this display under very hot stagnant conditions. Yes I burnt mine out, but it's fixed now.
Anyways, I came across this story today of a kid who nearly killed himself trying to keep his Xbox 360 cool this past summer. Folks this is a lesson on moron proportions. Common sense should dictate you DO NOT do what this guy did, and no one should try this without at least using his head 'first'.

Again, I'm going to tell you that if you wish to kill yourself and maybe even others in your home or business as well as possibly damaging other electronics or even your electrical system, then go ahead and try this. If you would rather LIVE, and not put anything or anyone including yourself in danger 'DO NOT' try this.

The story I found on TG Daily and it just makes me wonder what the hell kids are thinking. A 15 year old kid in North Carolina was having problems with his XBox 360 shutting down every five minutes due to overheating.

His mother saw him playing on his box unaware of the troubles and went next door to the neighbors. After several shutdowns of the box the kid decided to take the power supply out of the machine, tape it up in a plastic bag and submerge it in cool water. As a consequence the live electricity contacted the water, and electrocuted the kid. His mother returned from the neighbors finding him unconscious on the floor. He spent the day in the hospital getting treated for minor burns to hands and feet. Lucky for him!

Now the article states that he did this 'based on information on the internet'. Ok fine, I have done something very similar to this actually we wanted to see if we could run a power supply underwater, we found that this was not very effective, but using a very thick waterproof rubber membrane or gasket we used dry ice and surrounded the power supply and this worked very well. Monitoring the ice constantly to ensure no problems occurred. However it was not practical to run the machine in this state with this power supply in a potentially dangerous situation for any real length of time. The problem with a plastic bag of course is it can melt due to the heat of the power supply creating a poor barrier. Much like water cooling, we don't want water running 'in' our case, we want it simply cooling our special heat sinks. Loose water is dangerous.

So please tell me...who just reads things on the internet and tries them without seriously considering the consequences. I'm sure the average 16 year old is aware that you can die from average voltages when water is in play (think lightning...).

So if anyone thinks this is a grand idea to keep them parts cool in our hot summer, please remember common sense, and don't try anything without putting safety first!

P.S. If anyone reads this and tries this without a safety plan, first your an idiot, and second I hope you kill yourself without hurting anyone else. If you hurt anyone else then I hope you do jail for a long time.