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I'm not sure what happened. I have my Raspberry Pi 4B running on Raspbian Lite (May 2020 version). This all started happening when I decided to use my Pi to run a game server. I decided to submerge it in oil as a cooling method, and that works. The problem is, WiFi doesn't work. No biggie, I wanted to use Ethernet anyway. So I'm using Ethernet, but now, it keeps crashing. At first I didn't know what was happening, as I was using SSH to connect to it, but I have hooked it up to my TV and keyboard and I caught when it crashed. All I was doing when this happened was watching watch vcgencmd measure_temp to check the cooling. I could not get the entire screen, as the Pi completely seized up and I cannot move up or down. Hopefully someone can extract some sort of useful information from the screen. Also, I have completely formatted the SD card and reinstalled Raspbian and that did not work.The screen from the crash.

Max_C
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  • What kind of oil did you use? How long was the Pi immersed? Who told you to do this? – Michael Harvey Jun 01 '20 at 17:35
  • Did you completely immerse the whole thing? – Michael Harvey Jun 01 '20 at 17:38
  • Those Do_DataAbort lines are kernel panic messages. If you never got them before, they could be a sign of hardware damage or trapped moisture. Or both. Vegetable (cooking) oil absorbs moisture from the air, and if you washed the oil off with soapy water and rinsed it, (you did do that, of course?) you would leave it to dry for a week or so before powering it up again. – Michael Harvey Jun 01 '20 at 20:18
  • @MichaelHarvey I'm using olive oil (I know I could've used vegetable oil as it's cheaper). I saw it online and I knew that oil isn't conductive so it wouldn't break it. Most of it is submerged (obviously the SoC and RAM are submerged so it would actually cool) but the USB and Ethernet ports are sticking out so I can plug stuff in (the power and micro HDMI are submerged, and the USB and Ethernet were submerged before I changed the orientation of the Pi in the container). It's still submerged and I never washed it. – Max_C Jun 01 '20 at 22:52
  • There is also a large fan in the container that I added to circulate the oil and cool it better. – Max_C Jun 01 '20 at 22:53
  • I think you will be buying a new Raspberry Pi soon. – Michael Harvey Jun 02 '20 at 06:00
  • I guess that's fine, they're pretty affordable. Thanks for informing me. – Max_C Jun 02 '20 at 06:33
  • Verdict: you damaged the Pi by using vegetable oil. – Michael Harvey Jun 02 '20 at 06:46

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I know this is an old thread but, using olive oil is definitely not recommended. Olive oil contains biological impurities that could cause corrosion and allow for electrical conduction. Vegetable oil is also not a good option for the same reasons.

Corrosion could happen because typical cooking oil will contain ~.5% water.

Pure mineral oil is ideal as it has a high capacitive dielectric, and has very low impedance and high thermal conductivity.

MichaelC
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