Major Jackyl wrote on Today, 00:00:

I can't even make a good guess on this one (aside from the fact that it is a cooler of some kind). Sealed system with a gas? The clear part is glass. The little nipple on the pipe looks like where it was sealed.

Just realized something. The unpainted portion of the metal flex tube seems to indicate that it pushed out at some point after assembly. Presumably it can go far enough into the glass tube that there is no gap in the paint (since there is a red ring on the glass).

Theory: Someone obtained this thing from a lab at work or school, painted it with whatever paint that had around to hide what was probably fairly ugly looking bare metal, installed it in a PC and after the years of use the radiator was clogged with dust and it was no longer capable of cooling a P4 (was it a Prescott by chance?), so it overpressured and caused the metal pipe to pop out of the glass bulb, releasing most of the cooling liquid\water. The corrosion could be from whatever moisture had been cooling in the radiator that eventually dripped down and dried\oxidized in the glass bulb.

Law212 wrote on Today, 14:33:

rasz_pl wrote on Today, 04:41:

sure looks like some sort of 3M Fluorinert system 😮

I have no idea and have never seen anything like it, but the end with the filter makes me think that it was attached to a fan and was meant to send cold air right to the CPU?
Interesting though

Fluorinert turns to gas at really low temperature, like 30-40C at the low end, and condenses back to liquid at the radiator.
Biggest advantage - no need for pumps. Most systems didnt even bother with condensers and ran hardware immersed in the stuff.
biggest drawbacks - cost, and its PFC and PFAS, a forever chemical. Not that great for environment.

3M NOVEC (pretty much same thing) cooling by DER8AUER 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPx4qyKPsw0
Earliest known and iconic computer cooled this way would probably be Cray-2, thats why it was round, not because they wanted a bench 😀

Fun fact: that mouse in The Abyss breathing liquid was real and the liquid was oxygenated Fluorinert 😮