L3p D3sk

[hitchcockgreen]

This thing is all flavours of awesome.

http://forum.coolermaster.com/viewtopic ... 49&t=14742

[Blunt Force Trauma]

That is pretty extravagant and impressive. Looks like he has over $4K in everything.

The only thing that I would not have done is put it in the corner and next to a room pass-thru.

[hitchcockgreen]

Me neither. Impressive build though.

Personally I'm not sure I'd want to put a colourant in my cooling liquid.

[FirBirGir]

I am going the exact opposite of that guy

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6856176001

Weighs 2.5lbs fully loaded and costs only $187 with 2GB memory. It'll run XP so I didn't really need 4GB.

Eddy

[hitchcockgreen]

I love those mini systems. My next rig-building project was gonna be a micro system.

[Sno]

Interesting desk, I was thinking about making my own desk that has two separate computers inside it. I'm kind of paranoid when it comes to leaving my computers at my house where a burglar can simply unhook the wires and walk away with it

The desk gave me some ideas, but im not much into the lighting stuff and I don't know enough about water cooling.

[hitchcockgreen]

Water cooling is pretty easy nowadays. Of course, as you have to blow out all your fans and heatsinks about once a month wtih canned air or a light-duty compressor, you have to flush out your cooling system and replace the liquid.
Water cooling can be bad for that - left alone you can get everything gummed up with algae and crap. There are alternatives, but like any liquid cooling, you have to flush/replace it regularly.

[Sno]

I'm kind of confused with the fellows set up. Is it all ONE computer with an enormous RAID configuration (0+1?)? My desk build is slated to house two separate computers (one for school/gaming/general use and another for experimentation).

Water cooling could be better for what I am sketching, but I've never messed with the stuff. I have a lot of fan holes and circulation paths/tunnels for airflow, but I'd rather not have ~6 table fans + system fans humming (my original plan had 10 fans).

Can one water cooling unit cool two separate mobo/processor set ups or is it best to have two separate water cooling units?

[hitchcockgreen]

I'm kind of confused with the fellows set up. Is it all ONE computer with an enormous RAID configuration (0+1?)? My desk build is slated to house two separate computers (one for school/gaming/general use and another for experimentation).

Water cooling could be better for what I am sketching, but I've never messed with the stuff. I have a lot of fan holes and circulation paths/tunnels for airflow, but I'd rather not have ~6 table fans + system fans humming (my original plan had 10 fans).

Can one water cooling unit cool two separate mobo/processor set ups or is it best to have two separate water cooling units?

Yes, you can get mobo cooling systems. Generally, the mobo doesn't really need that much cooling. They'll have very effective heatsinks already on them.

And water/oil mixture cooling is just one option. Some people will go as far as to use dry ice or even liquid nitrogen

You can get fans that run almost silently. The bigger the better. I have two 200mm fans on my case and they are by a large margin much quieter than the 120mm and 140mm fans in the case.

Your biggest concern with humming will be the RAID drives. Depending on your config (RAID10 would be nice, but let's face it, that's a lot of drives) you're going to end up with a handful of drives that cause more vibration and humming than your fans will.
I have a Seagate 750GB drive in my PC and it is by far the loudest component. Not consistenly, but when there is a lot of read/write going to it then, yeah. I also have a 1TB WD Green (which I may soon replace with a 2 TB WD Caviar Black) that runs so quietly i never know if it's spinning. However, because it's in the green line, it will often stop spinning altogether to save power (it's only 5400 RPM) and then when I want to browse the directories on it there is sometimes a bit of a pause while the disk spins up again. Fortunately I only ever use that for backups/archiving.

But I digress...

Reconsider your fans. If you're customizing it on your own, building it from scratch, do away with passive cooling altogether. Consider going with larger, 200mm silent fans. Water cooling means you have to take into consideration placing the radiator somewhere that won't interfere with airflow. Radiators don't need push/pull fans, but will still need a pull fan, usually. Depends on what kind of cooling system you go with. Corsair makes some really nice cooling systems, and Noctua makes great heatsinks/silent fans. As long as you aren't too concerned with variety of colour.

Check out www.overclock.net. They've got a great, helpful community there.

[hitchcockgreen]

Side note:
This guy is getting incredibly low temps on his system. I'm a little jealous. I get below "average" for my hardware but nowhere near the range he's getting.

[Blunt Force Trauma]

Back around 2007 I messed around with some extreme overclocking on my Intel P965 Express and E6600 chip. I discovered a dirt cheap cooling system.

I have the registers in my house on the floor. I set my PC next to the vent and took the left panel off and set it on an angle across the vent and fed about 58F air at around 60cfm into the box. I did it in the summer, so it was nice timing. I had to make sure and set my thermostat really low so the AC would stay on. Back then, my AC system was old and crappy, so it pretty much needed to stay on all the time anyway.

[Sno]

I thought about adding larger fans on my desk-mod thing, but I'll have to see what materials I need and if I have all the tools. I can't cut metal...well I can but it really sucks, wears out my tools like a moh fudger and I don't have enough $$ as I just spent $450 on textbooks for this summer

. Any recommendations for a wood to use? I'm wanting a detachable hutch too, but that's coming later in the design.

I'm re learning SketchUp, I forgot how much I hate this program sometimes

[Ded10c]

If it wears out your tools too fast, Sno, you're using the wrong tools.

[hitchcockgreen]

. Any recommendations for a wood to use? I'm wanting a detachable hutch too, but that's coming later in the design.

Something endangered and rare. Like mahogany or cork. Guaranteed badass computer desk.

If it wears out your tools too fast, Sno, you're using the wrong tools.

Yup! Cutting metal isn't hard, but you do need the right tools.

[FirBirGir]

I agree with AHadley, you're probably using the wrong tools.

You can work with aluminum using wood working tools for the most part. Cutting sheets of aluminum is a bit tricky but can be done with a circular saw with a blade with lots of carbide teeth. You can downsize the blade from 7-1/4" to a 6" or so and that will help reduce the speed of the blade. Spray the blade and the alunimum with a cutting oil or WD40 before cutting. For any non-straight cuts, use a jig saw with a good quality bi-metal blade. I think you can find some designed for aluminum if you look hard enough. Joining aluminum is another matter. Welding is great but you need the right tools (MIG or TIG welder with Argon gas) and it only works with aircraft grade aluminum like 6061 (the really hard aluminum). The easier way is to buy some aluminum angle and screw the panels together. This can look good if you are consistent with the placement of the screws and use a screw that adds to the look instead of a regular sheet metal screw (ie chrome or hex cap screws)

If you go with wood, use one of the hard, tight grained woods like hickory or maple. Oak is pretty but has veins of soft grain in it. If you're using all 3/4"+ thicknesses, you can get by with oak. If you want to go with 1/4"-1/2" stock use something besides oak or use veneered plywood. With thin materials, you will need a supporting frame. That can be wood or aluminum angle.

Another option is white Aspen. I haven't used it a lot but it's a semi-hard wood, easy to cut and drill but not as strong as other hard woods.

Eddy

[Dx.]

Next on, the new yankee workshop, we'll be making rocking chairs.

[FirBirGir]

This is more like us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9-yw6EgCQ

[RCD2]

Nice. Yep the cutting of aluminum is the easy part. Being a welder that welds aluminum it goes way beyond that. Takes a special skill and equipment that your backyard do-it-all person doesn't have or can afford.

[hitchcockgreen]

This is more like us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ9-yw6EgCQ

lmao

Nice. Yep the cutting of aluminum is the easy part. Being a welder that welds aluminum it goes way beyond that. Takes a special skill and equipment that your backyard do-it-all person doesn't have or can afford.

Well they might have it, or can even afford it but it an entirely different skill set to be sure.