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Upgrades Hardware

Homebrew Rackmount Watercooling 213

Airspirit writes "For those of you who believe that bigger is always better and have multiple computers in your house, this system may be a way to keep them all cool and organized. As an added bonus, it will heat a medium sized apartment all by itself! This article at Pro/Cooling gives a step by step walkthrough describing the evolution of this five gallon monstrosity. Not only does this cover the construction of the cooling system, but the drawbacks such as algae prevention and maintenance as well."
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Homebrew Rackmount Watercooling

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  • Cool! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig@hogger.gmail@com> on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:19AM (#6273077) Journal
    How about coupling it with a water cooler? So when thirst call, you don't have to go to the faucet...

    What?

    Oh, Mountain Dew...

    Darn!

  • AMD (Score:5, Funny)

    by graveyhead ( 210996 ) <fletch@fletchtro ... et minus painter> on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:19AM (#6273081)
    You don't need a rackmount water cooler to heat a medium sized apartment, one AMD processor will do quite nicely ;)

    And for those who think I'm joking, I haven't run my heater in my apartment since I bought my AMD last winter.
    • by Anonymous Coward
      You don't need a rackmount water cooler to heat a medium sized apartment, one AMD processor will do quite nicely ;)

      And for those who think I'm joking, I haven't run my heater in my apartment since I bought my AMD last winter.


      ...that he lives in southern Florida too.
    • Re:AMD (Score:2, Insightful)

      by greentree ( 682982 )
      And just to be a little more mindful of what you are saying would you mind telling what region you live in? Winters vary quite a bit from place to place. Up here in Michigan the most recent winter was nearly record breaking with several below zero nights. I have a few computers that run 24/7 in my bedroom, but none of them can do much to improve the humidity when it's ten below zero outside. My room is upstairs, so I get a lot of heat from the lower levels anyways. Wouldn't a monitor provide a lot of heat t
      • Wouldn't a monitor provide a lot of heat too?

        My cat sure thinks so, laying on top of the monitor is his favorite spot. He likes to use by wireless router/firewall as a pillow to rest his head on. It's hysterical.
        • Wouldn't a monitor provide a lot of heat too?

          My cat sure thinks so, laying on top of the monitor is his favorite spot. He likes to use by wireless router/firewall as a pillow to rest his head on. It's hysterical.

          Just hope he doesn't get the idea to piss on your monitor, or you'll come home to fried kitty one day...zzzap!

      • Re:AMD (Score:3, Interesting)

        by alexre1 ( 662339 )
        I live in Toronto, Canada. Most winters, the average temperature is ~ -15 degrees centigrade.
        This past winter, for some reason our central heating died for a few days. My room (with my
        lovely AMD Athlon 1.2GHz) was the only warm room in the house :) It actually got quite annoying...
        my room became a living room of sorts for the family that week.

        In any case, the point is that those AMD CPU's run QUITE hot :)

        I remember back when the AMD (socket not slot) Athlons were first released, some tech review
        • Re:AMD (Score:2, Informative)

          by phasm42 ( 588479 )
          It was in an article on Tom's Hardware Guide [tomshardware.com]. An impressive display of how Intel and AMD processors responded to loss of heatsink. AMD's processors instantly turned to toast, while P3's locked, and P4's slowed down to reduce heat output until the heat sink was put back on (a really cool and useful ability). Since then, AMD's new processors will shutdown (similar to the P3's response I think) if on a motherboard that supports the ability. I'm not talking about the little heat sensor thing most MB's have, whi
    • Re:AMD (Score:5, Funny)

      by marcsiry ( 38594 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:27AM (#6273153) Homepage
      Similarly, just leaving my PowerMac dualie (Quicksilver, 2002) on at night has eliminated the need for a white noise generator.

      This famously loud machine drown out the street noise from outside- and I live on Amsterdam Ave., in Manhattan (a noisy street in a noisy town).

      Ironically, putting the computer to sleep (which spins down the drive and the fans) makes it more difficult for ME to sleep...
      • by Andy Dodd ( 701 ) <atd7&cornell,edu> on Monday June 23, 2003 @11:32AM (#6273625) Homepage
        I've found that most computer noises (even HD/CPU fan whine) don't make good whitenoise for sleeping.

        The exception is if you use a large ventilation fan to blow into an open case. (been there done that.)

        I DO use my computer as a whitenoise generator at night though. I've seen people charge $100-200 for whitenoise generators, when a simple program on a PC can do the trick. Under Linux, do a search for "whitenoise". Nice small program.

        Under Windows, so far the best solution I have come up with is to use Octave to generate a white noise (actually, "pink" noise, i.e. white noise that has been lowpass filtered) waveform, save it to .wav, and set Winamp to play it in an infinite loop.

        Octave code to do this:

        noisy = rand(1,65536*2);
        noisy = noisy-mean(noisy);
        noisy = [noisy noisy noisy];
        noisy2 = rand(1,65536*2);
        noisy2 = noisy2-mean(noisy2);
        noisy2 = [noisy2 noisy2 noisy2];
        myfiltlo = fir1(512,.2);
        myfilthi = fir1(512,.4);
        lownoise = filtfilt(myfiltlo,1,noisy);
        highnoise = filtfilt(myfilthi,1,noisy);
        lownoise = lownoise + highnoise/48;
        mywave = lownoise(65536:65536+65536*2);
        mywave = mywave-mean(mywave);
        mywave = mywave/max(abs(mywave));
        mywave = mywave';
        ausave('whitenoise.wav',mywave,22050);
        This creates white noise at a high level up to abour 2.2 kHz, and then additional noise at a much lower volume up to 4.4 kHz or so. You can adjust the cutoff frequencies (Second arguments to both fir1() functions and the ratios of volumes to your preference.

        Note that I generate a noise array and then dupe it three times before filtering it and then truncating it again. This prevents discontinuities in the final waveform that would present audible clicks/pops after every loop. (Similar theory to some of the tricks used to make seamless tiles in The GIMP.)

        • Hey, wait a moment.
          You make noise?
          I mean, you MAKE noise so that you can sleep?
          Hell, I turn off my Apple/PC to have NO noise.
          And I live in the middle of town.br.
          • Some forms of noise are more pleasing to the human ear than others, and monotonous noises (like fans) can actually be soothing. I actually CAN'T sleep without some background noise such as a fan (or my PC's whitenoise generator) running.

            CPU fans are the exception, as these emit rather high-frequency narrowband noise. I'm talking about larger fans of the 2-foot+ variety. Hard drives are also too high pitched, plus the heads make all sorts of nice clicking sounds.

            The output of that program is broadband n
    • Re:AMD (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MattRog ( 527508 )
      That's why I leave my Athlon-based PC in my other room running 24/7 in the winter. It's cheaper than running the heater (my apt is old and doesn't have central air/heat, just crappy space heater things in each room) and less chance of catching something on fire, too.

      However here in the summertime it causes the room to be noticeably warmer than the rest of the apartment; the in-window a/c unit has to work overtime to keep that room cool.

      To be fair, the PC I had before this one (dual PIII500â(TM)s) al
      • Re:AMD (Score:3, Insightful)

        by vadim_t ( 324782 )
        Yeah, dual CPUs produce a *lot* of heat.

        I have here a dual Athlon MP 2000+. The temperature measured at the heatsinks is 56C and 62C. The difference is because one has arctic silver on the heatsink and the other the AMD thermal pad stuff.

        Anyway, this thing gets amazingly hot. A bit more, and I couldn't hold my hand on top of the case, and it's got 9 fans in it! When I enter the room I notice that it's noticeably hotter than the rest of the house, even though that the computer is near an open window.

        Now,
        • Wierd... My dual AMD MP2000+'s run in the mid 40's under full load. Sure you've goot good ventillation? Our other AMD systems also usually max out at about 45 ^\circ C. (Antec 400W Fileservercase with 5 case fans. 2 antec and 3 coolmaster. ) Original AMD CPU fans.

          You should see this thing eat through climatology models with 3 gigs of ram :)
      • When I first put my AMD together, it was the beginning of summer on a Sunday and all the computer stores in the area were closed.

        Unfortunately for me, the CPU fan and two case fans weren't enough to keep the CPU at a temperature to run the machine for more than about 10 minutes...

        Luckily, I hadn't put the window air conditioning unit in for the year at that point. The temporary solution was to open up the side of the case, stick the air conditioner right up to it, and set it full blast. My cpu hasn't

    • AMD and Intel need to realize the tremendous potential here - within a few years, every family could have a supercomputer that not only meets all your gaming/surfing/ripping/video-editing needs, but also replaces your furnace and water heater!
    • You live in California right? Try that in Minnesota...

  • Ack... (Score:2, Funny)

    ... hate to see the AC bill in the summer though. Especially here where there really is no spring, it just goes directly to hot and humid.
  • Neat (Score:3, Funny)

    by SlayerofGods ( 682938 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:22AM (#6273104)
    I'd get one if for nothing else but the coolness of it.
  • by Mensa Babe ( 675349 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:22AM (#6273108) Homepage Journal
    Please don't even remind me about homebrew rackmount watercooling... Just remember to always check if the water is not leaking anywhere before you turn it on together with $15000 equipment. This is a lesson I learned the hard way...
    • Please don't even remind me about homebrew rackmount watercooling... Just remember to always check if the water is not leaking anywhere before you turn it on together with $15000 equipment. This is a lesson I learned the hard way...

      I couldn't help but laugh as I looked at your message then looked at your sig about a superior intellect.
  • energy consumption (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jacquesm ( 154384 ) <j@nOSPam.ww.com> on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:24AM (#6273119) Homepage
    this makes you wonder how long it will be before information surpasses transportation as the largest consumer of energy on the planet
    • before information surpasses transportation as the largest consumer of energy on the planet

      No, see, they'll be combined. We'll leave our bodies, transform ourselves into pure energy, and travel among the wires à la Matrix or Serial Experiments Lain.

      And instead of traffic jams, we'll have DoS jams.
    • this makes you wonder how long it will be before information surpasses transportation as the largest consumer of energy on the planet

      for that to happen transportation will have to use a LOT less energy. The fuel I use to get to work every morning could run a small generator powering three racks of [routers/servers/DSLAMs] for HOURS. Multiply times (everyone else who's driving) and thats a lot of energy consumption.

    • If I remember correctly, the numbers in one DOE newletter I read mentioned something like 15-20% of electrical generation is being used by computers (small computers, big computers, networks, etc, etc.)
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:24AM (#6273122)
    Ok, the web site is down. Bring on the traditional
    jokes! It has to do with water cooled systems. So,
    let's see...

    1. The water must be boiling! Har har har!

    2. Time for some more coolant! Har har har!

    3. The radiator must have blown a gasket! Har har har!

    4. Imagine a beowulf cluster of . . .

    5. They need to switch to a better coolant than water! har har har!

    Oy, this is sooooo predictable. Mod this down because I
    close with a traditional "slashdot sucks" comment.
  • by beacher ( 82033 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:26AM (#6273143) Homepage
    I'm looking at the green water on the diagram and I see the blackish smudge and I'm wondering if that's a plecostomos [aquahobby.com]???
    Now I suppose someone's gotta code Perl::FishFeed to make sure the algae prevention measures are in place....
    -B
    • Back when I was a kid, my fishtank had a nasty algae problem.

      So my parents bought a pleco. Tiny little thing, maybe 1-2 inches long. We called it "Lucky" due to the abundance of food in the tank.

      Lucky lived for 12 years, far longer than any other fish we've ever had. And man do those things GROW. By the time it died it was nearly a foot long and thicker than its original length. It probably would've been twice the size if we'd had a larger tank.
      • my pleco is 5yrs. old and about 14 inches already, but he has spend a couple summers in the outdoor aquarium [shortkick2.nav.to]. My outdoot aquarium is about 2K gallons in that picture, and I in the process of expanding it so that it'll be in the neighborhood of 4-5K gallons, Plecos will grow to 2 ft,
  • Slashdotted (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:26AM (#6273144)
    Google [216.239.39.100] Cache. Of course, no pictures....
  • drawback? (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:28AM (#6273154) Homepage Journal

    ..but the drawbacks such as algae prevention..
    Algae prevention is a drawback? Remind me to never eat from the submitter's refridgerator.
    • Re:drawback? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I wonder if the algaes could be prevented by using something else than water, for instance chloromethane, freon or some sort of liquid alcohol/methane based substitute. In unsterile water, algaes often grow instantly when exposed to heat.
    • by Greedo ( 304385 )
      Of course I can't RTFA or LATFP (look at the feckin' pictures) cause the site is down. But what about combining a water-cooling system with a tropical aquarium?

      That way little bottom-feeders (and no, I don't mean CowboyNeal) can clean the algae for you. Salt-water might also help the cooling process ... have to check my physics textbook on that one.

      Oooh ... and combine it with some waterproofed hamster Habitrail stuff too! So your fish can swim all around the apartment, and the extra area will help dis
      • Re:drawback? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by phasm42 ( 588479 )
        Saltwater... that sounds like it might be a bit corrosive to the metals. Probably not a good idea. How about some bleach, and combine the thing with a washing machine?
      • Of course I can't RTFA or LATFP (look at the feckin' pictures) cause the site is down. But what about combining a water-cooling system with a tropical aquarium?

        That way little bottom-feeders (and no, I don't mean CowboyNeal) can clean the algae for you. Salt-water might also help the cooling process ... have to check my physics textbook on that one.

        It'd be cool as hell...but last time I checked, copper (the material used for most waterblocks/radiators/heater cores) isn't so good for fishes. You'd end

  • by Groote Ka ( 574299 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:28AM (#6273166)
    "Not only does this cover the construction of the cooling system, but the drawbacks such as algae prevention and maintenance as well."

    Why prevent the growth of algae? With algae, this object fully supports your personal biosphere.

  • by bobdotorg ( 598873 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:31AM (#6273183)
    7:17 a.m. - article posted on Slashdot.

    7:19 a.m. - water cooling system begins to be put to the test

    7:27 a.m. - Slashdeath results in a high pitched whistle caused by steam venting from piping.

    7:27:05 a.m. - Apartment dweller wakes.

    Rube Goldberg would be proud.
  • Hombrew? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Geek Boy ( 15178 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:35AM (#6273210)
    Argh I saw homebrew and excitedly clicked in because I thought it was a way to keep the PC cool while brewing your own beer. Boy was I surprised.
  • I can't wait for the next advancement in cooling technology....

    CPU heat exchange engine providing enough energy to power your PC.

    Behold the perpetual PC!

    • Thats actually a very interesting idea. I wonder if it's possible to channel some of the heat
      coming from the CPU, HDD's, RAM etc to power the computer. I'm not suggesting that this could
      possibly furnish all required power (IE not a perpetual computer :)). But perhaps the heat
      could be transferred so that it would contribute somewhat to the powering of the
      computer. If this was efficient, and significant enough, it could save us a lot of money on our
      power bills in the long run :) Plus, its a *very* e
      • Peltier junction. They work in reverse. ie: heat flow produces voltage.
        • I did wonder if you could use one to power the cpu fan? the hotter it got the faster it would spin the fan.
          • Yes, this would work, as long as the fan cooled the cool side of the junction. If the fan directly cooled say a heat sink in parallel with the junction, the temp difference across the junction would decrease and the fan would actually slow down.
        • by ajs318 ( 655362 ) <(sd_resp2) (at) (earthshod.co.uk)> on Monday June 23, 2003 @12:33PM (#6274228)
          YES - it's called a thermocouple. There is one in every standing-pilot gas boiler, used as a flame-failure detector. The pilot flame heats the thermocouple probe, producing a current which holds in an electromagnet. This electromagnet operates a valve upstream of the other controls. If the pilot flame blows out, the thermocouple cools down, and the electromagnet releases. This blocks off the gas supply, preventing against an explosion hazard.

          The priming knob is a way to open the safety valve manually to get some gas to the pilot burner so you can light it in the first place.

          A modern boiler uses electronic ignition, and senses the flame electronically. This is easy. Fire is a chemical reaction; in a chemical reaction there are charged particles in motion; and where there are charged particles in motion, a current can be made to flow. In practice the current is about a microamp for a small pilot flame, or several uA if the main burner is lit directly {which is now becoming more common}. Lighting a bigger burner does not, of course, require a higher-energy spark, as the activation energy of a chemical reaction is independent of the quantities of reagents present. But it does allow you to get away with even simpler plumbing {only one gas valve instead of two} and it also saves one relay on the circuit board.

          I know all this from my previous employment .....

          Coming back to thermocouples, you can make a thermocouple junction from any two dissimilar metals. They only need to be twisted together; you can cold-weld them. Soldering introduces a third metal, but doesn't make any difference to the voltage as you then have 2 junctions: metal A to solder and solder to metal B, and the First Law of Thermodynamics says that Vas + Vsb = Vab.

          The problem with using thermocouples to generate electricity from a processor is simply that you need a large temperature differential for them to work well, and a processor is only reaching about 60 degrees or so with a heatsink -- it will melt at about 160 degrees, but the PTC {positive temperature coefficient} effect means it will stop working around 120 degrees, as the electrical resistance of the power and ground connections becomes too great for reliable operation.

          Even if you let the processor get up to 80 degrees, this is still only 60 degrees above room temperature, and this small difference won't produce a lot of millivoltage. Of course, you can connect thermocouples in series -- such an arrangement is known as a thermopile, and has been used to power a wireless set from the flame of a paraffin lamp. You need to put a hot thermocouple junction into series with a cold junction, and so on. The catch is that you need for there to be a large temperature difference between the hot and cold ends, but the more junctions you introduce into the thermopile then the more paths there are for heat to be conducted from the one side to the other.

          You could cool the cold junctions with liquid nitrogen, but you might as well just pour the N2 on the processor.

          Older processors with larger feature sizes were more immune to overheating, as the PTC effect was enough to protect the chip from meltdown. I've seen old pentium MMXes run with no heatsink -- they typically last just long enough to boot Windows 95, then seize up solid, but they can survive the experience! I wouldn't trust a modern Athlon without a heatsink, though.

          And, since not all of the electricity supplied into a processor is converted to heat in the processor {some of it is converted to other forms of energy and/or converted elsewhere}, then you won't get the full amount back.
  • Apparently all 5 gallons of water evaporated due to the Slashdot effect.
  • Darn! (Score:3, Funny)

    by turgid ( 580780 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:46AM (#6273294) Journal
    Every time I see a slashdot headline with the word "homebrew" in it I think that at last there's an article about beer, but no :-(
  • by Ashen ( 6917 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:47AM (#6273301)
    It must be time to go to bed. I just worked all night and at first I read "Hebrew rackmount cooling." I was so confused.
  • Article Author (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:56AM (#6273353)
    This is actually my system. I don't think Joe, the owner of Pro/Cooling (not hosted on a watercooled system, btw), had any warning that his server was about to be slashdotted. I suppose spraying your systems down with a fire extinguisher is not the best way to spend a Monday morning, but who am I to judge?

    And he always said he wanted more traffic, hehe.

    Anyway, the reason I have so many machines is that I do professional web design and database programming, an obscene amount of gaming, and host multiple network services. From top to bottom you have:

    PC 1: Gaming, development (WinXP/Mandrake 9.1)
    PC 2: Wife's office computer (WinXP/Mandrake 9.1)
    PC 3: Linux network server

    I host a mini-ISP out of my house for the neighborhood, so the Linux server helps keep bandwidth consumption down as well as providing other services my customers demand.

    I have a KVM that allows me to swap between PCs 1 and 3, and she has her own equipment for her PC (I just leave it alone ... oddly enough, she uses Windows for the "heavy lifting" and Linux because she loves the games!).

    Anyway, I better go run and hide before Joe hunts me down!

    Airspirit
  • Yoshi's Mod (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NeB_Zero ( 645301 ) <nebzero@nOSPaM.gmail.com> on Monday June 23, 2003 @10:59AM (#6273376) Journal
    Yoshi DeHerrera of TechTV [techtv.com] has an article about how to use HFE from 3M to build a submerged cooling system for a computer. Find it here. [techtv.com]
    • I'm currently building a water submerged computer to go into a real, operating fish tank. It will be quiet, O/Ced, and have nice little fishies. Anybody want to donate a used, fresh-water aquarium setup w/ pumps? (San Jose or Castro Valley areas) ;)
      • Today I decided to make one too, the biggest problem I can forsee is that everybody that thinks they know something about electricity, are going to treat us like we are the anti-christ!

        One thing I haven't figured out is if water has enough thermal-conductivity to do without a heat-sink on the CPU. I'm not sure about fish, clean an aquarium is enough of a chore without trying to vacuume fish feces of the cpu and not knock a memory stick loose.
  • Google Cache view (Score:3, Informative)

    by greechneb ( 574646 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @11:03AM (#6273401) Journal
    Check out the Google Cache of the page [216.239.41.100]
  • ..how this works." "The white stuff requires two types of glue to form a seal. First you apply primer, rubbing the brush around until the PVC starts dissolving and looks milky (do this on both parts on all areas that will be connected), and then you apply PVC glue until the primer and glue are completely mixed (on both parts).." You don't /mix/ the primer and glue! The primer is a alchohol-based cleaning compound! If you don't wait until it dries, the joint won't bond. ".. and then you slide the parts together and hold on for dear life." Hell yes! He mixed the glue and primer: "Pal, you're going to be holding that for a loooong time.." Oh, and I /do/ work with Sch 40; think 200 psi pressure lines. Don't mix the primer, man. It ain't purty.
  • by 1010011010 ( 53039 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @11:20AM (#6273536) Homepage
    I've got conduit running from the second floor computer room in my house into both the attic and crawlspace. I'm thinking of doing something like this, and running the heat exchanger portion under the house, to take advantage of the cool climate under there, and provide and emergency outlet for leaks. I'm thinking of using copper tubing on the two heat-exchange ends, with polymer tubing in between (in the conduit). I'm wondering what the flow rate would need to be, and how big the tubing would need to be to support that flow rate. Not being a fluid-flow or heating/cooling engineer of any type, I'm posting this question. :) It would be convenient to be able to use ordinary fish-tank equipment. The height of the water loop will play into that -- it has to be pumped up and down about 20 feet.

  • by Strange Ranger ( 454494 ) on Monday June 23, 2003 @11:20AM (#6273539)

    "My computer has an algae problem."

    HD: "Well, is it blue-green algae, or just regular green algae?

    "How do I tell?"

    HD: "Oh for pity sake! Go to START, Programs, Algae Management."

    "Ummm.. Maybe I should just shut down and go spend some time outdoors?"
  • I set up my own very first rack (21U of space) in the equipment closet in my house (custom built so it'd have an equipment closet). The rack houses an Ethernet switch, patch panel, UPS, two 1U servers, and a 2U RAID server. (Yes, I need this much equipment.)

    I originally placed all the equipment right on top of each other, leaving 12U open. What a mistake! It was up about 30 minutes before the RAID array complained of multiple drive failures and one of the other servers was hung hard. The entire rack
  • I don't claim to be a scientist, but one thing struck me when I was reading the page about your project. At the end you kind of complain about the ambient temperature in the room from your cooling system. But you also complain that your stage 3 temperatures were higher then your Stage 2 temperatures. Yeah, I'll bet. If you really want to know what is just from the cooling system you have to adjust the room temperature so it is constant.

    I mean, it it's the winter time in the first example and your temp

  • his profession: sanitary engineering! ...
    his avocation: cooling!

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