Angry Postman

No Man's Sky get's more updates than this thread!

@Awakening This thread has been up for almost half a year; I think you could have taken your time

If they didn't want to do this segment any more they could at least just finish this one off!

Thanks guys! I'll look into them.

Hi everyone. I'm sitting with a small problem that can turn into a bigger one later. We've got a farm with eight machines, each time we update any of our software I have to update eight times through remote desktop (Yes have a laugh at me). This isn't TOO terrible but I'm sure there's a better way. What sort of software could I use to keep one "image" of a machine updated and then propagate that to all the other machines? Something that would keep the "identity" of each machine in tact rather than having eight machines called "renderNode"? If we ever end up getting more machines for the farm then this could become a very tedious task! Suggestions are welcome.

Haha thanks guys! It's still performing well

A SMALL update to my little fish tank... For those not following my help forum post, a stick of RAM died because it got some water bubbles on it which is very marginally affecting the graphical performance (Onboard GPU). I'll get another replacement 4 gig DIMM when I feel the minor UI stutter in Kodi bothers me. This water came from condensation of the "roof" of the fish tank so I've left that off (who cares, no one can see it). My front panel is just chilling on top but works very well because of this needed lack of lid (Again, it functions; I even charge my remote control from it). I've since done a water change or three, fed my fish plenty times, no one is dead, the temperatures are 100% what is needed for the fish I have, and it's looking very pretty with how I've arranged all the fake plants... I wonder if I should transition to real plants??? By the way, I count 14 fish in this next picture (Took me a while): And here's a top view for the curious:

Thanks @LukaH I'm well aware but I think the software controlling the fan isn't keen on the resistance and it refuses to start up properly. But my oil temps without any fans, except for the PSU fan, is currently sitting at 29.3 and dropping. I'm actually using the machine right now and I'm wondering if I should even bother with the other 4 gig DIMM

More Updates! I'm coming to the end of this "diary" now, just RAM I need to fix (I think). I finally found the time to take the dead DIMM out and put in the old heat sink (Had to buy some thermal paste first). You HAVE to see the temperature graph. It's very interesting, well to me anyway! Once I had removed the dead RAM DIMM and put the heat sink back on I ran a small stress test (About a minute) with the oil drained down to the DIMMs and the heat climbed very quickly to almost 70 degrees as you can see in the first test at 17:11 so I stopped that without hesitation. I then starting siphoning the oil back in over about half an hour and you can see the temps dropped slowly but significantly (Cold oil will do that). Then before the second test you'll see a dip in temperature on the motherboard where I just dumped the last bit of oil in. I then ran a new stress tests for a fair bit longer and it peaked at around 57 degrees! Now that everything is back where it belongs the temps have averaged out to about 33 degrees (Mobo, CPU, and HDD) and there isn't much fluctuation when I'm watching movies or YouTube at all. I'm going to take that dead DIMM in to have it tested an perhaps replaced because there is definitely a SMALL dip in FPS when running Kodi and flicking through the thumbnails. So for now that's going to be a process of elimination to see where the performance dip has come from. Here's something even cooler for a proper 3D geek like me. Have a look at this photo and pay special attention to the inflow pipe at the top. Sorry, ignore the fish, they're very inquisitive. See the refraction? The different temperature of oil seems to refract light at a different IOR. I'm looking at it now from my couch and I can see it! VERY COOL

It was RAM!! Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I've been touched by his noodley appendage! I took one stick out (Sans heat sink) hit power and it posted, no beeps, and up comes the windows logo and I power down. This thing boots FAST by the way, about four seconds... I sat and cleaned the RAM like you would a new born and then put it back making sure to seat it properly. I also took the time to wiggle some things back into place and put the thermometer into a good spot since it fell. I booted again still sans heat sink and it was too quick for me and got into windows. The background was buggered up and I started seeing flickering before it registered that I wanted to power it off. So here I sit refilling it with oil VERY slowly using an air line, bucket of oil, and gravity. Once it gets to a good level I'll start putting water back into the tank so I can run the fish pump again. Shame they've been so patient with me. I'll reward them with some blood worms tomorrow. I'm going to give it a go without the fan and heat sink and let the cold oil from the radiator flow directly onto the CPU. Let's see what happens! EDIT: So that one RAM module that was causing issues is dead. Windows is reporting 4 gig RAM. I may be able to live with four gig. Maybe the other module will "wake up" one day. We'll see. I'm still without a heat sink and fan and the CPU temps seem to be varying wildly now. But overall the oil is still about 1 to 2 degrees higher than the water. So it SEEMS fine. Let's see how it goes. I'm going to watch some stuff to run it in it's normal usage to gauge if I need to put the heat sink back on or not; I've cut the actual fan part off since it wasn't actually doing anything but get in the way. Broke it a bit, but it's late at night and I've had couple to drink... so my bad

Haha! Well, diagnostic update @Stefan1024 I've discovered some thermal paste has leaked onto the RAM. But that doesn't conduct electricity... So now I'm wondering if the heat sink was doing anything at all. Once the power comes back (we've had a power failure and it's 22h20!) I'm going to do some tests on the PSU, and clean and reseat the RAM.

@Stefan1024 I hope I don't pop it I've drained it plenty now so while I'm here I'm going to test the PSU. I don't think the heat sink will stay without the fan. I'll put it back after.

@Stefan1024 do you think this machine can live without a heat sink? I'm tempted to take it out so I can fit my hands in to reach the RAM.

Today the fish tank refused to start. I get NO visual, the mobo has no post codes for me to look at and I don't have a PC Speaker installed; I mean why would I put a PC Speaker IN oil. HAHA! Basically it would power for about ten seconds, power off and power on again to repeat the cycle. Completely baffled and VERY disappointed in myself I assume the worst and decided I've properly broken it with the few water bubbles that got in. I remember that in the loft I have an OLD machine laying about with a PC Speaker. All hope is not lost! I then go about modding this little PC speaker to live outside the tank. After I plugged it in with great difficulty using some braai tongs I turned it on... BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP... Non stop. I hunt for the beep codes and I finally find it... I think... It uses an Award BIOS as far as I know and the continuous beeps mean badly seated memory. I will admit with all my fiddling I have bumped the memory numerous times. This is going to be a MISSION to remove and re-seat because, as we all know, memory requires a bit of pressure to click in. I'll update when I get around to it. EDIT: I was wrong. It's an AMI UEFI BIOS and continuous beeps mean bad PSU. DAMN the water did bugger it up! This is going to be harder than I thought. I'm going to drain it so I can reach inside and borrow a PSU from somewhere to test...

Forum ID: Angry_Postman Build Title: Mineral Oil HTPC, in a fish tank, with fish. Thread URL: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/543968-my-htpc-in-mineral-oil-in-a-fish-tank/ Description: Combining two projects of mine that were long overdue I have finally succeeded in building my fully function mineral oil cooled HTPC and put it inside a fish tank with actual living fish. No the fish aren't in the oil; geez I get asked this a lot. I literally sit down on my couch, turn the TV and amp on, turn the HTPC on with a double click of my wireless remote/mouse/keyboard and voila! There are 21 fish in total. It's a mess, but a pretty, and functional mess