The ULTIMATE Powerhouse Sleeper PC

[Wh0_Am_1]

1 minute ago, Radium_Angel said:

No, it's par for the course. Look at the tag line in the video

"LTT, We Don't Know Anything"

 

Yeah, it's not their fault, but like how for some reason for a while (and still every now and then) my computer with an I5 2500 would have the system consume 20 to 60% of my CPU for no good reason. It is still infuriating. ( the worst part is I don't even know why it works at them moment, and why the issue still occurs after ~12 hours of uptime.

[DrDerp]

4 minutes ago, AlexTheGreatish said:

I'd recommend NYC CNC , CNC Router Parts and CNC Cookbook for general CNC/CAM knowledge.

Thanks Alex, we were running into similar problems to what you had, but on a smaller scale.

I'll have to see what I can learn and possibly do before our build season ends, thanks for the help.

[RobbinM]

Great project Alex. The production quality on this video is also great. End result is one of the coolest video's on the channel and certainly the most beast sleeper out there.

For the chiller build: you could go with a massive beast of a server like this:

 

 

And this HP DL980G7 also comes with 10kW of PSU power for all your threadripping needs :') It isn't old-school though. Also, the sleeper status goes down the drain even if you'd use something old school like a Silicon Graphics Onyx:

 

If you really want to have a large sleeper than my best bet would be on modifying an old Xerox machine you can find at any dump:

Enough paper trays to fit a chiller, PC and still have the printing parts working  Imagine hoisting that thing into a LAN party.

Go over the top with a little pimp my ride LCD screen mod to the lid, and done.

 

[AlexTheGreatish]

13 minutes ago, DrDerp said:

Thanks Alex, we were running into similar problems to what you had, but on a smaller scale.

I'll have to see what I can learn and possibly do before our build season ends, thanks for the help.

Also this single flute bit has been working like a charm along with this tape for holding.

[AlexTheGreatish]

1 minute ago, RobbinM said:

~snip~

 

You're not the first person to suggest something from Silicon Graphics - will try and get a hold of one

[RobbinM]

1 hour ago, AlexTheGreatish said:

You're not the first person to suggest something from Silicon Graphics - will try and get a hold of one

If you do, make sure it's 'broken'. There are still a lot of enthousiasts out there I believe.

I've been looking on ebay for them but... Nothing. 

What about building a PC into the chiller?

[SenKa]

Ugh... Every sleeper build is making me look at my Compaq Prolient sleeper project that I've been putting off. I really need to finish it, eventually...

[LinuxGeek18]

You gimped performance by over 60% by using Windows 10 on that Threadripper....

[Pyrii]

So they used a 2990WX with the Zenith Extreme which doesn't have enough VRM to really push that chip and will have VRM heat issues, along with a standard iesblock from alphacool that doesn't fully cover the IHS with an "adapter kit".

 

It seems poor old Margeret has been gimped by the sponsors. I feel like this could have been something truly special, but along with some wonky tubing, and no love given to the front with all the drive facades badly destroyed, this gets a resound "meh" from me.

 

I wanna see a sleeper build that shows how beautiful retro can be, rather than an messy, unloved, mish-mash of parts.

 

PS. Comparing this build to an Core i9 Macbook pro? Wow, you really want to highlight the heat issues with this build.

[JMY1000]

3 hours ago, RobbinM said:

Great project Alex. The production quality on this video is also great. End result is one of the coolest video's on the channel and certainly the most beast sleeper out there.

For the chiller build: you could go with a massive beast of a server like this:

 

 

And this HP DL980G7 also comes with 10kW of PSU power for all your threadripping needs :') It isn't old-school though. Also, the sleeper status goes down the drain even if you'd use something old school like a Silicon Graphics Onyx:

 

If you really want to have a large sleeper than my best bet would be on modifying an old Xerox machine you can find at any dump:

Enough paper trays to fit a chiller, PC and still have the printing parts working  Imagine hoisting that thing into a LAN party.

Go over the top with a little pimp my ride LCD screen mod to the lid, and done.

 

G7 seems a bit too new to call sleeper, those things still pack a real punch. I'd hate to see anything SGI made go to waste as a sleeper build.

 

@AlexTheGreatish, I think I might have the thing for you if you're looking for a sleeper server. It's an IBM eserver xSeries 350 8682: 4U, quad Pentium III Xeons at 700 MHz, and up to 16GB or RAM. Oh, and it weighs 75 lbs. As far as I know, it still boots, though I can't say I exactly remember firing it up. If you (or really anyone else with a good use for it) is interested in it, let me know. If you want to see one in action, look at this video:

 

 

[Uttamattamakin]

AWESOME VIDEO.  Only one thing would've made this a better ultra professional PC... IF somehow you could've kept all those old drives in and working.  A monster like this that could still read/write a 5 1/2 inch floppy LOL.  Would Windows 10 even still know what to do with it?  (Did windows 2000 even really work with it WTH)?

[RobbinM]

Are there any high res pictures available from the PC Alex built?

[williamcll]

Why not RTX titan?

[Fnige]

Can it run chrome though

[it_dont_work]

13 hours ago, AlexTheGreatish said:

 

 

Hope you're keeping the grinding and cutting wheels you've been using on ally seperate to ones you've been using on steel 

[TheWoodchuck]

Obviously TeamLTT tapped FreeGeek for that old case, but does anyone know if they ship to the US, or some other US source for old AT/ATX chassis other than the overpriced "vintage" section of eBay? I'm really looking for something in that lovely disgusting beige we all know and adore, along the lines of this old beast. Once upon a time, I owned this exact chassis, and I WANT IT BACK! Thanks, guys!

[idmb]

Next level sleeper: putting a workstation into a mechanical computer. A calculator like the Hamann Manus R. 

 

Also can't wait for the iMac G3 sleeper that was mentioned at some point! 

[JoOngle]

I don't know how I managed to post my suggestion in the wrong sleeper thread, since I didn't even search. but here it goes, with the dangers of doubleposting:

 

I'm curious to what settings you used in Blender with the BMW benchmarking test, did you just Download it, run it by pressing F12 and go? Or did you tweak the settings

to optimize for your Workstation build?

 

If not, you should.

 

I get a benchmark result of 42.90 Seconds on the BMW (gpu) test, with a Zenith Extreme Motherboard with a 16 core (1950x) Threadripper, and watercooling, no overclocking, with an Asus 1080ti Strix OC edition.

 

But I fully expect your rig to be able to get at least 40% more performance than mine. At 120 - that seems a bit underwhelming to me for a rig like that, try setting the Render Tiles settings to x 16 and y 16 instead of the default 256. This would optimize the render performance for your particular GPU.

 

Also go to preferences and enable both GPU and CPU for rendering.

Use Blender 2.8 Beta for this.

 

please post your results, I'm sure we're quite a lot of people out there that's curious about the results.

 

 

[AlexTheGreatish]

12 hours ago, it_dont_work said:

Hope you're keeping the grinding and cutting wheels you've been using on ally seperate to ones you've been using on steel 

Lol yup, really don't want a sploded wheel stuck in my skull

3 hours ago, JoOngle said:

~snip~

I'll have to talk to @GabenJr, I just did this testing by hitting F12 but he's the one that usually tests this sort of thing.

[JMY1000]

17 hours ago, TheWoodchuck said:

Obviously TeamLTT tapped FreeGeek for that old case, but does anyone know if they ship to the US, or some other US source for old AT/ATX chassis other than the overpriced "vintage" section of eBay? I'm really looking for something in that lovely disgusting beige we all know and adore, along the lines of this old beast. Once upon a time, I owned this exact chassis, and I WANT IT BACK! Thanks, guys!

There's the original FreeGeek in Portland, but they really don't deal much with stuff this vintage nor ship large items.

[jcleme]

Does anyone have any details on the monitor?

[Emily Young]

On 1/22/2019 at 11:00 AM, JoOngle said:

-snip-

On 1/22/2019 at 2:29 PM, AlexTheGreatish said:

Lol yup, really don't want a sploded wheel stuck in my skull

I'll have to talk to @GabenJr, I just did this testing by hitting F12 but he's the one that usually tests this sort of thing.

Typically I test CPU and GPU separately with the auto tile size plugin turned on. It depends on the hardware and test scene whether or not a larger or smaller tile size will be optimal (or make a difference at all), so I usually just leave it at defaults for comparative performance testing; However, if i wanted to really push a score or something, I'd dial in the tile sizes manually. I'm not 100% sure if Blender 2.7x supported simultaneous CPU + GPU rendering... Something tells me it did not.

 

Either way, the BMW results reported in the video are almost certainly CPU-only with default tile sizes.

[JoOngle]

11 hours ago, GabenJr said:

However, if i wanted to really push a score or something, I'd dial in the tile sizes manually. I'm not 100% sure if Blender 2.7x supported simultaneous CPU + GPU rendering... Something tells me it did not.

 

Right.

 

Blender 2.8x is the only Blender version that lets you select both the Threadripper (any cpu I bet) and GPU as render preferences in user settings.

You still have to set it to GPU rendering though, unless they've removed that setting now (it's still in beta).

 

Still, you'd do the right thing by setting the tile size to your CPU/GPU's performance. I found that 32 x 32 and 16 x 16 tend to produce the fastest results.

After all - a benchmark is about how much juice we can squeeze out of our computers, and as our setup varies, so does our variables. The math stays the same.

 

[Darius_LTU]

On 1/21/2019 at 10:40 PM, AlexTheGreatish said:

Margaret, oh Margaret.  Potentially the build that caused the most stress ever, taking over a month to complete due to every step having loads of strange complications.  But in the end.. oh she's a beauty.

 

Buy a Seasonic Power Supply
On Amazon: http://geni.us/WkwJJt
On Newegg: http://geni.us/YiLV

 

CAD files for those that are interested: https://grabcad.com/library/margaret-the-sleeper-pc-1

 

 

u need try this build this chiller and in this video he shows how to do all work  

 

[Mich1969]

On 1/21/2019 at 5:00 PM, Thermosman said:

Also, you were using your router very wrong. While I cant see it very well due to 360p, It looks like you have severe chip welding in the aluminum, and I would advise aganist using double sided tape for workholding. Instead, I would drill holes and use screws to attach the part to the scrap board. When you are cutting a complete piece out, you can either put screws in it to hold it down once it is completely detached, or utilize tabs around the perimeter, a setting available in many CAM programs such as Fusion 360, which can be removed using a saw or angle grinder and filed down to remove the part. Also, remove the plastic protective sheet from the aluminum. Again, I can't tell much about the endmill from the video, but it looks like a ~1/2 inch 2 flute titanium nitride coated high speed steel endmill, which you are getting major chip welding from both on the endmill and on the edge of the slotting. Instead of this, i would go with a 1/4 inch or even an 1/8 inch carbide 1 or 2 flute endmill. To figure your your RPM and feedrate, commonly referred to as "feeds and speeds" there are many calculators online. You should reduce your depth of cut and take multiple passes, as slotting, the operation used here, is the hardest you can push any endmill, and you are going full depth in what appears to be 1/8th inch aluminum sheet. Rather than doing this, you should take several shallow passes which will take longer but will produce a much better cut than full depth slotting, which simply doesn't work in aluminum. The chip welding is caused by heat from friction between the tool and the material, as aluminum is a relatively gummy material. While a flood coolant system isn't practical in this case, an attached airblast system, ideally with an oil mister would greatly improve this.

There is much more information that you can find online about aluminum cutting on routers, there is absolutely no reason to just guess at it.

 

Aluminium and other soft metals have had some success with some coolants and the correct cutting tool. I will followup once I check with my brothers (both are General Machinists and work with these soft metals day in and day out making spot welding equipment for the automotive sector). I don't think that an 1/8 inch depth of cut is that bad, even though it is a slut cut. As was said there are calculations based on the material for every part from machine power (HP/Watts) needed, rpm to run the cutter, the feed rate and depth of cut. And each piece of the puzzle affects the next. I have all those formulas in a box from my college days. I haven't used them personally because I don't work in that field but will see what I can find.