passive cooling [Finished] The number cruncher: Triple Xeon passive mineral oil cooling [Update 12: Final pictures and summary]

[nmil]

Why not add a pump inside the case and radiator outside the case to further dissipate heat build-up? If the pump is in the case there should be minimal sound output, plus having the inside the case will also come in handy for maintenance (draining).

[Stefan1024]

3 minutes ago, nmil said:

Why not add a pump inside the case and radiator outside the case to further dissipate heat build-up? If the pump is in the case there should be minimal sound output, plus having the inside the case will also come in handy for maintenance (draining).

I try to minimize the amount of mechanical components. Also external passive radiators are big and expensive and I'm not going to use an active cooled one

Adding external radiators was my backup plan, but it only my last solution when everything else fails.

 

[thekeemo]

Perhaps disable the phi in the bios when not in use? How often will you need both the titan and the phi at the same time. You could also try jerry rigging something with an eGPU thing that somehow sits in the system that lets you just plug and unplug the GPU.

[pagani123]

14 hours ago, Stefan1024 said:

I try to minimize the amount of mechanical components. Also external passive radiators are big and expensive and I'm not going to use an active cooled one

Adding external radiators was my backup plan, but it only my last solution when everything else fails.

 

honestly you probably wouldn't need any fans on the on the "active cooled" radiators you should be able to dissipate a decent amount of heat without fans. especially if it is a thin radiator 

[Stefan1024]

5 hours ago, thekeemo said:

Perhaps disable the phi in the bios when not in use? How often will you need both the titan and the phi at the same time. You could also try jerry rigging something with an eGPU thing that somehow sits in the system that lets you just plug and unplug the GPU.

I allready tried that. When disabled it starts up anyway wand waits to be enabled, pulling the same 100 watts.

5 hours ago, Maybach123 said:

honestly you probably wouldn't need any fans on the on the "active cooled" radiators you should be able to dissipate a decent amount of heat without fans. especially if it is a thin radiator 

I only run into problems when I stress the GPU and both CPUs at the same time for more than 2.5 hours. This is very unlikely to happen.

I have large workloads, but they usually only stress the CPUs, and gaming is also fine.

[thekeemo]

4 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

I allready tried that. When disabled it starts up anyway wand waits to be enabled, pulling the same 100 watts.

The power switch idea you had might work. The PCI-e power pins on the riser could be cut (up to the key) and replaced with cables from the PSU that are connected to a physical switch with many pins since the exact latency and timings are not important like they are with the other pins.

[Stefan1024]

1 minute ago, thekeemo said:

The power switch idea you had might work. The PCI-e power pins on the riser could be cut (up to the key) and replaced with cables from the PSU that are connected to a physical switch since the exact latency and timings are not important like they are with the other pins.

I will switch the additional 6 + 8 power pinns from the PSU. When they are not present, it will not start up. I have a 20A switch and the riser is a very thinn ribbon cable, so modding is a nigthmare.

Of course I can only flip the switch when the system is powered down.

[thekeemo]

1 minute ago, Stefan1024 said:

I will switch the additional 6 + 8 power pinns from the PSU. When they are not present, it will not start up. I have a 20A switch and the riser is a very thinn ribbon cable, so modding is a nigthmare.

Of course I can only flip the switch when the system is powered down.

I have found that only disconnecting the PCI-E power can cause issues where the device keeps trying to turn on because it is receiving a signal from the motherboard. The cable from risers appears similar to that of IDE cables which seems daunting but in reality is not that difficult to work with.

[Stefan1024]

18 minutes ago, thekeemo said:

I have found that only disconnecting the PCI-E power can cause issues where the device keeps trying to turn on because it is receiving a signal from the motherboard. The cable from risers appears similar to that of IDE cables which seems daunting but in reality is not that difficult to work with.

Are you sure it's better the PCIe 12V instead of the additional 6+8 Pin 12V?

Not sure how the power manager on the Phi works, but given it is a (usually) high price part for servers and supercomputers I'm pretty sure they make sure they don't violate the ATX specifications even if someone forgot the plug in the additional power.

 

Edit: And the ribbon cable has a smal pitch, not impossible but annoying.

[thekeemo]

1 minute ago, Stefan1024 said:

Are you sure it's better the PCIe 12V instead of the additional 6+8 Pin 12V?

Not sure how the power manager on the Phi works, but given it is a (usually) high price part for servers and supercomputers I'm pretty sure they make sure they don't violate the ATX specifications even if someone forgot the plug in the additional power.

Im saying do both.

[Stefan1024]

2 minutes ago, thekeemo said:

Im saying do both.

Too much work

 

[thekeemo]

1 minute ago, Stefan1024 said:

To much work

 

I would say it is worth it.

[thekeemo]

Twenty Thousand Leagues?

What?

[Stefan1024]

2 hours ago, thekeemo said:

Twenty Thousand Leagues?

What?

It's to resemble the "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" from Jules Verne, written in 1870. The originale title is French: "Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin".

[nmil]

On 28/06/2016 at 6:07 PM, Stefan1024 said:

It's to resemble the "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" from Jules Verne, written in 1870. The originale title is French: "Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin".

That was a great book.

[elfensky]

What are your thoughts on passively cooled OEM solutions? This is the first one I see that's targeted at consumers and not server centers:

 

 

[Stefan1024]

1 hour ago, ElfenSky said:

What are your thoughts on passively cooled OEM solutions? This is the first one I see that's targeted at consumers and not server centers:

Wait, there are passive cooled servers?

 

About the case: Mayby I should sure them for copyrigth infringement /s

I like the approach, but it's to smal (and therefor to low TDP) for my needs. But for an HTPC it's a good solution.

 

However I can see some issues with this specific model:

- By default only one side panael is used for cooling. If you buy additional heatpipes two. Leaves still two unused badly thermal coupled heat sinks.

- The additional sides could perfectly be used for a low power GPU. But they do not advertise this and it's not intended to be done in the rendering.

 

But all you need to do is to seal it and fill it with oil

 

[thekeemo]

Normal people: Ohh so green

People in the thread: if I jumped out of the plane right now what are the chances of surviving tracking down the system and borrowing it.. Permanently

[nmil]

1 hour ago, thekeemo said:

Normal people: Ohh so green

People in the thread: if I jumped out of the plane right now what are the chances of surviving tracking down the system and borrowing it.. Permanently

And that's why you always pack a parachute, never forget.

[Trey222]

Look what I found while browsing the interwebs. Not as awesome as yours but still pretty cool. http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/calyos-workstationfanless/

[thekeemo]

2 hours ago, Trey222 said:

Look what I found while browsing the interwebs. Not as awesome as yours but still pretty cool. http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/calyos-workstationfanless/

From what I understand it is a custom heatpipe job with a heatsink on back. If that is the case then that heatsink looks really small..

[Stefan1024]

5 hours ago, Trey222 said:

Look what I found while browsing the interwebs. Not as awesome as yours but still pretty cool. http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/calyos-workstationfanless/

It's not too bad for an "off-the-shelf" producht

 

3 hours ago, thekeemo said:

From what I understand it is a custom heatpipe job with a heatsink on back. If that is the case then that heatsink looks really small..

The heat sink is about 500x580x83mm, so it's not smal at all. For this build I use only 400x400x40mm (but 4 pieces).

I assume they don't use a standart heat pipe, but a loop with fluid that evaporates and condense. So it works with gravity instead of capillary action what is better for long distances. But it won't work if you turn the system by 90°.

 

[thekeemo]

On 7/3/2016 at 0:12 PM, Stefan1024 said:

It's not too bad for an "off-the-shelf" producht

 

The heat sink is about 500x580x83mm, so it's not smal at all. For this build I use only 400x400x40mm (but 4 pieces).

I assume they don't use a standart heat pipe, but a loop with fluid that evaporates and condense. So it works with gravity instead of capillary action what is better for long distances. But it won't work if you turn the system by 90°.

 

The surface area of 4 of the smaller panels is larger than the single panel by double and isn't that what matters? 

The capillary idea is interesting haven't heard of it before.

[Stefan1024]

On 07/05/2016 at 7:27 AM, thekeemo said:

The surface area of 4 of the smaller panels is larger than the single panel by double and isn't that what matters? 

The capillary idea is interesting haven't heard of it before.

Yes the surface area and the geometry is important.

It looks like they used the 83mm wide heat sink (i hvave 40mm), so they have about double the surface area per finn.

[thekeemo]

1 hour ago, Stefan1024 said:

Yes the surface area and the geometry is important.

It looks like they used the 83mm wide heat sink (i hvave 40mm), so they have about double the surface area per finn.

That should make it about equal and with superior heatpipes it should make it even better (to the point of filling it with mineral oil?)