in-progress Ebayinator II

[Adraen]

Hi everyone,

 

First off that's my first message on the LTT forum, I've been following the YouTube channel for a while and came here quite a few times to read about stuff but with the build I'm currently working on I think it was time to signup 

 

So the build is quite different from the other ones I've seen around here (I've seen some very great builds btw), for the sport I'm trying to build a relatively cheap very capable machine (not for gaming) out of components mostly from Ebay (hence the name). I made another one earlier in the year out of a proliant DL140 G3 that was cheap but the build is quite dodgy so I'm going to spare you with that one and directly go to the Ebayinator II

 

1. Components

Component	Model	Price	Note
Motherboard	Intel S2600GL	£81.00
Processors	2x Intel Xeon E5-2670 SR0KX	£112.60
Memory	17x Samsung/Cisco 4GB DDR3 Reg ECC	£69.60	only 13 sticks working, got refunded 4
PSU	Intel 750W DPS-750XB	£40.00	Very unusual PSU (only 12V output)
Waterblock	2x Cheap noname copper waterblock from ebay	£17.64
Pump	SC600 Pump and Reservoir	£21.58
Radiator	Coolgate HD360	£35.00
Fans	3x Arctic F12 PWM rev2	£13.14
Fittings	6x XSPC G1/4" to 3/8" barb	£12.00	Could have been cheaper from ebay but didn't want to wait another month ...

 

(is there a proper way to create tables through the editor? I had to go through the chrome devtools ...)

 

2. Building the Loop

All the components for the loop, mostly no-name ones. I was quite a bit worried at this point if this would be a big fail with everything leaking water everywhere ... I went for the syscooling pump mostly because it was very cheap ... I tried to find some info online about it but couldn't find much at all and to my surprise it works very very well, it's very quiet and the build quality is very descent (the Ebayinator I has the SC300 which has a terrible build quality but works fine)

 

Assembled the loop, zip-tied the tubing at the fittings, plugged it in my bench power supply and gave it a test-run. For the fluid I was planning to use some Mayhem premix I had but then I went for some de-ionized iron water from waitrose (£1 a 1L bottle) which I think will be very good. After a quick check at the composition of the water (and a bit of google-fu) I noticed that there was some mild biocide AND anti corrosive in it already which makes it perfect. The only thing is the water was very oxygenated (you can see the tubes are white because of all the tiny bubbles) so I left the pump fill port open, and ran the loop for about an hour and after that everything was fine. Then I went to leak testing overnight and to my surprise everything was fine.

 

 

Okay now that the loop is working I got to mounting the fans on the rad, as I went for the el-cheapo arctic F12 there is no rubber grommet for the noise so I improvised using some spare tubing I had and slicing off some thin grommet out of it, work very well ...

 

 

3. Mounting the loop

 

 

The waterblocks included some bolts screws and springs for the mouting, however the backplate on the motherboard use a significantly larger screw diameter. I managed to get some M4 screws and grommets and reused the springs from the DL140 (ebayinator I). Luckily the hole diameter in the waterblock was just right for the screw (well almost but nothing that some elbow grease doesn't solve)

 

 

Now that everything is in place I mounted the loop on the motherboard. I don't have a case yet for it, so I zip-tied the pump on the lid of the motherboard cardboard box, it's a bit ghetto but it does the job until then. At the moment I'm using some cheap thermal paste so I won't put temp benchmarks just yet  I've got some proper one coming very soon.

 

 

Time for the first boot, I had to improvise for the fan for the time being (the motherboard use different fan connectors) so I rigged the bench PSU and breadboard with some molex 4 pin connectors that I had to modify (remove a bit of plastic on the back of the connector to work for both 3 and 4 pin fans).

 

 

4. Fan adapter

The breadboard and PSU technique is clearly not great :D, I would like to use the PWM control and the tacho readouts directly from the motherboard. I sourced from RS components some connectors and crimps for the fan connector on the motherboard (1 row 10 pins), crimped the cables to be able to experiment on a breadboard. Here is the cable for experimenting:

 

 

TODO: Add more details here (connector pinout, finished cables)

 

5. Case

TODO: I'm thinking about getting a metal drawer at a second hand shop ...

 

6. Front Panel IO

TODO

 

 

Cheers.

Let me know if there is anything you want more details on, and of course suggestions are more than welcome. I've got many more (bad) pictures so if there is anything I haven't added above or anything you want to see let me know.

[You_are_a_cunt]

Welcome to the LTT forum.

Dammit someone else is watercooling a server before me >__<

[porina]

That price for the mobo... better at ebay than me!

[Adraen]

7 minutes ago, porina said:

That price for the mobo... better at ebay than me!

I actually got very lucky with this one (I'm quite bad at ebay, I never win anything). So I lost the auction but the seller contacted me telling me he had a second one available that he could sell me at the value of my last bid ... so I got the same mobo as the guy winning the auction but for less

 

10 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

Welcome to the LTT forum.

Dammit someone else is watercooling a server before me >__<

Thanks! Well I'm definitely not the first doing it, but have a got at it it's good fun

[You_are_a_cunt]

1 minute ago, Adraen said:

Thanks! Well I'm definitely not the first doing it, but have a got at it it's good fun

Have a link for those waterblocks?

[porina]

1 minute ago, Adraen said:

I actually got very lucky with this one (I'm quite bad at ebay, I never win anything). So I lost the auction but the seller contacted me telling me he had a second one available that he could sell me at the value of my last bid ... so I got the same mobo as the guy winning the auction but for less

Great news  I wanted to play with these dual xeon setups too, but the mobo cost is a barrier... I keep looking but no luck so far.

[Heesleemer]

Followed! 

[Adraen]

13 minutes ago, revsilverspine said:

Have a link for those waterblocks?

I got those ones: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/291759339023?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT which are grooved (be careful some have a waffle pattern instead of grooves and they are suppose to be crap)

 

If you don't have fittings already I would recommend you finding the same block but with the fittings it will be cheaper, I should have done this but I thought that this block was coming with fitting.

[maxtch]

I think you will have to use a rack mount 2U or 4U server case for this build. Or you can hack one of your drawers into a case for this build.