A Rack of One's Own

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<b>christ on a pogo stick, it was LOUD.</b> the noise came from the four PWS-1K62P-1R PSUs, the three 10Krpm 80mm fans on the back, and four 9Krpm 92mm fans in the front. any one of these items rated 81dBa, and together they generated a skullrattling 91.5dBa, a noise level comparable to a subway station (by the magic of decibel addition, any given one was still about as loud as a leafblower, so i needed to address all of them if i intended to address any of them). this was unquestionably too much to work next to, and would likely cause irreperable hearing damage over just a few hours. so my first steps addressed that problem. the PSUs were replaced with four silent PWS-1K28P-SQs, dropping output from 1620W to 1280W each, still more than sufficient for my needs. noctua chromax.black NF-A9s went in the 92mm slots, and NF-A8s in the back 80mm bays. at 25mm, these were significantly less chonky than the 35mm San Ace/Nidec fans they replaced; at 1800rpm (technically closer to 1000rpm for silence), their cooling capability was far inferior to the 10Krpm monsters (see my [[PC Fans]] article for basic fan equations: tl;dr airflow grows linearly with rpm, pressure quadratically). i had to shave down the NF-A8s to get them to fit, but eventually i had all seven fans replaced. i threw a slim (and PWMless, wtf?) cooler master 92mm on the side to cool the AOM-X10QBi-A I/O card housing my 2x Intel 540 10Gbps interfaces, which was running well over 90℃ in the stock configuration. the machine was now silent. unfortunately, upon my first <tt>-j96</tt> kernel build, it also now overheated, engaging thermal throttling and a horrendous alarm.

i'd hoped not to require watercooling, but with that dream dashed i set to work. the idea of in-case radiators was laughable, and anyway why have a rack if you're not gonna stuff it with shit? for a moment i considered immersion cooling, but due to other projects i already had two [[MO-RA3]] 420x420mm external radiators sitting around unused, whereas i had neither knowledge of nor hardware for immersion. there aren't very many LGA2011-compatible waterblocks; i was hoping for HEATKILLER IVs, but neither PerformancePCs nor TitanRig seem to be actually stocking parts as of late, so i settled for Alphacool Eisblock XPX Pro Aurora waterblocks at $50 a throw. as it turned out, i hardly needed the capability of the HEATKILLERS (my processors are rated at a mere 105W), so this was a win cashwise, and the blocks boast lovely ARGB. i went to install the XPXs, only to discover that the squarish LGA2011 socket has a rectangular cousin, the "LGA2011-Narrow", which despite its physical incompatibility apparently didn't rate a new socket designation. i raged skyward for a few moments, and set to designing [https://github.com/dankamongmen/openscad-models/blob/master/lga2011-narrow.scad custom LGA2011-Narrow mounts] in OpenSCAD. i printed them up on my SLA Elegoo Saturn, and—miracle of miracles!—they worked on the first try. that's the power of actually measuring things instead of just trying to eyeball millimeter distances, i guess! i then suffered the first of three major leaks, all of them due to shoddy manufacturing on some no-name G¼ compression fittings. no matter where in my loop i employed them, no matter how solid the connections looked to the eye, these pieces of shit lived to spray neon green coolant all over my electronics, my rugs, and myself. i was stupidly ready to give them one more try (see above regarding cheap bastardhood), when i noticed they didn't even have fucking o-rings. hell, even Challenger had goddamn o-rings...until it didn't, anyway. into the trash they went, and a week later i had a phat sack of chungal (chungusy? chungy?) Koolance Blacks, which have served without fail since installation.

i'd hoped not to require watercooling, but with that dream dashed i set to work. the idea of in-case radiators was laughable, and anyway why have a rack if you're not gonna stuff it with shit? for a moment i considered immersion cooling, but due to other projects i already had two [[MO-RA3]] 420x420mm external radiators sitting around unused, whereas i had neither knowledge of nor hardware for immersion. there aren't very many LGA2011-compatible waterblocks; i was hoping for HEATKILLER IVs, but neither PerformancePCs nor TitanRig seem to be actually stocking parts as of late, so i settled for Alphacool Eisblock XPX Pro Aurora waterblocks at $50 a throw. as it turned out, i hardly needed the capability of the HEATKILLERS (my processors are rated at a mere 105W), so this was a win cashwise, and the blocks boast lovely ARGB. i went to install the XPXs, only to discover that the squarish LGA2011 socket has a rectangular cousin, the "LGA2011-Narrow", which despite its physical incompatibility apparently didn't rate a new socket designation. i raged skyward for a few moments, and set to designing [https://github.com/dankamongmen/openscad-models/blob/master/lga2011-narrow.scad custom LGA2011-Narrow mounts] in OpenSCAD. i printed them up on my SLA Elegoo Saturn, and—miracle of miracles!—they worked on the first try. that's the power of actually measuring things instead of just trying to eyeball millimeter distances, i guess! i then suffered the first of three major leaks, all of them due to shoddy manufacturing on some no-name G¼ compression fittings. no matter where in my loop i employed them, no matter how solid the connections looked to the eye, these pieces of shit lived to spray neon green coolant all over my electronics, my rugs, and myself. i was stupidly ready to give them one more try (see above regarding cheap bastardhood), when i noticed they didn't even have fucking o-rings. hell, even Challenger had goddamn o-rings...until it didn't, anyway. into the trash they went, and a week later i had a phat sack of chungal (chungusy? chungy? chungesque perhaps?) Koolance Blacks, which have served without fail since installation.

[[File:Penguinrack.jpg|every rack needs a penguin!]]

A Rack of One's Own: Difference between revisions

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 <b>christ on a pogo stick, it was LOUD.</b> the noise came from the four PWS-1K62P-1R PSUs, the three 10Krpm 80mm fans on the back, and four 9Krpm 92mm fans in the front. any one of these items rated 81dBa, and together they generated a skullrattling 91.5dBa, a noise level comparable to a subway station (by the magic of decibel addition, any given one was still about as loud as a leafblower, so i needed to address all of them if i intended to address any of them). this was unquestionably too much to work next to, and would likely cause irreperable hearing damage over just a few hours. so my first steps addressed that problem. the PSUs were replaced with four silent PWS-1K28P-SQs, dropping output from 1620W to 1280W each, still more than sufficient for my needs. noctua chromax.black NF-A9s went in the 92mm slots, and NF-A8s in the back 80mm bays. at 25mm, these were significantly less chonky than the 35mm San Ace/Nidec fans they replaced; at 1800rpm (technically closer to 1000rpm for silence), their cooling capability was far inferior to the 10Krpm monsters (see my [[PC Fans]] article for basic fan equations: tl;dr airflow grows linearly with rpm, pressure quadratically). i had to shave down the NF-A8s to get them to fit, but eventually i had all seven fans replaced. i threw a slim (and PWMless, wtf?) cooler master 92mm on the side to cool the AOM-X10QBi-A I/O card housing my 2x Intel 540 10Gbps interfaces, which was running well over 90℃ in the stock configuration. the machine was now silent. unfortunately, upon my first <tt>-j96</tt> kernel build, it also now overheated, engaging thermal throttling and a horrendous alarm.
-i'd hoped not to require watercooling, but with that dream dashed i set to work. the idea of in-case radiators was laughable, and anyway why have a rack if you're not gonna stuff it with shit? for a moment i considered immersion cooling, but due to other projects i already had two [[MO-RA3]] 420x420mm external radiators sitting around unused, whereas i had neither knowledge of nor hardware for immersion. there aren't very many LGA2011-compatible waterblocks; i was hoping for HEATKILLER IVs, but neither PerformancePCs nor TitanRig seem to be actually stocking parts as of late, so i settled for Alphacool Eisblock XPX Pro Aurora waterblocks at $50 a throw. as it turned out, i hardly needed the capability of the HEATKILLERS (my processors are rated at a mere 105W), so this was a win cashwise, and the blocks boast lovely ARGB. i went to install the XPXs, only to discover that the squarish LGA2011 socket has a rectangular cousin, the "LGA2011-Narrow", which despite its physical incompatibility apparently didn't rate a new socket designation. i raged skyward for a few moments, and set to designing [https://github.com/dankamongmen/openscad-models/blob/master/lga2011-narrow.scad custom LGA2011-Narrow mounts] in OpenSCAD. i printed them up on my SLA Elegoo Saturn, and—miracle of miracles!—they worked on the first try. that's the power of actually measuring things instead of just trying to eyeball millimeter distances, i guess! i then suffered the first of three major leaks, all of them due to shoddy manufacturing on some no-name G¼ compression fittings. no matter where in my loop i employed them, no matter how solid the connections looked to the eye, these pieces of shit lived to spray neon green coolant all over my electronics, my rugs, and myself. i was stupidly ready to give them one more try (see above regarding cheap bastardhood), when i noticed they didn't even have fucking o-rings. hell, even Challenger had goddamn o-rings...until it didn't, anyway. into the trash they went, and a week later i had a phat sack of chungal (chungusy? chungy?) Koolance Blacks, which have served without fail since installation.
+i'd hoped not to require watercooling, but with that dream dashed i set to work. the idea of in-case radiators was laughable, and anyway why have a rack if you're not gonna stuff it with shit? for a moment i considered immersion cooling, but due to other projects i already had two [[MO-RA3]] 420x420mm external radiators sitting around unused, whereas i had neither knowledge of nor hardware for immersion. there aren't very many LGA2011-compatible waterblocks; i was hoping for HEATKILLER IVs, but neither PerformancePCs nor TitanRig seem to be actually stocking parts as of late, so i settled for Alphacool Eisblock XPX Pro Aurora waterblocks at $50 a throw. as it turned out, i hardly needed the capability of the HEATKILLERS (my processors are rated at a mere 105W), so this was a win cashwise, and the blocks boast lovely ARGB. i went to install the XPXs, only to discover that the squarish LGA2011 socket has a rectangular cousin, the "LGA2011-Narrow", which despite its physical incompatibility apparently didn't rate a new socket designation. i raged skyward for a few moments, and set to designing [https://github.com/dankamongmen/openscad-models/blob/master/lga2011-narrow.scad custom LGA2011-Narrow mounts] in OpenSCAD. i printed them up on my SLA Elegoo Saturn, and—miracle of miracles!—they worked on the first try. that's the power of actually measuring things instead of just trying to eyeball millimeter distances, i guess! i then suffered the first of three major leaks, all of them due to shoddy manufacturing on some no-name G¼ compression fittings. no matter where in my loop i employed them, no matter how solid the connections looked to the eye, these pieces of shit lived to spray neon green coolant all over my electronics, my rugs, and myself. i was stupidly ready to give them one more try (see above regarding cheap bastardhood), when i noticed they didn't even have fucking o-rings. hell, even Challenger had goddamn o-rings...until it didn't, anyway. into the trash they went, and a week later i had a phat sack of chungal (chungusy? chungy? chungesque perhaps?) Koolance Blacks, which have served without fail since installation.
 [[File:Penguinrack.jpg|every rack needs a penguin!]]