I was at a computer shop today and saw a most awesome computer case. You install the motherboard flat, in the open top half of the case, and the drives and such go into the cage in the lower half. The whole motherboard is cooled by a single 230mm overhead fan that blows air down from the top.
If I didnt' have my new system and case already, I would have seriously considered this case, cause basically this is how I've been running my last computer for the past year or so - open-air and caseless.
This one's called an Antec Skeleton Open Air Case, and you can google for reviews and images here.
$169.99 Canadian though (as pictured below), ouch.
Upsen.
Showing posts with label computer stuff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computer stuff. Show all posts
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
New System Photos
Well here are some pictures, took a while to find time to take these. I set up the screens in a 3x1 vertical layout, so that the middle of the viewing area is not covered by any black bezel edges. The bezels themselves are a a far cry from a bezel-less setup, but I got adjusted to them pretty quickly. I guess the next thing to do is to find some sort of bezel compensation/adjustment software.
Here's a pic of the insides - You can see the size of the CPU heatsink, it's absolutely humongous. I am very happy with the 3-fans-in-a-row air flow for the CPU cooling - one pushing air into the sink from the front, one pulling it out from the back, and the last one on the chassis pulling the air right out of the case. In total, there are
This is my first time working with a full size tower case and I was really happy with the amount of space inside. I was able to actually put all the cabling behind the motherboard and out of view. The modular power supply helped a lot with this as well, as all the extra unused cables are stored away nicely in a bag on the side.
There are some interesting overclocking and tweaking features available on this motherboard, including some automated overclocking buttons etc, but I haven't really had the time to play with the settings. There is even a fancy tuning port on the back on the system so you can adjust the clock settings on the fly with another computer.
The only problem I've run into is the viewing angle for the LED monitors. In the default horizontal position, they are suitable for viewing from a left, right, or high angle. It has a terrible low viewing angle. This is fine for the horizontal landscape view of course, but for my veritical setup, this means that the right hand monitor is hard to see unless I move far enough to the right to compensate for the angle, which is a bit limiting. You'll notice that I have the right side screen angled more than the left screen, that is because of this problem. The screen only rotates 90 degrees clockwise, and the mount doesn't support any way to rotate the screen 90 degrees counterclockwise. Just using the above-angle instead of the below-angle would have been the best solution. Either I'm going to have to jury rig something to get that, or buy some monitor arms that can swing whichever way I want.
All in all, I am really happy with the system. It's great for putting various system status & monitoring windows on a side screen and still being able to do things in the plentiful amount of free space still available.
Watching anime or other video stuff is still better on the TV upstairs, cause of the bezels, and a lot of the viewing programs like Media Player Classic and VideoLAN cant seem to handle stretching a media window across multiple screens.
I've played a few games and it is almost overwhelming. Playing City of Heroes, there is so much screen that even those little tight s-bends in the cave maps feels like a huge wide corridor to move in. I lose track of what is going on cause there is so much to see and the status windows are so far away, haha.
Also I picked up the new free Mechwarrior Mercenaries, and it's playing beautifully too, though I can't get it any higher than 2600x1200 (whatever the 3rd highest resolution is) for some reason.
I should try pulling out some of my old game software that can run windowed mode, and see how it goes. It's too bad a lot of old software runs at fixed resolutions like 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768, not that great for widescreen monitors.
I wonder if there's any utilities to force a giant 3600x1900 fullscreen?
Upsen.
Here's a pic of the insides - You can see the size of the CPU heatsink, it's absolutely humongous. I am very happy with the 3-fans-in-a-row air flow for the CPU cooling - one pushing air into the sink from the front, one pulling it out from the back, and the last one on the chassis pulling the air right out of the case. In total, there are
- 3 - 240mm fans - front and side panel pulling air in, top pulling air out.
- 2 - CPU sink mounted 120mm fans, moving air to back of case
- 1 - 140mm fan - back of case pulling cpu air out
- 1 - 120mm fan on the bottom of the case pulling air in (like a vaccuum, gotta watch out)
- 1 - internal power supply unit fan, that pulls air in from the bottom of the PSU and vents out the back, bypassing the case entirely.
This is my first time working with a full size tower case and I was really happy with the amount of space inside. I was able to actually put all the cabling behind the motherboard and out of view. The modular power supply helped a lot with this as well, as all the extra unused cables are stored away nicely in a bag on the side.
There are some interesting overclocking and tweaking features available on this motherboard, including some automated overclocking buttons etc, but I haven't really had the time to play with the settings. There is even a fancy tuning port on the back on the system so you can adjust the clock settings on the fly with another computer.
The only problem I've run into is the viewing angle for the LED monitors. In the default horizontal position, they are suitable for viewing from a left, right, or high angle. It has a terrible low viewing angle. This is fine for the horizontal landscape view of course, but for my veritical setup, this means that the right hand monitor is hard to see unless I move far enough to the right to compensate for the angle, which is a bit limiting. You'll notice that I have the right side screen angled more than the left screen, that is because of this problem. The screen only rotates 90 degrees clockwise, and the mount doesn't support any way to rotate the screen 90 degrees counterclockwise. Just using the above-angle instead of the below-angle would have been the best solution. Either I'm going to have to jury rig something to get that, or buy some monitor arms that can swing whichever way I want.
All in all, I am really happy with the system. It's great for putting various system status & monitoring windows on a side screen and still being able to do things in the plentiful amount of free space still available.
Watching anime or other video stuff is still better on the TV upstairs, cause of the bezels, and a lot of the viewing programs like Media Player Classic and VideoLAN cant seem to handle stretching a media window across multiple screens.
I've played a few games and it is almost overwhelming. Playing City of Heroes, there is so much screen that even those little tight s-bends in the cave maps feels like a huge wide corridor to move in. I lose track of what is going on cause there is so much to see and the status windows are so far away, haha.
Also I picked up the new free Mechwarrior Mercenaries, and it's playing beautifully too, though I can't get it any higher than 2600x1200 (whatever the 3rd highest resolution is) for some reason.
I should try pulling out some of my old game software that can run windowed mode, and see how it goes. It's too bad a lot of old software runs at fixed resolutions like 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768, not that great for widescreen monitors.
I wonder if there's any utilities to force a giant 3600x1900 fullscreen?
Upsen.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
New Computer - the details
Here's what I bought - the prices were very good for what I got, most of the items being a midrange item in it's category. The only top tier item is the motherboard, which just came out a few days before I bought it, but it means I have a seriously solid foundation for my new computer.
Coolermaster HAF case:
At first, I was looking at the price of the case - at $120, it was a lot lower than the other full tower cases - most were $300+ But this case in particular is really good with the air flow - bascially, even if you have the covers closed, it is pretty much like having the cover open. Also it has 3 240mm fans built in, as well as a 140mm rear, plus mounting brackets for yet more fans!
The power supply was one of those ho hum well I gotta do what gotta do about this - the modular cables are pretty convenient though.
The motherboard - I was expecting to buy a 790fx chipset board at first, but just last week, the 890fx successor to the 790fx came out. Included are all the fancy features like USB 3.0, dual 16x1 PCIe pipes for video cards (slot 1 and slot 3 eh, not 1 and 2) and even an external tweak/clocking mechanism.
The CPU is a Phenom II x4 - it looks like the price dropped due to the x6 six-core Phenoms coming out.
The memory is a basic high speed memory - caught it on sale for a good enough price that it surprised the salesman. It doesn't have tall cooling fins etc, but it's a good thing, cause otherwise the CPU cooler fan would have conflicted with it.
CPU cooler
I opted for air cooling for practicality this time around - I didn't want the expense of water cooling, even though it looks amazing. After all, the case is really good with air flow, so I should take advantage of it. So I got one of those giant blocks from Scythe. It had a single fan on it already, but I couldn't find a 2nd one of that type. That's why I bought the 2 Arctic Cooling fans and extra bracket - one fan for each side of the heat sink, and so the rpm speeds would match. Plus the white coloured fans are kind of cool looking. Idle CPU 33degress Celsius - 45 degrees under load
Photos to come.
Upsen
- Coolermaster HAF tower case , thought it would be $145 found it for $120.
- Coolermaster 850W modular power supply $145
- Asus Crosshair IV motherboard $250 (Brand new 890FX chipset board - Tiger is selling it for $330 wow)
- CPU Phenom II x4 965 BE - I was expecting $209 but it was $189 by the time I bought it
- Memory 4GB 2000 Adata 9-9-9-24 $140 bought for $110 on sale.
- Scythe Mugen 2 rev B CPU cooler $50
- extra brackets for 2nd cooler fan $6
- 2 Arctic Cooling 120mm PWM fans $7x2
- SATA DVD optical drive $40 - this one had lightscribe, whatever :P
- 3 Dell monitors - 23" rotatable screens - $299x3 on sale for $199x3
- Everything else is salvaged from my old system - mainly my video cards.
Coolermaster HAF case:
At first, I was looking at the price of the case - at $120, it was a lot lower than the other full tower cases - most were $300+ But this case in particular is really good with the air flow - bascially, even if you have the covers closed, it is pretty much like having the cover open. Also it has 3 240mm fans built in, as well as a 140mm rear, plus mounting brackets for yet more fans!
The power supply was one of those ho hum well I gotta do what gotta do about this - the modular cables are pretty convenient though.
The motherboard - I was expecting to buy a 790fx chipset board at first, but just last week, the 890fx successor to the 790fx came out. Included are all the fancy features like USB 3.0, dual 16x1 PCIe pipes for video cards (slot 1 and slot 3 eh, not 1 and 2) and even an external tweak/clocking mechanism.
The CPU is a Phenom II x4 - it looks like the price dropped due to the x6 six-core Phenoms coming out.
The memory is a basic high speed memory - caught it on sale for a good enough price that it surprised the salesman. It doesn't have tall cooling fins etc, but it's a good thing, cause otherwise the CPU cooler fan would have conflicted with it.
CPU cooler
I opted for air cooling for practicality this time around - I didn't want the expense of water cooling, even though it looks amazing. After all, the case is really good with air flow, so I should take advantage of it. So I got one of those giant blocks from Scythe. It had a single fan on it already, but I couldn't find a 2nd one of that type. That's why I bought the 2 Arctic Cooling fans and extra bracket - one fan for each side of the heat sink, and so the rpm speeds would match. Plus the white coloured fans are kind of cool looking. Idle CPU 33degress Celsius - 45 degrees under load
Photos to come.
Upsen
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Monday, May 3, 2010
New computer.
Well, the replacement Athlon CPU I picked up started getting the habit of shutting down on me, so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade the whole cpu/motherboard/memory/power supply combo I talked about last time.
So I've bought some parts and put them together, it should be a lot faster than my old PC I put together in like late 2005 or early 2006. Woohoo! :D
I'll talk about it later after I'm sure it doesn't blow up on me.
Upsen.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Thinking about Computer Upgrades
My computer had been acting a bit sluggish recently so I figured it was time to wipe the OS and reinstall it. However, the system kept bluescreening my Vista install. I couldn't get around it with whatever BIOs setting changes I had available, so I decided maybe it was time for this hardware to retire. I mean, I'd run it since about 2005. I figured I could at least save the CPU, a decent dual core AMD Athlon II 64 x2 4800+, which was a Socket 939 like my wife's single core computer. But when I installed the CPU on her system, it started crashing too. Also, putting her CPU in my system revived it.
It looks like my CPU had decided to go loony.
So, it was time to start thinking seriously about upgrades.
My system is at the point where if I buy a new CPU, it would start an avalanche of upgrades:
Each of the 4 new components - mobo, CPU, memory, and power, would mean $100 for a base model or a $200 for a future proof economical model, or even more for a hobbyist model. (Hello $400 motherboards and $700 CPUs) So I would be spending somewhere between $400 to $800 for the parts.
Those prices are fairly reasonable, however the problem is - what should I get? Or more accurately, which motherboard should I get? Everything hinges on the motherboard.
I want to have full bandwidth for my 2 video cards. SLI or not, I want it to have 16x1 PCIe for EACH card. Often, the data path is one 16x1 that they break down into 8x1 for each card. Thus you get reduced performance for each of the cards. I mean, you get more performance than a single card, but probably nothing like if you have 2 cards each with a dedicated full PCIe path. However, there isn't really a lot of data that I've found that tells me just HOW much bandwidth my video cards use, so I'm not sure if I REALLY need this or if I'm just being a hypochondriac when I think that 2 card SLI isn't running much faster than 1 card.
As a side note, I do want to run a 3 or 4 monitor setup someday. Probably not tomorrow though. The price of an ideal minimum bezel 3x1 monitor setup seems to be just under $2000 right now. I could get some regular widescreens and plug them in but I dunno how that will be. Plus, gaming - 3d games performance is geared for 1680x1050 or 1900x1200 screens, not... 3600x1900 or 4800x1900 screens. I would probably have to turn every detail off and it would probably still bring my video cards to their knees. Sigh. eyefinity gaming, which would handle it, would cost another $550.
I want it to support 3 Gb/s SATA, or even that new 6 Gb/s SATA and USB 3.0 However, I don't have any devices that go anywhere close to that sort of speed. I've always bought the best bang for the buck kind of drives usually. These still rate way higher than my bottleneck CPU and RAM though, so I'm not too concerned about that part of it. I definitely want it to have eSATA since I have an eSATA/USB2.0 HD dock. Especially since 1.5 Terabyte drives cost like $100 now. Currently I plug it in through USB2.0 and it's pretty slow - workable but.... slow.
I want the SATA jacks to NOT get covered by my video cards. My current mobo has 4 SATA jacks - and half of them are covered when I put in the primary video card. Is that on purpose? I mean I could understand if it was the 2nd card that covers the jacks, meaning you should either run the 2nd card OR 2 extra SATA devices due to bandwidth restrictions, but why is it under the FIRST graphics card?
Anyways, this means I am still looking for a good motherboard. Nothing really fits my criteria right now except maybe a 790FX or a 780n board, but those are like a year old now, shouldn't there be something newer/better?
Here's my two best bets right now (with google links):
In the meantime, I bought a used Athlon 64 x2 3800+ CPU for $35, my mobo claims it peaks up at about 100 degrees Celsius when running. :P I don't know if the CPU is bad or if my mobo sensor is bad, haha. It's still working, I mean, but I dont really have much hopes for it's longevity.
Upsen.
btw, ebay is selling my old dead Athlon x2 4800+ CPU for like $200! That's crazy!
It looks like my CPU had decided to go loony.
So, it was time to start thinking seriously about upgrades.
My system is at the point where if I buy a new CPU, it would start an avalanche of upgrades:
- Another motherboard with a modern socket to fit the CPU, since Socket 939 is obsolete.
- New RAM memory as well since my old DDR 400 is not viable for the new CPU/mobo.
- New power supply to match the sockets on the mobo and video card (why are they 6pin and 8 pin now instead of 4pin and 6pin? sigh)
Each of the 4 new components - mobo, CPU, memory, and power, would mean $100 for a base model or a $200 for a future proof economical model, or even more for a hobbyist model. (Hello $400 motherboards and $700 CPUs) So I would be spending somewhere between $400 to $800 for the parts.
Those prices are fairly reasonable, however the problem is - what should I get? Or more accurately, which motherboard should I get? Everything hinges on the motherboard.
I want to have full bandwidth for my 2 video cards. SLI or not, I want it to have 16x1 PCIe for EACH card. Often, the data path is one 16x1 that they break down into 8x1 for each card. Thus you get reduced performance for each of the cards. I mean, you get more performance than a single card, but probably nothing like if you have 2 cards each with a dedicated full PCIe path. However, there isn't really a lot of data that I've found that tells me just HOW much bandwidth my video cards use, so I'm not sure if I REALLY need this or if I'm just being a hypochondriac when I think that 2 card SLI isn't running much faster than 1 card.
As a side note, I do want to run a 3 or 4 monitor setup someday. Probably not tomorrow though. The price of an ideal minimum bezel 3x1 monitor setup seems to be just under $2000 right now. I could get some regular widescreens and plug them in but I dunno how that will be. Plus, gaming - 3d games performance is geared for 1680x1050 or 1900x1200 screens, not... 3600x1900 or 4800x1900 screens. I would probably have to turn every detail off and it would probably still bring my video cards to their knees. Sigh. eyefinity gaming, which would handle it, would cost another $550.
I want it to support 3 Gb/s SATA, or even that new 6 Gb/s SATA and USB 3.0 However, I don't have any devices that go anywhere close to that sort of speed. I've always bought the best bang for the buck kind of drives usually. These still rate way higher than my bottleneck CPU and RAM though, so I'm not too concerned about that part of it. I definitely want it to have eSATA since I have an eSATA/USB2.0 HD dock. Especially since 1.5 Terabyte drives cost like $100 now. Currently I plug it in through USB2.0 and it's pretty slow - workable but.... slow.
I want the SATA jacks to NOT get covered by my video cards. My current mobo has 4 SATA jacks - and half of them are covered when I put in the primary video card. Is that on purpose? I mean I could understand if it was the 2nd card that covers the jacks, meaning you should either run the 2nd card OR 2 extra SATA devices due to bandwidth restrictions, but why is it under the FIRST graphics card?
Anyways, this means I am still looking for a good motherboard. Nothing really fits my criteria right now except maybe a 790FX or a 780n board, but those are like a year old now, shouldn't there be something newer/better?
Here's my two best bets right now (with google links):
- GA-MA790FXT-UD5P (crossfire)
- ASUS M3N-HT (sli)
In the meantime, I bought a used Athlon 64 x2 3800+ CPU for $35, my mobo claims it peaks up at about 100 degrees Celsius when running. :P I don't know if the CPU is bad or if my mobo sensor is bad, haha. It's still working, I mean, but I dont really have much hopes for it's longevity.
Upsen.
btw, ebay is selling my old dead Athlon x2 4800+ CPU for like $200! That's crazy!
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Living Room Rearrangement
I posted about this on my regular blog but I figured I'd comment on it here too since it affects my gaming experience. I picked up a wall mount for the living room LCD TV.
I had an Ikea office table in the living room that I put my LCD TV and 20" LCD monitor on. It was a convenient setup but not really great for space considerations. It was also a mess magnet - collecting DVDs and stuff like game controllers both above and below the table, not to mention a ton of dust. I had wiring for everything running everywhere behind the TV, since the stereo and other eletronics weren't that close to the wall socket.
The TV wasn't centered to the couch which was annoying, and there wasn't really any room for the front satellite speakers, so I had one on a stand and the other just kind of sitting on a ledge near the staircase.
You can see the old setup in the picture below.
Anyhow, after I set up the wall mount, I dragged the table down into basement storage. Ditto for all my rarely used game controllers (read: rock band) - into the basement until next time I need it. I stuck the 20" LCD monitor on my wife's upstairs computer since there isn't any room for it here now, as she was still using an old (but nice) 15" NEC CRT.
The best part is that the Oil-PC now has a decent spot that is nice and visible.
I had an Ikea office table in the living room that I put my LCD TV and 20" LCD monitor on. It was a convenient setup but not really great for space considerations. It was also a mess magnet - collecting DVDs and stuff like game controllers both above and below the table, not to mention a ton of dust. I had wiring for everything running everywhere behind the TV, since the stereo and other eletronics weren't that close to the wall socket.
The TV wasn't centered to the couch which was annoying, and there wasn't really any room for the front satellite speakers, so I had one on a stand and the other just kind of sitting on a ledge near the staircase.
You can see the old setup in the picture below.
Anyhow, after I set up the wall mount, I dragged the table down into basement storage. Ditto for all my rarely used game controllers (read: rock band) - into the basement until next time I need it. I stuck the 20" LCD monitor on my wife's upstairs computer since there isn't any room for it here now, as she was still using an old (but nice) 15" NEC CRT.
The best part is that the Oil-PC now has a decent spot that is nice and visible.
There's a lot more space and it looks much better now but I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do for computer gaming. I mean there is nowhere to put the damn keyboard and mouse except on the couch. I can't play CoH from the couch. This is why I've mainly been on my Xbox for the past while. Maybe I'll rig some snack tray table or something, I really dunno at this point.
Heck maybe I should build a new PC and stick it in another room. :D
Upsen.
Heck maybe I should build a new PC and stick it in another room. :D
Upsen.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sound Blaster Audigy static crackling and popping
Well, I put in a Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value edition I had lying around, and now I remember who I took it out and tossed it aside. It crackles and pops incessantly, whether or not anything is playing.
Back when I took it out, it was when I upgraded from WinXP to Vista (or was it Win2k to WinXP?) I dont even remember any more. But whichever it was, it was working fine before, and then cracking and popping after the software change.
Basically the drivers for the newer OS were broken or something.
When I went back to the older OS, it would work all right (good thing for multiple hard drives eh) But when your buy a new OS and want to USE it, some sacrifices had to be made.
Especially when you have an onboard sound card that works fine in either OS. Sure it isn't as high quality sound as the Sound Blaster, but the onboard sound was working while the SB sounded like a record player with a worn out needle.
Anyways, it happened long ago enough that I'd forgotten about it, since I could still get working audio even without fussing over an old SB sound card.
So, now that my onboard sound's jack is messed up, and the Soundblaster is still crackling and popping, I decided to poke around and see what other people have the problem, and perhaps find if there was ever a fix for it. Google search provided a ton of links when I searched for "Sound Blaster crackle crackling" showing it was an extremely common issue with the Audigy and X-Fi lineups.
As I understand it, Creative says that these cards can't handle the PCI buffer delays introduced by certain motherboards, making it a hardware issue. (what happens when you haven't changed any hardware like in my situation?) Even if it was a latency issue that is related to how the OS decides to allocate resources, you'd figure that the company would release fixed drivers, right? But there is a lot of conspiracy theory style talk about how Creative doesn't want to support these older products in order to sell it's newer products. Its a shame if that's true.
So, I found some alternative drivers that people say seem to eliminate the crackle problem, written or modded by Daniel Kawakami. They havent seemed to help me much but I had a hell of a time trying to get the newer official drivers uninstalled. Maybe something didn't work out. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling the software again later - SB drivers take forever to install.
Back when I took it out, it was when I upgraded from WinXP to Vista (or was it Win2k to WinXP?) I dont even remember any more. But whichever it was, it was working fine before, and then cracking and popping after the software change.
Basically the drivers for the newer OS were broken or something.
When I went back to the older OS, it would work all right (good thing for multiple hard drives eh) But when your buy a new OS and want to USE it, some sacrifices had to be made.
Especially when you have an onboard sound card that works fine in either OS. Sure it isn't as high quality sound as the Sound Blaster, but the onboard sound was working while the SB sounded like a record player with a worn out needle.
Anyways, it happened long ago enough that I'd forgotten about it, since I could still get working audio even without fussing over an old SB sound card.
So, now that my onboard sound's jack is messed up, and the Soundblaster is still crackling and popping, I decided to poke around and see what other people have the problem, and perhaps find if there was ever a fix for it. Google search provided a ton of links when I searched for "Sound Blaster crackle crackling" showing it was an extremely common issue with the Audigy and X-Fi lineups.
As I understand it, Creative says that these cards can't handle the PCI buffer delays introduced by certain motherboards, making it a hardware issue. (what happens when you haven't changed any hardware like in my situation?) Even if it was a latency issue that is related to how the OS decides to allocate resources, you'd figure that the company would release fixed drivers, right? But there is a lot of conspiracy theory style talk about how Creative doesn't want to support these older products in order to sell it's newer products. Its a shame if that's true.
So, I found some alternative drivers that people say seem to eliminate the crackle problem, written or modded by Daniel Kawakami. They havent seemed to help me much but I had a hell of a time trying to get the newer official drivers uninstalled. Maybe something didn't work out. I'll try uninstalling and reinstalling the software again later - SB drivers take forever to install.
I did find a work-around late last night though. (or so I thought) I tried the Audigy's digital out port with my stereo jack-to-rca jack adapter, and found the R-audio could deliver digital audio that my stereo's co-axial audio would accept. With no static even! I was happy, why didn't I think of using digital audio to eliminate something that sounded like analog static? (well cause it always failed before) However that was short lived, as when I turned it on this morning, the crackle was back in all its glory, on a digital audio connection. I don't get it.
Maybe I should splice some jacks onto my Logitech USB audio headset's cable and split the sound to headphone and to the stereo. Then I could go office space on this stupid Sound Blaster and smash it.
Someone slap me if I ever buy Sound Blaster again.
Upsen.
Maybe I should splice some jacks onto my Logitech USB audio headset's cable and split the sound to headphone and to the stereo. Then I could go office space on this stupid Sound Blaster and smash it.
Someone slap me if I ever buy Sound Blaster again.
Upsen.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Oil PC Completed
I've been a bit busy at work so I haven't posted the results of my Mineral Oil PC - its worked, and I haven't seen any wicking yet. Though, I have the oil at a level where the interfaces are just above the oil. This was about 7 gallons plus a bit from the 8th jug.
Here I have the tank set up with all the parts inside - this actually took a while, since I had to figure out how to arrange the cables in a way that I could use them, and not have it running criss-crossed all over the place like in a closed case pc. I sort of regret going with such a tall fish tank. I suppose at some point I should try and locate some long cables like the ones they use in those clear-case modified PCs. Then maybe I can plug in the DVD drive again. I'll have to network off another DVD drive for now if I need it, which is rare in any case.
I almost gashed my arm putting these things in place - gotta be careful...
Rear view showing the vidcard
I filled it to a point where the oil is just covering the bottom of the interfaces on the back of the board. The computer turned on with no problem. The pump was a different story, it refused to pump oil through the radiator until I cleared all the air from the tubes. That was a bit of effort since it required me to basically suck the air out by mouth, without getting a mouthful of oil. The rubber tubing smell was pretty gross already, so I tried to just get a mouthful of air at a time as if it were a drink through a straw, without getting any in my lungs. It also changed the level of mineral oil in the tank, so I had to top it off again.
Checking the fans, the CPU fan was turning, but the video card fan and power supply fan ran only intermittently - on a bit, off a bit, as if the oil was too thick and had triggered a safety stop mechanism. I turned up the speed of the vidcard fan from 30% to 100% using NTune software and and that solved it. Though I have to do it in software every time I'm powering up - I wonder how I set the fan speed to 100% permanently? The power supply fan I haven't found a way to modify, blah.
---
The PC has run like this for about a week or so now. I haven't kept it on continuously, only when I'm using it. The video card runs at 50 degrees instead of 80 degrees now. The motherboard is still running at it's 30ish degrees that it usually runs at.
The system is a LOT quieter now - the pump's muted hum is the only sound. I did submerge the pump under the oil to help keep it quiet, so it's not in exactly the same spot as you see in the pictures above.
I put a chassis fan in front of the radiator the other day, to help with cooling - the chassis fan runs silently, though it looks kind of silly. I wish I had a desk fan or something bigger, that ran at a quiet, slow speed. The only ones I have sound like an airplane taking off. Maybe I'll get a potentiometer or something and modify it to run slowly and quietly. I only want to have a quiet breeze on the radiator otherwise what is the point of this whole project? :P
The only bad thing that's come out of this is that the built in sound card stopped working. I didn't actually find out till last night, since I'd been just using my USB headset. I think there is something messed up about the line out stereo jack. The software works, the drivers are fine, the meters indicate operation, and even the cables and stereo are okay when I hook up it up to something other than the computer. I messed around with the SPDIF in/out ports and tried to plug it into my digital inputs on my stereo, but I couldn't get it to work. I may have to try a seperate sound card. :P Yeesh.
Anyways, more later when I figure out how to tidy up the cable mess on top of the tank.
Upsen.
Here I have the tank set up with all the parts inside - this actually took a while, since I had to figure out how to arrange the cables in a way that I could use them, and not have it running criss-crossed all over the place like in a closed case pc. I sort of regret going with such a tall fish tank. I suppose at some point I should try and locate some long cables like the ones they use in those clear-case modified PCs. Then maybe I can plug in the DVD drive again. I'll have to network off another DVD drive for now if I need it, which is rare in any case.
I almost gashed my arm putting these things in place - gotta be careful...
Rear view showing the vidcard
I filled it to a point where the oil is just covering the bottom of the interfaces on the back of the board. The computer turned on with no problem. The pump was a different story, it refused to pump oil through the radiator until I cleared all the air from the tubes. That was a bit of effort since it required me to basically suck the air out by mouth, without getting a mouthful of oil. The rubber tubing smell was pretty gross already, so I tried to just get a mouthful of air at a time as if it were a drink through a straw, without getting any in my lungs. It also changed the level of mineral oil in the tank, so I had to top it off again.
Checking the fans, the CPU fan was turning, but the video card fan and power supply fan ran only intermittently - on a bit, off a bit, as if the oil was too thick and had triggered a safety stop mechanism. I turned up the speed of the vidcard fan from 30% to 100% using NTune software and and that solved it. Though I have to do it in software every time I'm powering up - I wonder how I set the fan speed to 100% permanently? The power supply fan I haven't found a way to modify, blah.
---
The PC has run like this for about a week or so now. I haven't kept it on continuously, only when I'm using it. The video card runs at 50 degrees instead of 80 degrees now. The motherboard is still running at it's 30ish degrees that it usually runs at.
The system is a LOT quieter now - the pump's muted hum is the only sound. I did submerge the pump under the oil to help keep it quiet, so it's not in exactly the same spot as you see in the pictures above.
I put a chassis fan in front of the radiator the other day, to help with cooling - the chassis fan runs silently, though it looks kind of silly. I wish I had a desk fan or something bigger, that ran at a quiet, slow speed. The only ones I have sound like an airplane taking off. Maybe I'll get a potentiometer or something and modify it to run slowly and quietly. I only want to have a quiet breeze on the radiator otherwise what is the point of this whole project? :P
The only bad thing that's come out of this is that the built in sound card stopped working. I didn't actually find out till last night, since I'd been just using my USB headset. I think there is something messed up about the line out stereo jack. The software works, the drivers are fine, the meters indicate operation, and even the cables and stereo are okay when I hook up it up to something other than the computer. I messed around with the SPDIF in/out ports and tried to plug it into my digital inputs on my stereo, but I couldn't get it to work. I may have to try a seperate sound card. :P Yeesh.
Anyways, more later when I figure out how to tidy up the cable mess on top of the tank.
Upsen.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Setting up for an Oil Cooled PC
After reading about some of these projects online, I figured it would be a nice little project to get going myself. My PC runs so hot that I can't shut the case cover on it, without it soon crashing. It's also a noisy bugger and collects enough dust to warrant a cleaning every few months.
Here it is, sitting with it's insides hanging out. Notice the chassis fan pointing at the video card? Yes, it is needed when I run important 3d applications like City of Heroes.
I figured that getting the parts over a period of time would soften the impact of the costs, so I've been occassionally buying a part here and a part there for the past 4 months. I am still a couple pieces short, but I am almost done. Basically there are 4 important things:
The computer I have. I bought a transmission radiator from Canadian Tire for the cooling, and you can see it as the black grid in the picture above. The container wasn't too hard, I just had to find a fish tank of a shape, size and price that I was happy with. It turned out to be a 10 gallon tank that is almost the same footprint as a computer case. Taller for sure though.
The hardest part seemed to be locating the mineral oil.
Mineral oil is sold several ways. It's sold as a laxative or enema at pharmacies in 250/500ml bottles and at the veterinarian's in larger amounts. Higher quality versions are sold industrially as napthenic electrical transformer oil by the barrel or truckload (yeesh), and as laboratory supplies from lab suppliers at like $10 per 5ml. In the end, I got a pharmacy to supply me with 8 1-gallon (~4 Litre) jugs of the stuff. 8 Gallons is worth about $300 Canadian, at retail price. I managed to get it wholesale, which was a lucky break for me. Though, the pharmacist must think I'm either really constipated or really perverted.
I disassembled the computer on a large cloth sheet - there was a ton of dust that I had to scrub off lightly with a toothbrush. I thought about using an air can, but I didn't have one around and besides it would have sent dust flying everywhere in the house.
After assembling it, I had to test it out to be sure it still works. So far so good. You'll see in the picture below that I stripped the plastic case off the video card. I dont think that the fan will push enough oil through the card to cool things properly.
Anyways, all that I have left to buy is something to line the bottom of the fish tank with, and perhaps something more to support the motherboard frame. Also, a way to cap off the fish tank that I can rest a hard drive or two on. Once I have that, the oil is going in.
I wonder if I have to worry about oil wicking out of the tank through the cables? I might have to mount a power bar and internet router above the tank to keep it dry, but I'll find out when I get to that stage.
Upsen.
Here it is, sitting with it's insides hanging out. Notice the chassis fan pointing at the video card? Yes, it is needed when I run important 3d applications like City of Heroes.
I figured that getting the parts over a period of time would soften the impact of the costs, so I've been occassionally buying a part here and a part there for the past 4 months. I am still a couple pieces short, but I am almost done. Basically there are 4 important things:
- the computer to submerge
- a cooling system
- mineral oil
- a container to hold it all in.
The computer I have. I bought a transmission radiator from Canadian Tire for the cooling, and you can see it as the black grid in the picture above. The container wasn't too hard, I just had to find a fish tank of a shape, size and price that I was happy with. It turned out to be a 10 gallon tank that is almost the same footprint as a computer case. Taller for sure though.
The hardest part seemed to be locating the mineral oil.
Mineral oil is sold several ways. It's sold as a laxative or enema at pharmacies in 250/500ml bottles and at the veterinarian's in larger amounts. Higher quality versions are sold industrially as napthenic electrical transformer oil by the barrel or truckload (yeesh), and as laboratory supplies from lab suppliers at like $10 per 5ml. In the end, I got a pharmacy to supply me with 8 1-gallon (~4 Litre) jugs of the stuff. 8 Gallons is worth about $300 Canadian, at retail price. I managed to get it wholesale, which was a lucky break for me. Though, the pharmacist must think I'm either really constipated or really perverted.
I disassembled the computer on a large cloth sheet - there was a ton of dust that I had to scrub off lightly with a toothbrush. I thought about using an air can, but I didn't have one around and besides it would have sent dust flying everywhere in the house.
After assembling it, I had to test it out to be sure it still works. So far so good. You'll see in the picture below that I stripped the plastic case off the video card. I dont think that the fan will push enough oil through the card to cool things properly.
Anyways, all that I have left to buy is something to line the bottom of the fish tank with, and perhaps something more to support the motherboard frame. Also, a way to cap off the fish tank that I can rest a hard drive or two on. Once I have that, the oil is going in.
I wonder if I have to worry about oil wicking out of the tank through the cables? I might have to mount a power bar and internet router above the tank to keep it dry, but I'll find out when I get to that stage.
Upsen.
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