[DESIGN] Custom-Built Lexan / Aluminum Mining Case

[vapourminer]

I like this too. simple, clean layout, reasonable protection for the hardware.

perhaps a bit more closing off in front and (if it were mine) maybe some mesh filters for the fans. got cats here, hair can get anywhere it seems. 

[1714006488]

1714006488

[Yanz]

That looks exactly like my asus mobo, which one is it? I couldn't get mine to run with 4 cards.

[loglow]

perhaps a bit more closing off in front and (if it were mine) maybe some mesh filters for the fans.

thank you for the suggestions. I took your (and previous posters') advice and created full-size Lexan panels for the front and back, replacing the old narrow ones. of course, the new panels needed cutouts for the fans (back) and inputs, ps, and card exhaust (front) as well as all kinds of little holes for bolts and screws. anyway, I got it setup, and airflow is definitely better now, and temps seem a few degrees cooler. also, I grabbed some fan grills from newegg ($2 for 6+), so I'll add those over the fans when they show up; I don't have a cat, but I do brush into the fans more than I'd like to admit and it always scares the hell out of me.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6183/6117625564_bdf4e2df1f.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6061/6117625232_f72d874454.jpg

[loglow]

That looks exactly like my asus mobo, which one is it? I couldn't get mine to run with 4 cards.

it's the M4A79XTD EVO (link). I picked it for price ($100), pcie slots (2@16x, 2@1x), and generally good newegg reviews. haven't had any trouble running four cards (all sapphire 5830s); I did have to RMA one of them, but that was the card's fault, not the mobo. system was unstable (but did run, believe it or not) w/ a 650w ps, so I replaced it with the current 1200w and it's been no trouble since. board has worked fine with win7 and (more recently) debian.

[stryker]

very very nice!

[BkkCoins]

still very cool. all it needs now is some little rubber feet positioned so they can stack.

[loglow]

On these cards, the only direction the fans blow is 'into the heatsink'.  The exhaust comes out whichever path has the least resistance, which by default happens to be the open 'rear' of the card rather than out the grill.  A powerful fan can reverse this, but probably at an efficiency reduction.

I was feeling experimental, so I reversed the bank of 6 fans; they were intake, they're now exhaust. temps are cooler! exactly by how much is hard to say, since ambient temps have been up and down over the past few days. but more than anything else, I've noticed that temps are more consistent with this negative-pressure setup. I'm going to keep it like this; however, I think I'm also going to put two 140mm fans blowing down onto the cards from the top, since I have the space for them. case pressure will still be negative (180 CFM in, 360 CFM out). I'd love to hear any suggestions, comments, whatever; my background in airflow/cooling is basically nonexistent, besides what I've researched in the past week.

[stryker]

Its my guess they do better pulling air out as the fans are evenly spaced all over the back of your box.  When they are pushing air in, looking at the front of your box and the openings there may be a lot of "dead" spots in the air flow...

interesting Q, while the fans were pushing air in and before you had the lexan front panel, were the temps low then?

[BkkCoins]

I have one of these digital indoor/outdoor thermometers hooked up to show me the ambient and exhaust air temps. It's really the only way to relate your core temps to what's going on with your fans. I find the in/out differential for me is always about 7C. I guess that's a measure of how well the air is moving thru as poor airflow would probably result in higher spreads.

Rather than cool my cards as low as possible I tend to select what I think is a good temp and then have a monitor script that slows the fans down rather than let temp go lower. This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep.

[cicada]

This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep.

Lmao..  I'm wager my server closet is ~80-90dB, there's no such thing as 'sleep' anywhere near my rigs  I couldn't hear my phone ring, at full volume, while I was in there yesterday.


Also, that rig is kickass loglow, very smartly built.  You've got me thinking about redesigning my setup yet again

[loglow]

interesting Q, while the fans were pushing air in and before you had the lexan front panel, were the temps low then?

my sense is that:

• temps are coolest with current setup
• temps were hottest with fans blowing in and new front panel
• temps were in-between with fans blowing in, but without front panel

I tried removing the top panel and pointed a box fan down onto the cards, and that further lowered the temps by a solid 5+ degrees, so I'm feeling good about adding the two 140mm fans on top.

Rather than cool my cards as low as possible I tend to select what I think is a good temp and then have a monitor script that slows the fans down rather than let temp go lower. This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep.

yep, I'm doing the same thing with a target at 68-72C; posted my script earlier in this thread. fans have been hovering between 45-55%, which is pleasantly quiet. in fact, the fridge is louder when its compressor is on!

Also, that rig is kickass loglow, very smartly built.

thanks! I'm happy to share my sketchup file if anyone's interested in that. it doesn't have any of the holes or bolts though.

[stryker]

it is a thing of beauty though.... rigs as "art work" who'd of thought it 

Must admit I've been thinking of what could be done in terms of one of those display case type styles, free standinging tower, hold about 4 rigs or so.... just the noise is an issue.

[plastic.elastic]

This gives me more quiet as the ambient cools at night time when I'd like to sleep.

Lmao..  I'm wager my server closet is ~80-90dB, there's no such thing as 'sleep' anywhere near my rigs  I couldn't hear my phone ring, at full volume, while I was in there yesterday.


Also, that rig is kickass loglow, very smartly built.  You've got me thinking about redesigning my setup yet again

What so smart about it? I dont mean to offend the OP but every custom/open mining case i have seen has the same frame structure/design.

As for the air flowing, the OP made the mistake right off the bat by having the fan blowing to the non ref cards. They're known to exhausting air to the rear (which i really hate, stupid cheap engineering from the card markers)

Someone even posted and said that doesnt matter as the air will find the least restrictive path to flow ...!!! (really? facepalm...)

OP wasted 3 fans at the bottom.... even if he has them exhausting. Why? too much pressure from the back... negative pressure.... guess where the air is coming from?

Ppl are always over complicating things. Having bunch of fans blowing or sucking at the damn case doesnt mean better cooling.

I can design this with 3 fans and have cooler temp... guarantee. Wanna bet?

Hint: check out server chassis designs.

[vapourminer]

I can design this with 3 fans and have cooler temp... guarantee. Wanna bet?

Hint: check out server chassis designs.

then do it. but make your own thread please, and reply to this message in that.

server chassis usually have straight as an arrow (much as possible anyway) enforced air flow.. how you gonna do that with side sucking and all around exhausting video cards (I assume by force feeding air to only ref design cards and using their fans to augment the other fans, but thats cheating)? with a multi level (cards on extenders) design?  and what 3 fans? how quiet will it be? how expensive?

[cicada]

What so smart about it?

Lets try making our points without being condescending twits, eh?  Building mining rigs with power-hungry hot-as-hell GPUs isn't exactly old hat for anyone.  By 'smartly built', I meant this is clean, concise, and functional. 

Certainly there are rigs with better cooling, fewer and cheaper materials, that doesn't make this one any less nice.

[plastic.elastic]

I can design this with 3 fans and have cooler temp... guarantee. Wanna bet?

Hint: check out server chassis designs.

then do it. but make your own thread please, and reply to this message in that.

server chassis usually have straight as an arrow (much as possible anyway) enforced air flow.. how you gonna do that with side sucking and all around exhausting video cards (I assume by force feeding air to only ref design cards and using their fans to augment the other fans, but thats cheating)? with a multi level (cards on extenders) design?  and what 3 fans? how quiet will it be? how expensive?

I'm  not a farm miner, there is no reason for me to build one.

My ref to server chassis is NOT about its shape, size and color.... LOL. You're quite smart there.

And i would use the same fan as OP. Just 3 of them....

I will give you time to digest and think.

[plastic.elastic]

What so smart about it?

Lets try making our points without being condescending twits, eh?  Building mining rigs with power-hungry hot-as-hell GPUs isn't exactly old hat for anyone.  By 'smartly built', I meant this is clean, concise, and functional.  

Certainly there are rigs with better cooling, fewer and cheaper materials, that doesn't make this one any less nice.

Its not that cheap, giving the materials.

Functionality could have been improved. Actually in term of cooling, its terrible.

So if you wanted to say its a nice build, why did you say smartly built? Give credit where its due, its a clean build.

"Building mining rigs with power-hungry hot-as-hell GPUs" ---- Wrong,it has nothing to do with GPUs. The concept is still the same, why do ppl think its some sort of science to cool computer or any electrical components?

[cicada]

Its not that cheap, giving the materials.

Functionality could have been improved. Actually in term of cooling, its terrible.

Ok, next time actually read the post you're responding to.  I said:

Certainly there are rigs with better cooling, fewer and cheaper materials, that doesn't make this one any less nice.

I was clearly referring to other rigs as having better cooling, and using fewer and cheaper materials.

So if you wanted to say its a nice build, why did you say smartly built? Give credit where its due, its a clean build.

Funny thing about the English language, sometimes a word can have more than one meaning.  Also, many different words can mean the same thing.  I was giving praise, not writing a technical manual.  In the future I will just say, "I'm going to praise you now by saying this thing is not terrible."   Better?

Wrong,it has nothing to do with GPUs. The concept is still the same, why do ppl think its some sort of science to cool computer or any electrical components?

Ugh..  name one other component that uses as much power or produces as much heat as a modern high-end GPU.  Next, show me a computer with 4 or more of that thing.

Outside of really high-end gamer builds (which don't run the GPU at 95%+ 24/7), or folding@home builds, nothing else really compares.

The fact stands that my opinion is that loglow's build is nice - it's a hell of a lot nicer than my open-air $5 wooden frame, and incidentally appears to stay cooler as well.  You can keep shitting on my opinion if you'd like, but I'm done responding to it.

[BkkCoins]

The fact stands that my opinion is that loglow's build is nice - it's a hell of a lot nicer than my open-air $5 wooden frame, and incidentally appears to stay cooler as well.  You can keep shitting on my opinion if you'd like, but I'm done responding to it.

I wouldn't worry about it. Some people are just plain rude and mouth off at every opportunity. Unless we see spastic.elastic actually show us his claimed abilities in the real world I'd just take this as a childish loud mouth blabbing off. Grown ups with respect for other peoples work don't act this way.

[loglow]

stryker, I'm flattered to have the rig described as art! wow. thank you.

... aaanyways, nice to see the forum back online after the hack. I've added the two intake fans to the top, and I'm remounting the rear fans to better accommodate the grills. there are just too many unnecessary metal pieces back there, and I can do it much simpler by mounting the fans straight to lexan, which is plenty strong. I'll post an image or two when that's put together.

the airflow seems reasonably good to me with this setup, and the cooling across the four cards is the most consistent I've seen so far. the intake-only setup was giving a 5-15% (sometimes even greater!) fan speed differential between cards. reversing the fans improved this to some degree, and the addition of the top fans is now giving me almost identical readings across all cards, which I'm psyched to see. as far as the overall efficiency of the build goes, I'd love to hear any concrete suggestions in terms of further optimizing it. as I said before, the science of cooling is still very new to me.