Scratch Build – In Progress Project RabidCicada (Mineral Oil Computer) - 20th October 2010

Glad to see this project making more progress. It seems like a huge undertaking.

It's too bad fish can't survive in mineral oil because that would be even cooler! Maybe some oil resistant fish will evolve out of the gulf of mexico (like the radiation resistant plants/animals at Chernobyl).

 

Thanks for the comment on the lid Hobbie. What are you talking about with the Lister Twin engine though and the motor?

It was a large undertaking. Larger than I expected when I got into it...but it's been educational and I now have a better sense for what is par-for-course with custom making stuff.

I would never have thought shortening screws like that is fine. I would have thought I'm doing something wrong or that you just "buy the right thing" to begin with. Hanging out with a mechanical has opened my eyes. Not everything is made the "right" way for you or your project. You may not be able to buy a something that is what you need. Feel free to just make it.

The problem I had up until now is that I then wonder if I did it "right". I've learned to define "right" as "it does what I need adequately" instead of "the way X guy did it".

 

Radiator Fan setup and Power Distribution

I decided to mess around with my Radiator and fan setup today and found out that my desired solution wont work. You'd think, that being an engineer I'd of thought about this a little more. But the problem is, this is a hobby and something I do for pleasure...not for my job. So I'm in more of a "try this and see if it works" mindset.

It turns out that the Grill of the MO-RA 3 pro has a in-curiving lip which makes fitting things in a little more tricky. On top of that I simply don't have enough space in the edges of the radiator (with grill attached) to fit my terminal block. On top of that...the lugs (ring terminals that get crimped on the wire) make the space situation even worse. I could have shaved down the terminal block a little on the side to make it fit.

Space is cramped and lugs make it even worse (protruding into a fan slot)


Even if I had made the terminal block fit, I was going to have issues getting the fan wires all the way to the terminal blocks. The wires are too short and would only get shorter when I remove the headers. I was initially planning on having one terminal block for positive and one terminal block for negative. They would sit side-by-side in the same orientation as the picture above. Not enough space and the wiring issue sealed the deal.



I did think about getting rid of the center fan and putting terminal blocks across the center square of the rad...but that would completely ruin the aesthetic even though it would solve wire length issues.

My new plan is to remove the 4pin molexes and keep the 3 pin connecters, maybe using additional sleeved y connectors or altering the current wires to allow daisy chaining. I will certianly get some sleeving and heatshrink tubing to neaten up the wires directly attached to the fans. The end result should be a MUCH neater more aesthetic radiator layout (and one that actually fits and works in this Rad)

Inspiration:
http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=img_6629siqo.jpg
The image doesn't seem to be working when wrapped in IMG tag (dont know why)


I also did math for the power draw from the fan controller. I plan to use a total of 3 channels on the fan controller (one channel for each fan row). This makes sure that at maximum amperage and voltage draw for the fans that they stay within spec for a channel on the controller (30 watts). Each fan can draw .3 amps and 12 volts max which would put all 9 fans at 32.4 watts. Each row would pull at max 10.8 watts.

I'm going make one sleeved cable to run from the controller out the case lid to the radiator.

 

You're going to need some MDPC-X sleeve

 

I'm probably looking to place the order for sleeving and heat shrink today. I'd like a confirmation of usual sizes for the sleeving and heatshrink. I found one guide where a guy recommended certain sizes but I'd like to see what people here think.

He used one that was larger I believe so it would fit over the 3 pin headers. I am fine with removing the 3 pin headers for putting on the sleeving.

 

Got an Original Molex pin removal tool coming from frozencpu and 20 meters titanium SMALL grey sleeve, 2 meters heatshrink, and 10 3-pin black fan connectors coming from mdpcx.

I wonder how long the German post will take to get it to me.

 

About the heatshrink length, 15mm is good, here is a guide (from Nils)

 

Been a long while guys and a job switch or two (phew life). But I'm finally back at it and determined to finish.

I did some testing previously with mineral oil and the HW turned on with regular thermal paste and let it run for a while. The heat generated stayed very stratified so I figured out that I need to add big fans for pushing oil around.

I went with Delta afb1212ghe fans for oil pushing.

I originally had prolimatech megahalems for the cpu but it was too tall to allow the sliding tray to slide out of the case (barely). So I have decided to go with a 130mm tall freezer13. To cool that sucker I got a Delta afb0912ehe 92mm fan. I stole the 38mm deep fan clips from the megahalems to use on the freezer13 after prying off their proprietary cooling fan and housing.

I've installed the HW in what I believe will be a final fashion. I put in a silverstone ST1500 1.5kw power supply. I took the housing of the power supply to avoid temperature issues and added one of the massive fans to it using metal constructor kit from Lowes .

I'm also using an old gtx8800 until I proof the HW to work in the oil for extended times.

 

Please Help me w/Indigo Xtreme

So I need some help from you guys.

I have:
FX-8150
Asus Sabertooth 990fx
Freezer13 from Arctic Cooling
Indigo Xtreme.

I cannot get my system to boot so that I can do the burnin for the Indigo Xtreme. It boots totally fine on normal thermal paste. But wont even begin to POST with non-set Indigo Xtreme.

I wasted one install of IX. Switched back to normal thermal paste to check HW still worked (It did). Tried second install of IX same problem. I'm wasting money here and don't want to keep doing it. Got another order of IX on the way.

I tried disabling the "Monitor" function of the Sabertooth board in case instantaneous temperature was the problem...but It still wont boot. I had to do the disabling on normal thermal paste between the failed IX installs because with IX in place the system wont even get into BIOS.

It just shutsdown right when it would enter BIOS.

I'm looking to other Sabertooth + Indigo Xtreme guys to help me out or anyone with relevant experience...all help appreciate..I'm stuck.

 

are you trying to boot in oil or in air? i would try in air if you arent already. also, the freezer13 uses push-pins instead of hold-down screws right? i wonder if there isnt enough tension to smash the IX down to the CPU (in other words: excessive air between the CPU, IX, and cooler).

 

Doin in Air. And the freezer13 uses screws for AMD. Pushpins for Intel.

I screw all the way down.

Just in case it isn't clear...the main problem was being able to boot in the first place so I can burn in.

 

im not sure then as ive never actually used IX. my google-fu is only turning people saying to make sure the IX stays in position when seating the cooler which is evidently impossible.

you dont have the CPU fan failure safety on do you?

 

yeah...my google-fu is failing me also. got an email to the IX guys. Maybe they'll take pity and try to help out

It's almost assuredly a temperature sensitive thermal shutdown thing with sabertooth. The asus forums are down so I can't get help there. And I've touched every setting I can figure in bios to make it not care.

Had a separate fan hooked up to mobo to fake out fan sensor etc...nothing works.

 

Well Wicked...I'm doing my best not to have the cpu fan failure detection on. But I'm not sure I've set the settings correctly in BIOS.

Sabertooth manual doesn't say anything in particular about thermal safety shutdown being a feature (That I saw). But it seems like thermal shutdown would be a gimme feature on modern enthusiast motherboards. I've tried finding the setting that might trigger it but am not having any luck. Turned off all cpu temp monitoring I could find.

If anyone knows the exact setting I would appreciate your advice. I also hope thermal safety shutdown is the actual problem >.<.

 

Reading the installation instructions of Indigo Xtreme I gather that you deliberately need to let your CPU burn to about 90C+ to get the TIM to melt and flow?

Seems to me they missed out a step: the bit where you cup your stainless steel balls in your free hand as you use the other to hit the power on switch...

 

That is exactly what I did when I hit the power switch. Though I did read about many people whose opinions were that running at 90c was no big deal when not done for extended periods of time. So I was soothed by that.

 

Well in any case here's my final HW for the machine when I get it working on Indigo Xtreme or find an alternate solution:
AMD FX-8150
16gb GSKILL Sniper Ram (1866)
RealSSd C300
2xGtx580's
Silverstone ST1500
2xDell 2410
1xDell 3007wfp (old school 30")
Sabertooth 990fx

All HW is installed for the testing except the gtx580's which are running in my current setup. I'll add one more GFX card after seeing the gtx580's run for about a month in oil.

Water Pump works great for the oil and the Massive Radiator works perfect as well. I've only got 3 fans on the rad right now and I'll add more as needed.

 

can you get the board to power on with a fan mounted to the cooler and powered? maybe you can keep the CPU cool enough to at least get into the BIOS and see what the temps are (if overheating is indeed your problem).

EDIT: also, i didnt think about this before, but dont AMD chips have a much lower thermal threshold than intel chips? 90c for short bursts isnt a huge problem for an intel CPU, but might be kinda hard on an AMD chip. wonder what the IX guys' take on that situation is....

if AMD chips have built-in thermal protection like intel chips, i wonder if its shutting down before getting hot enough to flow the IX?

 

I can get booted with normal fan+heatsink+TIM.

I cannot get booted with any permutation of IX+heatsink+fan. I've tried fan bowing full force. I've tried gentle. Fan disconnected (mobo). Fan connected (mobo).

AMD probably does have a lower thermal threshold. Maybe I got screwed but I swear I saw posts by other people about using IX and 8150.

All of the collective facts above are why I'm convinced it's a thermal safety shutdown issue. And yeah Wicked: your theory is exactly mine. Noting that the shutdown happens even before BIOS/POST is the worst part. If I could get into BIOS I might be able to force the machine hot because of its' near 100% workload and a hair dryer.

I can't get registered on ASUS forums right now because their site is so horribly managed. As soon as I do I'll ask on their. I have a feeling I'll have to shelve the IX for now and go with Ceramique, which according to legoman666 I'll probably have to replace every 3 months or so.