Cooling Sprocket Redux

She's back.
Mostly.

This version of Sprocket was an exercise in restraint...well, for me anyway.
The goal was to fit a maximized cooling loop into a CM Stacker without
major modifications.

Define "major", please.
Fine.

In the context of this project, "major" means permanently visible holes, cuts, etc.
With the exception of the top blowhole (which Coolermaster really should have changed anyway), I wanted the case to be returnable to stock appearance/functionality.

So far, so good.

If you have never seen a Stacker case in person, trust me, it's big.
Even so I managed to cram it so full of stuff that I had to get creative with some of my component mounting in order to shoehorn everything in.
Life would be so much simpler if Windows didn't require a floppy drive to load RAID drivers....

The RAID array has finally reached it's full size...4x36GB Raptors.
A Seagate 120 GB SATA drive is for storage.
Here is a shot of the front bay of the case with all the drives in place...

...and a bench of the drives...

Frankly, I have more storage than I know what to do with, but it is very fast and snappy.

Cooling the drives is a new front bezel.
I made this from black 1/8" Plexi and it mounts 3x120mm fans which blow over the drives and into the case. The bezel also holds two Bulgin switches (reset/power) and overlays the Sunbeam fan controller so only the knobs are visible.
I'd like to replace the standard black knobs for some nice knurled silver ones, but haven't found ones I like yet.
The bezel is mounted to two pieces of angled aluminum (visible in the HDD pic) whose mounting holes are completely invisible should the case return to stock.
This is a shot of the test fit (actually, the ten millionth test fit...)...

The button head allen screws have all since been painted black to lessen the visual clutter.

I upgraded my northbridge motherboard fan from an 80mm to a 120mm. The DFI (like most nForce4 boards) suffers from terrible placement of the northbridge and can use all the help it can get. Also visible here is the access hole for the CPU socket- heatsinks/waterblocks can be swapped without motherboard removal.

The reservoir has moved to the case roof (the tophat looking thingie) and is the only permanent,visible mod to the case exterior. Should the rez be removed the leftover mounting holes accomodate a 120mm fan or grill- which Coolermaster should have incorporated to begin with.

Sprocket is up and running right now and initial results look good...mostly.
CPU temps are slightly better than the Big Typhoon HSF, but this chip has always run very cool anyway, so I didn't expect much difference.
The GPU temp has dropped a lot...the Swiftech MCW50 and the copper ramsinks are really outperforming the DangerDen NV-68 block I used before.

Sadly, the northbridge temp has remained the same.
How come?
I have replaced my previous passive sink/active mobotray fan with a Vantec Iceberg4 (all copper) and upped the backboard fan to 120mm, so why the crap results?
Turns out, the 120mm fan is dead.
I should have tested it, but I didn't.
The motherboard has to come out to replace it.
Which means just about everything else has to come out first.

*sigh*

Looking on the bright side, this will allow me to make some much needed improvements to my wiring, but it's still a royal pain.
The fully assembled beauty shots will have to wait till the reassembly is done...maybe tonight, but prolly tomorrow.

More to come...


Edit:
Mini-stress test- Prime 95 for one hour...

 

Well, Sprocket and I got tired of waiting for Richard Avedon to arrive so I took the pictures.
As usual, they are crap, but we'll have to make do.

The front bezel...

From the top we have:
-four black knobs from the Sunbeam fan controller (the only unit worth a tinker's damn, IMO)
-Two Bulgin anti-vandal switches (red is power /on and blue is reset/ HDD activity)
-three 120mm Aerocool "turbine" fans (mediocre fans in fact, but silent and exactly the look I wanted...actually they inspired this whole endevour)
-Plextor 716SA DVD-RW (with an alloy Coolermaster faceplate)

Next, a side view...

Here you see the beauty (i.e., "coverup") panels in place.
Personally I find the motherboard area to be the only visually interesting part of a PC's guts, everything else being boxey and strewn with wires, so I made up some plexi panels and bolted them into the chassis (Coolermaster has literally riddled the Stacker with very nice threaded inserts- if you want to screw something in, chances are CM put an insert right where you need it).
The main reason for the panels is to cover up the unsightly wiring.
The Seasonic S12-600w is an excellent PSU but has the absolute worst rat's nest wiring I've ever encountered. The lines are either too short (ATX) or too long and the connector spacing is weird. Definitely a candidate for major surgery of the harness.
Which I shall do as the chassis gets powdercoated.

Now the waterloop...

Many new components this go-round...
-CPU block is a Swiftech Storm G5.

-Radiator/shroud/fans are a Weapon 342 kit which lays on the casefloor over the good sized vent hole Coolermaster thoughtfully provided. The plexi floor plate to which the radiator is affixed rests on 1/2" rubber weatherseal to raise the face of the rad off the intake opening for better flow (the floor hole is about 1" too narrow along each side of the radiator length but I didn't want to cut it open). This rad is single pass which places the barbs at opposite ends of the unit and cuts down on the amount of tubing used a good bit. Shorter, oddly enough, in this case is better....

-GPU is now covered with a Swiftech MCW50 which seems to work very well.
The odd "press fit" barbs give me the creeps, but no leaks yet.

-Pump is the same Polarflow unit I had before and is mounted directly to the radiator inlet..out of sight, unfortunately.

A slightly different shot...

Depending on how she looks with the interior black, most of the plexi panels will probably disappear (not the main bay mount panel though..I quite like that one), but I'll see when I get there.
I'm hoping to time the powdercoating process (@ one week turnaround) with the arrival of the new DFI Expert motherboard...I may add the nothbridge into the waterloop and that way I can keep downtime to a minimum (teardown on Sprocket is a bitch...).

As per usual she's a work in progress.

 

I must say I like that a lot. There are some elegant solutions in there. Good work!

 

looking good
definitely like the front

one thing, you may want to have a bit of a tweak of your array, as 90MB/sec is a bit on the sluggish side for a 4 disk array, especially with 10k disks and especially with raid0 (as a comparison i get 150MB/sec across the whole of mine, thats with 4 7200rpm drives and thats raid5 as well)

 

Thats a cool looking rig.

How do you find those fans you have in the front? I was thinking of using a pair of them in my setup, however they have blue LED's and my theme is orange, looking at the fan how hard would you think it would be to change the LED's?

Never seen a fan in the mobo tray before, impressive. about how much noise does that generate alltogether?

 

Nice! I have a stacker too, and there are so many possibilities in such a big case. You're going BTX? I really like the fans, what are they? Are the LEDs pre-installed? If so, do they come in red?

Cos I wouldn't mind replacing my fans for these.

Do you have any grills on these? I certainly wouldn't want to be putting my finger in that!

So many questions :S

 

These are the fans.
I didn't even look at the LEDs, but they must be relatively easy to swap out if you're so inclined.

@Mister_tad...
I suspected that the disk performance was not optimal, but outside of changing the stripe size (what are you using?) I don't see anything else to "tweak".
I am a total RAID n00b so any pointers would be appreciated.

This arrangement would not have been possible any other way...the vid card and radiator would have interfered.

Considering the number of fans she's sporting, Sprocket is pretty quiet.
The frontpanel Aerocools and the mobo tray Coolermaster (came with the case) are virtually inaudible- but they aren't moving much air, either.
The Seasonic S12 PSU fan is silent as well.
The two 120x38mm DC San Ace fans supplied with the HC/shroud can get annoying...not sure if it's the fan itself, the tight, deep fin spacing or (most likely) a combination of the two. So far ( keep in mind I only finished this two days ago so my data is very limited) I've been running the rad passively while just forum cruising and fiddling about which raises the idle temp to the high 20's-low 30's.
The most noticable sound now is the whine of the Polarflo pump...or maybe I just have tinnitus, hard to say.

I still have two more possible radiator setups to test.
Both require the new base (yet to be made) to work.
The current arrangement was the simplest and fastest way to get back running, not what I think will be best.
I'm hoping the next version, which includes a Torin blower and a BIX, will out perform this one and free up a lot of room in the case to boot.
We'll see.

 

It may be how you connect your RAID to the mobo - or if you're using software RAID.

Used to use 2 raptors in RAID 0 on my Abit board using the built in RAID. I've now moved those drives into my server using a PCI-X highpoint card and it's much faster.

Yeah, I know, you can buy a new mobo for the price of the RAID card, so I wouldn't expect any difference!


On a side note...
For some reason, when I read the title, I saw Spandex Rocket - I have no idea why and it worried me

 

I am using the nVidia onboard RAID controller.
Not sure how that compares to your RAID card, but I assume it's slower.
Oh well.

"Spandex Rocket"?
That is just sooo wrong.
Now I'm worried.

 

even though its an onboard controller, I'd still expect it to get more than 90MB/sec (2 raptors can even muster 90MB/sec). It may be worth experiementing and seeing what stripe size is optimal for the drives and the controller

athough, saying all that, youre unlikely to notice a different between 90MB/sec and 150MB/sec

Could also be a case of inaccurate results, HDTach isn't great when it comes to measuring array performance, could have a go at Sandra and see what that throws back.

 

Like so?

 

exactly

although, that "c:" scares me. Please tell me youre not using an array for your main system drive...

 

Urrr thought that would be the best way nice and fast and more reliable imo, also C doesn't imediatly mean that is your system drive as you can install XP on any partition you like my mums main drive is D cause i was deviant and confuzled her lol.


morgan.

 

But of course...why not?
I have excellent backups and can perform a fresh install/setup in about an hour and a half should the need arise.

 

It's some people's opinion (although I'm still undecided about this one), that the vast number of small accesses that the system drive requires is actually slower on RAID drives. So in their opinion, you're better off sticking with one Raptor for the system drive.

Like I said. Not sure myself.

As for more reliable - depends on your RAID config.

RAID 0 - The more disks, the more likely you lose everything (i.e. 2 disks, twice as likely), but performance goes up in a simular fasion.
RAID 1 - Nice and reliable, same performance as one disk.
RAID 0-1 - Both of the above, but expensive.
RAID 5 - Reliable, less expensive at the loss of raw speed.


There are many more types of RAID (google for it!)

 

im sure you do, however thats not what im referring to

its hardly an opinion
raid0 excels and handling large files quickly, however lags behind single disk performance when it comes to lots of very small files (ie, system drive)

 

I understand that the use of RAID (specifically RAID 0) on a desktop is contraversial.
Which is what piqued my interest, naturally.

I have a few more HDD configurations I want to try, one array each on the nvidia and SI3114 controllers, different stripe sizes, etc.

Sprocket is a toy and thus, subject to many of my whims.
This is why the cooling is constantly morphing and now, the HDD arrangement.
I also indulge myself and give weight to my subjective "feelings" about Sprocket's performance...right now RAID seems snappier/crisper than standard SATA, but I realize that there is a lot of wishful thinking involved ( "I spent the time figuring this out, it damn well better be faster!"), so I won't try to elevate my opinion to the level of "fact".

Whether I stay with RAID or not is almost irrelevant, it's the learning process that intrigues me after all is said and done.

 

Right then...Phase II of the cooling loop is in place.

With the rad being floor mounted I needed the clearance under the case (for airflow) that the CM supplied casters provided, but the aesthetics bothered me, so I decided to build a new base.

Plexi is my new favorite material...easy to fabricate, no painting and pretty cheap, so I picked up some 1/2" thick black stock and had a go.
Ultimately the base will be a complete 6-sided box, but to start all I needed was a three-sided U shape ( there are more stages planned, but I'm not yet certain what they will require so I didn't want to commit to a finished box just yet).

Mounted under the casefloor in the base is now a Torin blower.
The heatercore has been replaced with a much smaller BIX.

Here is the base with the Torin in place...

And from the case interior...

With the finish floor panel and the BIX...

So far, performance of the loop is comparable to the heatercore setup, but the GPU and northbridge suffer slightly... my theory is the twin 120's on the heatercore were providing good airflow to this area which has been lost with the new arrangement.
The Torin is virtually silent, so that worked well.

I'm going to shift my attention to making a new reservoir and a custom PSU next, so I'll live with this loop for a while and see how she does.
I'm planning on swapping the motherboard for the DFI Expert when it becomes available so the layout will change some (the CPU socket and RAM have been moved as has the northbridge-YAY!) and I'm unable to continue till that is in place.

The next (planned) experiment will use two of the heatercores (in series- probably CPU>HC>GPU>HC>res>pump>CPU) running passively.

This is fun.

Edit:
Priming for 12 hours, max temp (reported by SpeedFan) is 40C...

 

A small update...
This time round there have only been small changes (relatively speaking) but a major breakthrough.
One pair of Raptors was sold so I'm now down to three hard drives (oh! the shame!).
After rearranging the drives I tried moving my original Weapon heatercore to the front bays- it fit, but took up a lot of space and unnecessarily cramped the spacing of the drives, so I reverted back to floor placement.
My custom base and Torin blower were removed and the stock casefeet (little disks, essentially) were installed.
The 120x38mm San Ace fans used previously were replaced with a set of Silverstone 120x25mm fans (originally supplied with my TJ-06).
The new fans move about half the air with a proportional drop in noise.

All pretty standard mucking about, really.

The big change involved moving the video card to the second PCIe slot which completely unshrouds the northbridge chipset. In theory the second slot is now operating at half the bandwidth of the first slot (8x instead of 16x), but performance in 3DMark03 seems unaffected...I've only made a few quick passes, but the results seem consistent.

Here is a shot of the new arrangement...

Note the booster fan over the northbridge area- I machined some extensions which screw into the mobo standoffs and hark! an 80mm fan (in this case a virtually silent Zalman low-profile unit) bolts right on.
I retained the Vantec Iceberg4 HSF on the chip itself although I now have room to mount a much taller sink should I choose. At some point I'm sure I will, but for now it's fine.
After running for a few hours and Priming (100% CPU usage) for nearly two hours here are the results...

The northbridge is 10C lower than before.
Now we're getting somewhere.

The truly observant will notice that the Raptors are not in a RAID array here.
I assure you they will be, but while in RAID I cannot access the SMART temp sensors and I wanted to verify the drives were running cool so I installed regularly this time so I could check. I cannot explain the difference in temps between the three drives, they should all be identical in theory, but the warmest (the Seagate 120GB) is only 26C so I'm not going to obsess over it.
Also of note (just to be fair) is the fact that I'm only running at 2.42GHz now.
That's because this speed (11x220) is as high as I can go without retweaking the RAM timings and I want to go back to stock easily for the reinstall of Windows into the RAID array ( I always install at stock speeds...not sure why, just seems prudent and I'm superstitious).
After she's RAIDed I'll repeat these tests at the more normal 2.6GHz but I fully expect the temp improvement to remain.

Completely OT...
I inadvertantly discovered that the beta Opera browser does not support horizontal scrolling with my tilt wheel mouse (MS Intellimouse), but the new Firefox beta does, so after a brief flirtation with Opera I'm back to the Fox.

Just thought I'd mention it...

 

Sprocket has been treated to a new waterloop.
The Polarflo pump has been replaced with a Swiftech MCP655 (much quieter!) and the northbridge is cooled with a DD Maze block.
This required moving the vid card to the PCIe2 slot, but no noticable degradation of performance occurred and the temp dropped dramatically, so even had there been I wouldn't care too much.
I also swapped the Swiftech GPU block for a DD Maze4 which doesn't have those weird push fit barbs that always scared me on the Swifty.
Finally, I built a new reservoir.
Here are some preliminary shots and results...



And here is the new vid card treatment...

The fans are from a HDD cooler and are located over the power section of the card (which is where I suspect the "GPU ambient" sensor reading comes from...)
Some very preliminary temp readings (machine has been idling for @1 hour...)

I must say that I'm quite pleased ( several shots of Wild Turkey helped, no doubt).
The new rez eliminated the external Typhoon reservoir and over two feet of tubing.
The loop is as short as it could be I think.

Construction of the reservoir was easier than I thought it would be with the exception of sealing the hose barbs. Initially I had leaks but Plumber's Goop solved that.
Already I have ideas for improving the design but this will do for now.
Sprocket seems happy and that's what really matters.

Sheesh, it's almost 2AM and I'm beat.
Happy Thanksgiving all.