Project : 5th gen - 20TB gaming rigs

Hi all!,

One of those really large updates are finally coming along :P

Been working for 16 hours straight today on this project, so gotten a long way now...

Whats been done
* Finalized water res
* Allmost done with backplates
* Mounted disks and some hardware
* Soldered power circuits and LED's
* Installed Windows on mITX


Whats left
* Get the hoses and mount them up
* Install waterblocks on GFX cards
* Install new mobo
* Install watercooling and water ress
* Install fillport
* Boot it up ^^.




The harddrive rack


Guess this will be the start of stuffing disks in this case =)

Had previously powder coated 4 perforated plates to deal with this one, the disks got tilted somewhat upwards to prevent heat to be trapped in between them... Still have to put down a placeholder in the front of them though, so they dont slide out when the case is being moved, might get some screws and just drill holes and mount them that way too, oh well... ill figure it out

Got about 32 disks in place now, just missing out on 4x 80GB SAS (15k rpm) drives now, and a additional 2x 1TB drives that havent yet arrived, totals out on 22TB when everything is in place, over a total of 40 disks

Added another 2 disks to the mITX board, 2x 500GB WD - One at the top.....

And one at the bottom :P



The water-ress


It was decided early on that i wanted a large tank up front of the case, however, its been a real pain getting this one made, afraid i didnt have a camera available at the buildprocess but ill try and shorten it down here....

First of all, cut off a few pieces of a large plexiblock i had available, then i milled up 4 holes for the water cylinders, and made a 3mm opening inside the block for the o-ring, that would seal them up...

A normal drill was used to get the water paths within the blocks and locked up by a m8 bolt with sealing tape on it in the end, to ensure it doesnt leak....

However, needed some way to get the water down there, since sideway mounting nipples wont happen :P drilled up two holes on the top and the bottom, centered up within the block to ensure even flow of the water... and nippled em up with o-rings at the bottom...

Fixing up the backplate


Time to do something about the plain look of the backplates on the case =)

As you probably noticed, the other 2 radiators have also arrived, so needed some way to get em decent looking (still need fans and grills though) -.-

Started by measuring up the size of it, cut out a piece in cardboard to check out if it checked up... Went further on with measuring up the plexiglass, and got on with the cutting job.. Gotta love jigsaws.... the results doesnt allways turn out like you want them to... so will have to file down some edges on these soon, but have way to much stuff to do to sit down and do that now :P

So will be a furter update on this one later

Snuck in some pics of the thoughpowers along with the two radiators mounted up :P

Soldering and LED's

God, this had been a time consuming affair...

Bought up 90x LED's - Blue, received them last week, and today, finally ready to start getting them up running, also had to do alot of cable soldering to power up the rest of the fans and leds on the case...

All the light's and some of the fans are directly connected to the 300w PSU for the mITX now

Anyways, guess u guys have decent insight in how this work's so ill let the pics speak for themselves =)

Hardware

Ah well, a small chapter for itself... Sadly my "old" Abit Quad GT had to be replaced since it werent to happy about running 2x sas controllers for some reason -.-

So ordered up another Asus P5Q premium, should get this one sometime next week

Heres some current pics though of some of the hardware going in there... god i hate full memory cards when ur taking pics -.- so got somewhat limited this time

Also.. the hoses and waterblocks from EK-Waterblocks should arrive the upcoming week! damn, im looking forward to those, starting to close in on completion, FINALLY

The touch

Windows Vista Ultimate x86 - Installed!

Working flawless, need to get some holes for USB ports so it can be easily reached, and install the touch software for it, then its all good to go... And no... the pics aint taken upside down :p

Mounted the screen upside down so the buttons on it wouldnt show when you stand looking at it, its easily rotated in windows, so it was a better solution this time around, since the buttons are so far up on the screen it just wouldnt look good having them popping out, believe i had some wierd cam settings too, the screen is not that white... hmmz...

:O amazing

That's a lot of hard drives.

ye i rkn... jees........ love the res and the hdds man,.... very cool

love it, do you have like a endless budget?

OMG at the HDD racks. The res looks awesome mate, looking very cool. Do you have any support for the HDD's besides the mounting screws? It would be wise to make one, the are both very long, not to mention heavy. Just a bar that they can rest on would do.

Thats one helluva harddrive rack, nice.

lol im still shaking my head at how big that is and how much it would of cost...

i will be for a while im sure...

OMG! That looks so fabulous!

Wow, thats one epic looking case, i love the res

Hey guys!

Cleaned up the thread a bit, sorted the pics, and added some text and reflections, should make it a bit more understandable

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonT-FeaR

:O amazing

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:redface:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by nevermind1534

That's a lot of hard drives.

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And more to come! ^^ still missing 6 disks from that pic my friend

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonT-FeaR

ye i rkn... jees........ love the res and the hdds man,.... very cool

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thx m8, hope it will work decent too

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gamer_from_aust

love it, do you have like a endless budget?

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Not endless, but its decent, spendt around 11,000$ in total on case with hardware, and no... i dont wanna buy a car instead... :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by The boy 4rm oz

OMG at the HDD racks. The res looks awesome mate, looking very cool. Do you have any support for the HDD's besides the mounting screws? It would be wise to make one, the are both very long, not to mention heavy. Just a bar that they can rest on would do.

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Coming up soon, will put a bolts in there too, to hold everything in place... its close to 30kg just in disks, its HEAVY...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by KiLLERMAN21

Thats one helluva harddrive rack, nice.

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thx =)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonT-FeaR

lol im still shaking my head at how big that is and how much it would of cost...

i will be for a while im sure...

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Money is just related to where you tilt them :P one direction or another 0.o

Everything worth doing is worth overdoing ^^

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jdbnsn

OMG! That looks so fabulous!

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*blush* thx dude =)

Wow! This is an amazing build. That res is phenomenal and the HDD cages are insanely huge. +rep

I actually meant to write "PSU's" but the HDD's are heavy lol.

Do you have any more pics of the whole computer?
And, god I wish I had thousands to blow on a computer :O

11g..... omg... i have spent like 2500 on mine... and thats with likw 2100 on system and screen

11g is a lot lol, but you have more than one PC running in there tough, don't you? My PC is insured for 5g, if I paid RRP for all my tech when I got it it would be worth around 3.5g (including software). Gotta love that extra headroom lol.

lol

yeah i spose 2 systems does double he proce if not triple...

Price estimation would be something like this =)

2 nicely specced gaming comps - 3000$ish
22 TB of drives is another 2800$
raid controllers close up to a decent 1800$ too...
4x 24" LCD's - 2000$
plexiglass cost around 100$ a square meter over here - 600$
Watercooling - 600$
Aluminium and other stuff 300$

and thats without the work included =)

That is a lot lol, well worth it though.

^agreed.

The most I could ever hope to spend on one of my computer is a sad 1G though :[

wow thats alot of stuff man... 4 24" screens :)

Small update guys,

Just received my second P5Q Premium and the GFX waterblocks from EK today, in addition to 6 meter of tubing :P

Guess the waterloop will be something like this :

water ress --> pump--> radiator 1--> gfx 1--> CPU 1--> radiator 2--> gfx 2--> CPU 2--> radiator 3 --> ress again

More pics to come in a few days

Damn man, thats alot of watercooling gear. How much?

i would but another pump in there myself... but hey thats alot of stuff already

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonT-FeaR

i would but another pump in there myself... but hey thats alot of stuff already

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Read up the speccs on the pump my friend =) It can lift water 3,4 meter vertical, and pumps a decent 960 l/h, thats more then most other pumps in dual mode

Iwaki MD15R

18 x 9 x 7,5 CM (LxHxB) , 1500 gram , 30 / 10 Watt, 960l/h, lifting height 3,4 meter, 1/2 fittings

fine do that then :) lol sorry bout that ...

hah, keep them coming dude =)

Love all input i can get, so dont worry about that, ok? I would buy another pump if i had the funding for it, but the current one cost a decent 250$ (damn japanese import -.-)

Water flow

Height (meters)

wow 250 bucks...

whats the second graph??

edited up now =)

I dont dare to put a lower quality pump in this setup, if it breaks down, hardware for lotsa money get lost :P

yeah true that... wanna make it bullet proof for the cash your spending

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DonT-FeaR

wanna make it bullet proof for the cash your spending

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Just order some 1" plexi. That should make it bullet-proof.

Ey guys, small update coming up :P

Plans for the day:

* Fix fittings on top radiator
* Get waterblocks on the gfx cards
* Mount up the 2nd mobo
* Mount up waterblock on mobo
* Start hosing up :P
* Hopefully get comp booted for a test run
* Check water ress - Water tightness
* Fix full size alu plate on the side for easy transport, without doing damage to the plexi

Woo, cant wait for those updates.

sweet cant wait man,... good to hear from you

Sorry about the lack of updates lately guys... blame WoW : wrath of the lich king -.-

Did some closed loop tests today... one of the 240mm radiators is leaking, have to pick up a new one tomorrow -.-

Pics to come some time about then too :P

thats a pitty.. bad luck mate.

Bad luck about the radiator. Can't wait to see the pics.

A new couple of weeks has gone by, and its time for a update again

Havent been able to do alot lately much because of the arrival of wrath of the lich king -.- god i hate that game and the destruction it causes to normal life tasks... Anyways, had a few hours to get some work done again

Whats been done
* New radiators mounted up
* Watercooling in place
* Water ress pressure tested
* Second mobo in place
* EK Waterblocks fitted on 4870 and 4870x2 cards

Whats left
* Case etches, decals
* Cable management
* Get more coolant
* Get lighthing proper
* Fix LEDS
* Fit power buttons
* Fit DVD/RW slimline drive
* Boot it up
* Take some final pics and video of ress in action

The radiators - LEAKING

Last week had lots of frustration in it, when i finally mounted up the watercooling for a test run, it appeared that not one, but TWO radiators were leaking, the large one on the top, and a 240mm radiator at the bottom...

Had to order new ones

2x Mist 360 and 1x Mist 240 radiators ordered up with 1/2" nozzles

Unwrapped and good to go

Cut out a fitting piece of plexi to hold the double radiators together, ill get some etches on the plexi at a later stage

The watercooling

All of the hoses are now mounted up, and i have done a 24h test run to ensure that its no leaks with a closed loop... the noise level of the pump is just awesome, gotta love full magnetic driven rotors =)

Used 1/2" hoses all the way, with coils at some points to allow bending in steeper angles, also had to fetch a full 24 hose clamps to seal it all up, got clamps thats acid and rust ressistant , and they look somewhat shiny :P

Also got a few liters of Motocool coolant in there, this is a solution that prevent damage to any material, and its temperature ressistant between -54c and up to 135c

Hopefully able to get some temp checks when i get this one booted up, shouldnt be much of a problem to keep it all cold though