My Tri-Monitor Rackmount Computer Build!

Show off your quiet rig.

Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee

roberte1342
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Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:21 pm
Location: Southwest

Thermal management

Post by roberte1342 » Sun Mar 23, 2008 11:29 pm

I'm configuring a similar setup and was wondering how you are managing the heat. I too have a 19" Rackmount. Are you ducting the exhaust outside? It's what I'm considering doing.
My room increases from 75 to 106 in about 30 minutes.

I love your setup btw.


Bob.

wick780
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Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:07 pm
Location: Your Mom

Post by wick780 » Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:12 pm

I'm looking at running Quad monitors. Three 19" LCD and one 36" LCD TV.
Did you have to use SLI to run those three or just need two video cards?

I love your cable management. It has inspired me to do something about mine.

bonestonne
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Post by bonestonne » Tue Apr 01, 2008 4:23 pm

i'd actually advise against running a rig in SLi if you're powering so many monitors, it would put unnecessary stress on the cards. running them separately would be better. only catch is what graphics cards you're using.

the 19" LCDs would run fine, its the 36" TV you may have a problem with.

theycallmebruce
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Joined: Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:11 am
Location: Perth, Western Australia

Post by theycallmebruce » Tue Apr 01, 2008 7:06 pm

Very nice work mate. You are a computer geek after my own heart :)

Did you purchase all of this gear new? I've seen some second hand racks going for ridiculously cheap prices at auction.

jamesg
Posts: 31
Joined: Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:08 am
Location: Cambridge, UK

Post by jamesg » Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:32 pm

Thanks all. There's no ducting - I've removed the back door of the cabinet for ventilation and cable access, and that's it. It doesn't run particularly hot.

I have the video cards connected in SLI, but I hardly ever use them in SLI. I don't play games much nowadays.

Ebay is good for old rackmount equipment. I've seen similar cabinets to mine go for virtually nothing (almost always collection only though).

I've actually just moved house and don't have the space for this setup. I nearly decided to get rid of it, but now I've designed a curved glass desk that the cabinet will fit underneath and use up less wall space. I'll post up some pics when it's done.

dbaker
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:11 am
Location: Illinois

Nice

Post by dbaker » Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:14 am

You made a great build, im just glad to see im not the only one with a server rack in there bedroom.
Nice job

demonheadx
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Joined: Thu May 29, 2008 4:07 pm
Location: Perris, California

Post by demonheadx » Fri May 30, 2008 10:58 am

Awesome build!

Becuase of this, i am getting a 12u cabinet for my room also :D

Can i ask where you got the 1up mushroom. that is freakin awesome!

jamesg
Posts: 31
Joined: Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:08 am
Location: Cambridge, UK

Post by jamesg » Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:37 am

demonheadx wrote:Can i ask where you got the 1up mushroom. that is freakin awesome!
http://www.pixelblocks.com

Aris
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Post by Aris » Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:14 pm

demonheadx wrote:Can i ask where you got the 1up mushroom. that is freakin awesome!
I agree, coolest thing in those pictures is the 1up Mushroom.

Although i did find it odd to see a subwoofer under the table but no speakers to be found. a 0.1 system?

alphabetbackward
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Location: California

Post by alphabetbackward » Mon Jun 02, 2008 5:43 pm

I think the speakers were mounted on the back of the monitors.

Haz
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Location: United Kingdom

Post by Haz » Wed Jun 04, 2008 8:38 am

What edition of XP are you using, and what theme is that? I want it :P

And what software do you use for multi-monitors? I'm wanting to set up my own and I'm not too sure how I should go about it.

MoJo
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Location: UK

Post by MoJo » Wed Jun 04, 2008 12:18 pm

I'm using the same Via mobo as a NAS. It's not bad at all, low power and silent apart from the HDDs.

The NAS performance, even on gigabit, is a bit rubbish though. I'm running Windows XP from a 2.5" HDD, but I don't think Linux with SAMBA would be any better. I thin it's just down to the gigabit NIC on the mobo - even with iperf I can only get 60MB/sec max, and average a little over 20MB/sec with HDDs. From a Core 2 machine I can hit over 100MB/sec, and 60MB/sec file transfers in Windows (FTP would be even faster).

Of course I have jumbo frames and all offloading etc enabled... actually, maybe turning off CPU offload might help. I'll have to experiment. Also, I have not tried SATA drives in the NAS yet.

jamesg: What sort of speeds do you get?

jamesg
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Location: Cambridge, UK

Post by jamesg » Fri Jun 06, 2008 10:04 am

Mojo, I wasn't impressed with the VIA board at all. At first, it crashed constantly in X and I rebuilt the kernel about a million times with various patches trying to solve it. I have a friend who bought a Jetway board with the same chipset and that had the same problem.

I get 30MB/sec from it whereas I get 50-60MB/sec from my WinXP machine over the network. It's fast enough though.

Haz, it's XP Professional. Can't remember the theme, it's probably something in Window Blinds. The multi-monitor software is UltraMon which is very good.

silentbobbo
Posts: 108
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2007 1:45 am

What are you trying to prove?

Post by silentbobbo » Sat Jun 07, 2008 9:03 pm

These days when the tendency in technology is to minimalistic and compact while still keeping processing power we still see shows like this.
In technology it is not a question of grandeur but a question of practicality and useful purpose. Many executives and programmers make a lot of money working from a simple MacBook Air.

C.I.A. Agent
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:01 pm
Location: post falls

Post by C.I.A. Agent » Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:04 pm

Hello everyone! I just registered here because I wanted to ask for more information on the little mushroom next to your monitors.


Can you please take a close up so I can get the dimensions and the spacing correct?

jamesg
Posts: 31
Joined: Mon Apr 09, 2007 11:08 am
Location: Cambridge, UK

Post by jamesg » Thu Jun 12, 2008 1:33 pm

Look on google images to find a low-res image to copy.

I just uploaded to flickr an old photo i took of it on my phone...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesg990/2573281527/

C.I.A. Agent
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Joined: Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:01 pm
Location: post falls

Post by C.I.A. Agent » Thu Jun 12, 2008 8:48 pm

Sweet thanks man, whats it made of though?


EDIT: Nevermind, I seen it a few posts up. Thanks.

sunitmatya
Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 7:42 am
Location: New Delhi

Post by sunitmatya » Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:03 am

Great setup man.... 8) One question though... Why did you use a CF card for your second machine??
CF cards only have a limited number of writes per sector before the sector dies
You could have used a USB flash drive instead AND could have installed Windows if you wanted to (linux is better anyway). :lol: I'm not critical of this setup, just wanted to know.

lucky777
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Location: San Francisco

Post by lucky777 » Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:00 am

Looks nifty. :D

Monkeh16
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Post by Monkeh16 » Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:16 am

I have to ask.. what's the point of a patch panel for three devices in the same box?

IsaacKuo
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Post by IsaacKuo » Thu Jul 10, 2008 3:54 pm

Isn't it obvious? It's just plain cooler that way.

jamesg
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Location: Cambridge, UK

Post by jamesg » Fri Jul 11, 2008 10:57 am

sunitmatya wrote:You could have used a USB flash drive instead AND could have installed Windows if you wanted to (linux is better anyway). :lol: I'm not critical of this setup, just wanted to know.
Good point - I didn't consider a USB flash drive. I'm not sure whether it would be as fast though. I don't need Windows on that computer. The whole point of it is that it's available 24/7 and available remotely. I don't even have a keyboard, mouse or monitor connected to it.

The large patch panel is for future expansion. I've moved house since writing the article and have a lot more connected to it now. In any case, I picked it up on ebay very cheap, so I don't really care if I'm not using several of the sockets!

Edited to say - actually I forgot the main point about using a CF card. You can often find the datasheet to determine whether the card supports "wear-levelling" to increase the lifetime of the device if writing to it often. You're unlikely to find this information for most USB flash drives.

m^2
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Post by m^2 » Sat Jul 12, 2008 1:13 am

jamesg wrote:
sunitmatya wrote:You could have used a USB flash drive instead AND could have installed Windows if you wanted to (linux is better anyway). :lol: I'm not critical of this setup, just wanted to know.
Good point - I didn't consider a USB flash drive. I'm not sure whether it would be as fast though. I don't need Windows on that computer. The whole point of it is that it's available 24/7 and available remotely. I don't even have a keyboard, mouse or monitor connected to it.

The large patch panel is for future expansion. I've moved house since writing the article and have a lot more connected to it now. In any case, I picked it up on ebay very cheap, so I don't really care if I'm not using several of the sockets!

Edited to say - actually I forgot the main point about using a CF card. You can often find the datasheet to determine whether the card supports "wear-levelling" to increase the lifetime of the device if writing to it often. You're unlikely to find this information for most USB flash drives.
I've never heard of pendrive that has wear leveling implemented. Windows shouldn't be installed one them as well!

Fayd
Posts: 379
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Location: San Diego

Post by Fayd » Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:18 pm

cant install windows on a pen drive anyways cause windows hates being installed on a USB drive.

(actually it can be done,just more trouble than it's worth)

bilgey
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:50 pm
Location: East Fremantle, Western Australia

Post by bilgey » Sun Sep 28, 2008 4:42 pm

Does anyone know how I can get one of those racks outside of the UK? I've sent and email to orion, but they haven't replied back (1+ day so far).

I've searching up and down on the net and going thru loads of catalogs, but the variety is rather limited in Australia.

minnow
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 9:02 pm
Location: China

Post by minnow » Sat Oct 25, 2008 10:41 pm

wow,it's really cool :D

Gojira-X
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Post by Gojira-X » Sun Oct 26, 2008 2:12 am

When I read your initial description, I thought that You were going to base your setup on a Thermaltake Mozart TX with its 7in LCD monitor.
Then I remembered, not everyone is crazy enough to try quietening a Thermaltake case.

All in all, i think that its an awesome build with a a very neat outcome.

salvadori
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Joined: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:26 pm
Location: INDIA

Post by salvadori » Fri Jun 05, 2009 10:06 pm

Can I place a 1GB ram with a 2GB ram simultanously on my Desktop to get 3Gb? Provided of course both stick share the same MHz speed and same DDR.

Monkeh16
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Location: England

Post by Monkeh16 » Sat Jun 06, 2009 1:54 am

salvadori wrote:Can I place a 1GB ram with a 2GB ram simultanously on my Desktop to get 3Gb? Provided of course both stick share the same MHz speed and same DDR.
Yes. However that will prevent dual-channel operation for boards which support it, which will slow things down greatly. At the price of RAM, you might as well just get 2x2GB..

peter_j
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Post by peter_j » Thu Jun 11, 2009 6:42 am

real nice man

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