Building a DIY Music Server

[MarcelNL]

did anyone try a thin bag filled with sand as vibration control inside the PC case already? (affects heat dissipation on the MB also, so perhaps not usable in the end)

[MarcelNL]

@ASRMichael I am not clear which of the boxes is your server, I responded to the picture of the fans cleverly attached to the glass shelf over them.

 

If the server is covered the flow of air, which only gets momentum (power) from the heat dissipating into it, is easily impaired reducing the chimney function of the heatsink which in turn decreases the heat capacity of the heat sink. That is...if there is insufficient room underneath or over the heatsink. I assume the second from the top is your server?

 

The (panzerholz?) shelf underneath seems narrow enough to leave the heatsinks free, yet the space between the top of the heatsink and the shelf appears too small for max free air flow. 

 

All of that is theory and only you can test it, if you can I'd move the server (if the second from the top actually is the server) to the side so the heatsink sticks well out of the shelves and shut off the fan and see what it does. If the heatsink is under dimensioned your temperature probably goes up anyhow and adding a fan is probably best, adding the fan is also something you possibly could optimise by trying to create a sort of funnel channeling the air to flow from in a laminar way in parallel with the fins (top down or bottom up over the fins rather than sideways at them. 

[MarcelNL]

souds good, and good luck, I hope your build is ( and it sure looks like it) is more stable than mine, each time I move it around something gets loose and I need to troubleshoot for an hour or so...very frustrating for someone with little patience for silly things.

 

I am however going to test fly the prototype for passive cooling later this week, so I need to rip the thing apart to see where the drill holes to mount the heat sink need to come and where to router the grooves for the heat pipes....fingers crossed...heat sink is rated for 300W so I hope 1 does the trick but I got me two to be safe.

[MarcelNL]

2 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Good example this is on a forum, If you don't quite understand something then don't be scared to ask for further info. Understanding further usually leads to improvements. Cheers again

that is what I like about (good) fora, the presence of many folks with different backgrounds usually brings a wealth of knowledge to my screen. Disclaimer; do not get your hopes up too high as far as actual temp decrease goes, you may be at an optimum already!

(I started out in chemical engineering and we were hammered with air flow and fluid dynamics pretty seriously)

[MarcelNL]

it is large-ish 😁 as I am looking to create thermal stability over a larger range of in house temperature as our current house gets incredibly hot ridiculously fast and it affects the server temp quite a bit,

 

I ordered the heatsink at Reichelt, I can post a link if anyone is interested (I;d suggest to wait until I know if it actually can cope with the AMD Ryzen 9 3900X @ 105 TDP

[MarcelNL]

BTW, does anyone know more about heatpipes? I imagine that keeping them shorter is beneficial for heat transfer and to prevent heat buildup, I assume heat buildup due to transient peaks of power is why we see more massive copper being used in some heat sink designs...creating a buffer that can be filled where the heatpipes conduct heat away from the CPU more slowly....??

I ordered long heat pipes as I had no clue how the build would look, but I plan to order shorter ones once I have the final geometry (if there ever is anything final in this hobby)

 

[MarcelNL]

Found a spec sheet that makes it sound as if shorter is better and kinky is not desired; 

 

https://docs.rs-online.com/cab7/0900766b813eb670.pdf

[MarcelNL]

53 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

 

Quoting you, because I couldn't find a way to get you to come up with a mention, however... I see you have an X570 board in your signature. What are you doing, if anything about the chipset fan?

writing @AudioDoctor does that trick too.

 

I 'm not doing anything about the chipset fan other than that it probably does not move due to manual fan setting scheme I'm using, I have not done anything with it yet as I have bigger fish to fry first. Will be able to see how it behaves when the MB is mounted on a board next week, test flying the heatsink solution.

 

I read that the new MB's do not need a chipset fan anymore, and at some point I probably will use one of those.  

[MarcelNL]

I hope fanless will work, I'm pretty sure it can be done. 

Problem with fans is motion, and noise. Just keep i mind that the 33dB for the pump will increase by quite a bit as sound pressure is additive, You are basically quadrupling the amount of fans, adding like 3dB with the addition of each one. Of course you will not end up using all at max speed but I'd seriously think about the total noise as the fan noise will be added to the pump noise.

[MarcelNL]

@AudioDoctor I am guessing your build is for gaming ? Otherwise I'd leave the GPU's out, huge powerdrains, a headless server is quieter both due to lower power draw and due their fans.

 

[MarcelNL]

Yeah the airflow is often contributing most of the noise, which also indicated flow is likely turbulent...laminar airflow is quiter, alas what can you do but lower the fan speed or use a different fan design, or no fan at all... 

 

 

definitely OT: You may be stretching the envelope a bit far if the glass is at risk of melting, tubes usually come in bulbs designed to accomodate their nominal dissipated power.

 

[MarcelNL]

I was mixing them up with the 6C33C-B beasts I used a good while ago, I have ogled that monster tube at some point but got hooked on the 'mesh sound'.

[MarcelNL]

now see what you guys did, I just put my order in for the Taiko ATX....🤪

[MarcelNL]

I will probably get a custom wound choke(s) and will discuss merits with the winder who made the massive chokes for my power amp.

[MarcelNL]

4 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Its for HQPlayer.

if you can I'd try run HQ player headless.

[MarcelNL]

13 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

a water cooled CPU and GPU, 5800X and 3080

I was triggered by the 3080, my use case is different. No upsampling processing or DSP so I have an ancient video card that gets shut down by Daphile after booting.

[MarcelNL]

Did anyone try various rectification methods, single side phase, double phase, double phase double side.....I know it takes a specific transformer each to end up at the same voltage going into the Taiko...so it's unlikely, but still...? 

[MarcelNL]

I'm intrigued by the Saligny rectifier, easy enough to compare with my goto schottky's so I ordered one.

[MarcelNL]

3 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

Per Emile: "The ll2773 with 66.000uF will kill the dc-dc atx on powerup".

 

what if you put a switch after the LCL network and powerup that part via a soft start? Did he say why the ATX is killed?

 

[MarcelNL]

For now I can add to rhe confusion on two fronts;

1-taking the MB out of the metal case and putting it on some non specified wood chip board (underlayment) opens the sound

2-Using a Corning LCLC (no filter ;-) ) fiberoptic cable of the same length as my previous (probably) plastic core optical cable improves detail and nuance in the sound when streaming music through it,

[MarcelNL]

Interesting development! My main question is; did you compare to a linear PSU and at what cost level did you arrive with V3, I suppose all that goodness cannot come cheap ? 

[MarcelNL]

I agree with Nenon, not only will you not be able to find out all the specs of the Exptreme design, you also will not be able to get many parts they use.

 

Best is to make your own route, as there are some things in the Extreme I'm not too convinced off, one for example is using a standard capacitor in a wooden ring, take the whole casing off the cap and it sounds much better ( a friend of me experimented with this a lot).

But the point is, copying a design from sight is impossible, following the basic principles after trying to understand them and coming up with your own design is easier, better and you'll learn a lot along the way.

 

[MarcelNL]

not sure when I get around to playing around with that part, I have so many moving parts I'm test flying, hoping to finalize the design by end of this month so I can bring the system to an audio gathering for some comparison and broader feedback.

[MarcelNL]

4 minutes ago, RickyV said:

Is the DC resistance also the same for all 3 chokes?

almost certainly not ;-)

[MarcelNL]

6 minutes ago, LTG2010 said:

That particular capacitor on Extreme, looks right on the rectifier circuit, and its subect to a lot of ringing. The wood I assume is to dampen that. You can use something like blutak as a cheap and easy alternative, to test the difference damping will make in that location, it shouldn't be huge but I guess that's why its called the Extreme.

Sure it is, it is not that part I doubt I just know that the solution is cosmetic when compared to going to the max.