Building a DIY Music Server

[MarcelNL]

9 hours ago, botrytis said:

Acetone is a nono - too volatile and is reactive

 

Ethanol - pure - would be better

look what I found, Gavin posted this way back when;

 

• •  862

Posted June 7, 2022

Anyone come across this before… flat cool pipes. Looks like a potentially nice solution :-)

 

https://amecthermasol.co.uk/product/?cat=aluminium-cool-pipes&family=flat-aluminium-cool-pipes

 

Someone has already tried it:

 

https://silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=555520

[SK8]

I just finished installing heatpipes to the heatsinks on the 4210s and the big heat sink on  my DIY chassis. The heatsinks were purchased from HDPLEX with 8 pipes on each heatsink which are tailored for the Intel Xeon processors. Haven't had a chance to test them yet until I complete the ULPS construction in a few weeks time.

[BOBO]

do you guys do any tweaks on RAM timings, or you just run on auto ?

[littlej0e]

15 minutes ago, BOBO said:

do you guys do any tweaks on RAM timings, or you just run on auto ?

At a minimum, manually set your RAM speed to match the recommended speed with your CPUs (i.e. 2400MHz, 2600MHz, etc.). For example, if you are using Xeon 4210s your RAM should be set to 2400Mhz. Also, depending on your RAM type and capability, you can try playing with (under) voltage, CAS latency, etc. but only if you know exactly what you are doing.

[littlej0e]

13 hours ago, flkin said:

Have you considered external, active cooling through the sucking action of a fan? Not touching the streamer nor electrical in the same circuit. 
 

I float a suction fan on the outside and above my streamer’s CPU and the hot air extracted is significant. 

 

This is an interesting idea...and no, I hadn't considered it! Fan noise is my concern with this approach, but that could be minimized with the right configuration. Then it becomes a question of how much air flow it will take to keep the CPUs at a reasonable temperature. My test setup is using four 120mm noctuas (two of which are industrial grade running at 2k rpm) and it is LOUD. 

 

12 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

you can design your own passive cooling system, but you'll have to bend your own heatpipes and route your heatsink....two large -ish 300W heatsinks should be perfectly capable of taking care of around 125W TDP CPU's

 

What TDP are you looking at? 

 

150W minimum. I would love to go for 195W to support max wattage for the MB, but that's a pipe dream as I would need to upgrade my power supply.

 

The problem is cooling, specifically the compounding heat effect as @JJSim mentioned. Passive systems (at least this one) dump heat back into the chassis and if the chassis can't dissipate it fast enough, it keeps building on itself. I did a couple of quick heat propagation tests this morning:

 

• It took just over 4 minutes for two 150W CPUs to exceed 70C from room temperature (approx. 18C)
• Approx. 17 minutes for one CPU to exceed 70C from room temperature. 

 

Unfortunately, the amount of passive cooling required to support these higher TDP CPUs likely exceeds both the available space and dissipation capabilities of in the Taiko DIY chassis. Best idea I can think of is replacing the top chassis panel with an enormous, finned copper slab. I assume the biggest challenges with this approach would be:

• Ensuring proper heat transfer between the existing grooved side panel of the Taiko chassis and the proposed top panel copper heat sink. In theory, a handful of copper "L" brackets adhered (screwed?) to both the inside of the Taiko chassis and top panel should do the trick. 
  • It would make far more sense to land the CPU heat pipes directly on the top copper panel, but then taking it apart becomes a supreme PITA.
• Pray this doesn't lock even more heat and cook literally everything inside chassis. Perhaps include some venting holes and a priest? 
• Given the cost, I would likely be better off designing a completely new chassis all together. 

 

The more I think about it, the more an external water cooling solution makes sense. I just worry water flowing across the CPUs will generate unwanted vibrations. Perhaps it's the lesser of two evils as opposed to running everything at higher temps than they should be. FYI, this is likely what I would use: https://shop.alphacool.com/en/shop/water-cooling-sets/external-sets/11932-alphacool-es-orbiter-360-ts

 

Was just launched a couple of months ago. 

[MarcelNL]

IME vibration control has a positive effect on SQ, the Taiko chassis has a max TDP you likely exceed with 2*150W, you may have to design your own system with the heatsinks on the outside. Select heatsinks designed for passive cooling and make sure convection can happen.

 

Taking apart the system is likely always going to be a PITA. I'm preparing to switch MBs and dread the faffing around to get everything in place again...(at the same time, the last CPU swap was done in under 5 minutes) 

[BOBO]

1 hour ago, littlej0e said:

At a minimum, manually set your RAM speed to match the recommended speed with your CPUs (i.e. 2400MHz, 2600MHz, etc.). For example, if you are using Xeon 4210s your RAM should be set to 2400Mhz. Also, depending on your RAM type and capability, you can try playing with (under) voltage, CAS latency, etc. but only if you know exactly what you are doing.

i`ll teach you guys a trick. if you run windows, you can use software like (MSI Dragon Ball, Asus MemTweakIt) to modify each individual  timing in real time and hear the differences in sound that each setting offers. 
Also, the changes are not permanent, all the changes that you make will get reset when you restart the pc, so if you like a certain setting, you have to modify it in the bios to stay permanent.

[baconbrain]

52 minutes ago, BOBO said:

i`ll teach you guys a trick. if you run windows, you can use software like (MSI Dragon Ball, Asus MemTweakIt) to modify each individual  timing in real time and hear the differences in sound that each setting offers. 
Also, the changes are not permanent, all the changes that you make will get reset when you restart the pc, so if you like a certain setting, you have to modify it in the bios to stay permanent.

 

Could one not risk trashing the installed OS with this approach?

[baconbrain]

1 hour ago, MarcelNL said:

IME vibration control has a positive effect on SQ, the Taiko chassis has a max TDP you likely exceed with 2*150W, you may have to design your own system with the heatsinks on the outside. Select heatsinks designed for passive cooling and make sure convection can happen.

 

Perhaps cooling one CPU per heatsink / side of the Taiko chassis?

[JJSim]

13 hours ago, MarcelNL said:

you can design your own passive cooling system, but you'll have to bend your own heatpipes and route your heatsink....two large -ish 300W heatsinks should be perfectly capable of taking care of around 125W TDP CPU's

 

What TDP are you looking at? 

 

I looked into building my own passive cooling system, but the problem is finding a heatpipe base for the LGA 4189 socket. Dynatron has a selection of passive coolers, but these are intended to have airflow moving over them in a server chassis. The N8 model cooler from Dynatron could be modified, but it would require pretty involved surgery to remove the aluminum fin stack and then add longer heatpipes to reach the side wall of the chassis.

 

https://www.dynatron.co/product-page/n8

 

I did ask Taiko if they could make a heatsink for the LGA 4189 socket. They told me they would look into it but no word from them since. I doubt they are interested in developing one since the market for it would be very small.

 

I've also considered just adding a CPU cooler with a fan, but that would only cool the CPU and do nothing to remove the heat produced by other components. I am tempted to just add a large, slow spinning fan inside the chassis and not have to worry about temperatures at all. Like I said before, there are ways to minimize the negative impact of active cooling.

[littlej0e]

6 minutes ago, baconbrain said:

 

Perhaps cooling one CPU per heatsink / side of the Taiko chassis?

 

Indeed. That's why I tested a single CPU from ambient to max temp, but had to shut it down after it exceeded 70C after approx. 17 minutes. 

 

The cold truth is, I should ditch the high cores, keep using the 4210s, be happy and stfu. Otherwise, I'll have to use water cooling or a different chassis all together. The TDPs are just too high. 

 

[MarcelNL]

1 hour ago, littlej0e said:

 

Indeed. That's why I tested a single CPU from ambient to max temp, but had to shut it down after it exceeded 70C after approx. 17 minutes. 

 

The cold truth is, I should ditch the high cores, keep using the 4210s, be happy and stfu. Otherwise, I'll have to use water cooling or a different chassis all together. The TDPs are just too high. 

 

naaaah, take one for science... ;-)

 

I just drilled the CPU backing plate thread out and tapped new thread (M4) so I  could get a better grip on the aftermarket CPU clasp. You'd be amazed what stuff you can find on Ali, and the shop I bought the M4 socket heat pipe clas makes custom designs too....don't give up this easily ;-)

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

On 5/29/2023 at 10:34 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

New Streacom SG10

 

https://www.fanlesstech.com/2023/05/exclusive-streacom-sg10.html?m=1

 

 

Chris, Streacom also has these available...

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/look-ma-no-fans-case-passively-dissipates-600w-of-heat

[The Computer Audiophile]

28 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

 

Chris, Streacom also has these available...

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/look-ma-no-fans-case-passively-dissipates-600w-of-heat

No way! Seems like they were inspired by something :~)

 

 

 

[AudioDoctor]

Just now, The Computer Audiophile said:

No way! Seems like they were inspired by something :~)

 

 

 

 

I had that same thought!

[BOBO]

19 hours ago, baconbrain said:

 

Could one not risk trashing the installed OS with this approach?

trash in what way ? MemTweakIt is portable, and any changes you make go away on restart.

[MarcelNL]

well, this change (swapped my Mb for an Asus ROF Crosshair VIII extreme is not trivial...as I feared ....

 

so my conclusion is that there is nothing like computing power AND speed of Power accessible to the CPU for good SQ.

Still totally weird as the folks over at ASC will say it does not matter yet there clearly is a difference in performance when a CPU has more horsepower and a clear benefit from having more power available for those horses,

 

larger soundstage (that curently means; on one channel using 2 8inch fullrange units), way better dynamics, more natural sound, beefier, and all that 

[MarcelNL]

now to tackle one of the last hurdles; passive cooling of the Solarflare, already got the heatpipes and clasp, now to find the adapter plates and tinker the heatpipes to a suitable heatsink...

Think I'll just drill 4 holes and tap M3 thread to hold the clasp in place

 

 

 

[Smackers]

Hey gang, just now joined after some years of leeching. Went the diy route selling my well renowned streamer in favor of something I put together diy with the help from you all and I’m greatful. Audio bliss and still not done 😄

[Smackers]

Did yall know that Streacom offers their FC10 chassis in a, so called, ”Audio Version” when ordering directly? Several vertical low profile pci-e slots. I found out 2 days after modding mine 🙃

[seeteeyou]

Streacom SG10 looked good until I saw this

 

Those decent motherboards with relatively high number of VRM phases seemed to require the size of E-ATX in order to accommodate so many components. And then we've got SSI EEB for Asus WS C621E SAGE etc.

 

If they weren't able to offer any options for mounting anything larger than ATX motherboards, then they might actually try to limit the range of motherboards that would be suitable for such a fanless chassis. In other words, no love for flagship models and most likely that should be done deliberately.

[botrytis]

None of the above - niche market, is all. Not worth developing new items when the others work for the majority. 

 

Believe me, audiophile computing is a drop in the bucket compared to the gaming/streaming market. And y'all don't spend the coin to have the latest and greatest every year. I know gamers that spend 5 K every year to redo their pc's.

[MarcelNL]

you are right IMO, we all need to spend more for the hobby ;-)

 

the good news is that one can DIY a case too (or do without)

[MarcelNL]

well, the new MB is a bit of a hassle.....turns out that using three PCIe cards and two NVME disks is a problem....that is on direct PCI lanes. SO I probably will have to put the second NVME disk in the M2 DIMM adapter.

 

Also, the Solarflare is not working yet, upon first startup it wanted to do a network boot and I got a setup message that I used to switch off PXE boot (that also was automatically set in BIOS) but now it does activate briefly but no network communication...probably will have to digup the solarflare setup tool and run that from a linux boot USB...

[di-fi]

On 6/2/2023 at 4:14 PM, MarcelNL said:

now to tackle one of the last hurdles; passive cooling of the Solarflare, already got the heatpipes and clasp, now to find the adapter plates and tinker the heatpipes to a suitable heatsink...

Think I'll just drill 4 holes and tap M3 thread to hold the clasp in place

 

 

 

Hopefully some inspiration: like this maybe?

- 

https://griggaudio.de/produkt/solarflare-glasfaser-kit/

 

@StreamFidelity