[conspire] Last Year's Supercomputer

[Mark S Bilk]

In-Reply-To: <20030609033205.GQ29461 at linuxmafia.com>; from rick at linuxmafia.com on Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 08:32:05PM -0700

The usual technique for cooling is to blow a lot of air through
the case in order to get a small fraction of it flowing past 
the few parts that get very hot.  This requires powerful, noisy
fans.

My solution is to hang a small fan right up against each hot
device.  I get them from Halte[k|d] -- 6cm x 6cm, 12V, 1watt,
about $7, absolutely silent.  I have one blowing on the Riva TNT
graphic card, one on the soon-to-be-retired swap drive, and one 
on the two main 3.5" drives that are stacked only 1/8" apart.  
They're hung with string from the roll I got at a Linux Expo
from the Twine project!

The drives are barely above ambient, and you can press your 
finger on the back side of the Riva board indefinitely, which
formerly would have caused a second-degree burn.  I haven't had
the side panel on the case for years, after feeling everything
(while grounding my other hand to the case!) and making sure 
nothing was getting too hot.  The power supply fan still blows
air across the CPU and memory, and except for the Riva, none of 
the cards produces much heat.

I like the funky look -- it's like that guy's computer in the 
movie "Pi".  http://www.imdb.com/Title?0138704

Of course it's also important to blow out all the cat crud once 
a week.  I happen to use these Sanford "eraser sticks" (like a 
fat mechanical pencil with a rubber rod instead of the "lead"), 
and it turns out that the empty barrel and tip of one is perfect 
for blowing a very concentrated stream of air into the CPU fan/
heatsink to clean out the cat dust (and to test that the fan is 
working -- the beam of air makes a hum when it hits the moving 
blades).  

On the other hand one of those wire strippers shaped like a 
flattened pair of pliers, with two triangular notches that come 
together, is the ideal tool for trimming a cat's claws.

Thus the Great Circle Of Life is complete.


On Sun, Jun 08, 2003 at 08:32:05PM -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
>[Cutting distribution again to just this list:]
>
>Quoting Bill Moseley (moseley at hank.org):
>
>> I've got a XP 1800+ and a P4 2.4 sitting right next to each other with
>> otherwise the same hardware (well, the P4 has an extra 80GB drive).  I'm
>> amazed how much more heat the Athlon produces.  Just something to think
>> about.  
>
>What he said.  
>
>The guys with the gonzo high-powered-CPU systems are also those who
>can fry eggs on their system cases and/or have hearing loss from all
>the damned noise.  Deirdre's right about her nice little P4 and how the
>Celeron option would have been even a little cooler and quieter.  Go
>that route and you'll have the last laugh over the 3D guys with their
>OpenGL and frames per second / bandwidth fixations, because your system
>will neither sound like a jet engine nor self-destruct.
>
>> I've been using Zalman Flower CPU coolers.  I'm really trying to
>> cut down on noise.  
>
>Yeah.  It's funny, but the old VA Linux 2U PIII-Katmai/500 in the living
>room (the server for linuxmafia.com) has seemed noiser as other systems
>in the house have gotten quieter over the years.  These days, I mostly
>do satellite computing via my 802.11b-equipped laptop, and the relative
>silence is a blessing that grows on you.
> 
>It's kind of like the peace of mind that quality parts (Mushkin RAM,
>Antec cases, PC Power & Cooling power supplies, SCSI mass storage) get
>you:  People will try to tell you it's not cost-effective, but you get
>to just smile when they have problems and you don't.
>
>Of course, if you're doing 3D rendering, then you need either NVidia
>(w/proprietary drivers) or ATI video plus serious CPU power.  Ditto on
>the latter for some other applications like scientific computing.  But
>if those sorts of exceptional situations apply, you already know.
>
>-- 
>Cheers,                    I've been suffering death by PowerPoint, recently.
>Rick Moen                                                     -- Huw Davies
>rick at linuxmafia.com  
>
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