Parts shuffle (lots of pictures)

Well, I took a trip to Boston over the weekend for the CRASH-B rowing event.  While I was there, I stopped by quite possibly the greatest store know to man, Microcenter.  Microcenter sells all sorts of electronics and computer hardware.  For this project, I picked up a new video card that I was actually surprised they had on the shelf, given that it's an older generation of card.

This card is significantly more powerful than the previous card I was running.  And while I was testing out this new card, I discovered it was running way hotter than it should've been.  I figured it was probably because of the hot processor.  Turns out, after a little more research, the processor I was using had a maximum power draw of 95 watts, and the cooler I was using was from a 65 watt one, which led to unnecessary heat output from the system.  So, I decided to swap processors.  If anyone has ever wondered how a processor chip fits into a motherboard...

Heatsink removed.

Retention bracket released.

Processor chip lifted out of the socket.  That's 775 pins down there.

My Celeron E3200 'dropped' (more like carefully placed) into the socket..

Retention bracket back in place, with a glob of thermal paste (which helps transfer heat away from the processor.)

As a result of this little upgrade, my 3Dmark06 score, which was 2140 before, is now up to 8698.  Basically, besides for more long-term stability testing, this computer is ready to be submerged...

On a different note, last Thursday, I met with my mentor, Mr. Sauve.  He hadn't really had a chance to look through my previous blog posts, so we spent some time watching a few videos on youtube to give him a better idea of what I was planning.  After realizing how awesome my project is, he was really excited for me.  He also gave me free access to the stockpile of acrylic and the laser cutter in his room.  As this break week moves forward, my plan is to come up with a few brainstorming sketches for an enclosure.  When we come back to school in a week, I can start refining my design and start cutting pieces.  Exciting times ahead.

Quick Update

Well, I did a few things worth mentioning.  Last night, I contacted a few companies about possible sponsorships.  I'm not getting my hopes up for anything, but the worst they can say is no, right?  Also, I think I've decided on what hardware I'm going to use: basically the stuff in all the pictures from before but with a different video card - one I plan to buy off a guy in Syracuse.  I will probably pick it up sometime next week, and I can start testing the final configuration.  After that's getting to be finished, I'll start thinking seriously about what I want to do for a tank, and start drawing/modeling some designs.

On an interesting note, I came across a youtube video of some guy's oil cooled computer.  It was a very unique one to say the least.  He used streams of mineral oil to cool the major components, so that he could remove the heatsinks to expose the actual chips.  This really showed me that I can think a little more outside the box when I start actually working toward a design.

Interview

So today I conducted an interview for more information about oil-cooled computers.  I interviewed Casey Dill, who built one about a month ago.  He offered me many tips and tricks, including advice about 'oil wick'.  Basically, oil wick occurs when cables run from outside the enclosure directly into the oil: the oil tends to pull itself up the cables, which can create a mess on the outside of the case.  He also gave me a piece of advice that may complicate my project.  He said his computer heats up to the point where it needs to be turned off after about 4 hours.  This is fine for him because he uses it as a home theater computer for watching Netflix and movies on his TV.  He recommends that I get a radiator and pump to help cool the oil, especially if I plan to use more powerful hardware than what he used, or if I plan on running an overclock, which I kind of want to, but have yet to finally decide.  One other issue he brought up is that the computer basically becomes unmovable once it's filled with oil, as it is very easy to spill.  He actually filled the tank on a coffee table right next to where it would eventually come to stay.

Anyways, I now have a lot more information about the challenges I can expect to face, and what kind of parts I will need to look at purchasing.

Some Overclocking

(Please let me know if my blog section is too wide for your screen.  I like to have the extra room to make my pictures larger but not if it makes it awkward to read.)
This is mainly just for fun, but interesting nonetheless.  Currently I am running this processor at 3.5 GHz, and its working out pretty well considering that I am using an Intel stock cooler, which is a piece of garbage.  Once I get my other cooler in place, I should be able to go much higher with the frequencies.  (Really this is just for fun.)

Video Card!

Well, a friend agreed to lend me this video card for a while, an ATI Radeon X1650 PRO .  I will be getting another video card for myself in the next week or two.  This bad boy made the system a whole lot louder.  I will be running a few 3D benchmarks just for fun.

Well, the system as is scores 2140 in 3Dmark06, a 3D benchmark.  For comparison, my old computer that I recently replaced scored over 9000.  It's incredible how far technology has come in a few years...  3DMark06 Score

The Two Week Plan (with some ramblings)

Why am I doing this?  What is wrong with cooling a computer's component's with just air?  Well, when I first saw videos of this kind of project on the youtube (see below), I was amazed.  I knew I wanted to do something similar.  However, air cooling is very capable of cooling computers.  Oil cooling is what PC enthusiasts would call exotic cooling - cool, but really unnecessary.  Oil is really one of the few ways that can yield a completely silent computer.  Because the fans are basically unnecessary, and because they rotate much slower because of the increased resistance of the oil, they make no noise at all.
The main reason I am doing this project is because I really love working with computer hardware.  Over the past year, I've closely followed all of the new technologies that have come out, and all of the hardware - video cards, processors, or whatever else.
My goal for this project is to create something similar to this:




(I'm still working on formatting)
For me to build something similar, I will need to construct a tank.  That will probably take up the majority of my time.  There will be several design challenges: designing a way to mount all of the components; a way to hold all of this mineral oil; a way to make sure the enclosure is not damaged by the mineral oil; and quite a few more I have yet to encounter.

Two week plan:

I don't feel like I can give a day by day schedule yet, because there are still a few things I have to iron out.  I am interviewing Casey Dill this Wednesday.  Casey has built an oil computer before, and will be an invaluable resource during the course of this project.  I also still need to finalize my mentor situation.  I am meeting with Mr. Sauve tomorrow during school to give him the necessary mentor papers and such.  Another thing for me to conquer this week is to locate another video card.  That will be the main thing holding me back these first two weeks.  Basically, I have three complete system's worth of parts.  One is my main computer, which will basically be uninvolved in this project, I have my old system, pictured in a previous post, and I have this test/oil system.   I want to have 2 complete, oil-free computers at the end of this project, and for that I will need another video card.  There are a few floating around the Ithaca craigslist I need to take a more serious look at this week.  After that is accomplished, I will begin the process of overclocking the processor as much as I can, simply because I find that fun.  Once I am satisfied, and I have found a completely stable setting, I will start design work on the case.

The Parts I have

Here's a quick list of the parts I have to pull from for this project currently (Don't worry about the part numbers, its more for me to keep track of things):

Gigabyte GA-G41M-ES2L Motherboard
DFI Infinity P965-S Motherboard
Intel Pentium D 820
Intel Pentium D 925
Intel Pentium E5300
Intel Celeron E3200
2 x 1GB DDR2 666 Ram
2 x 1GB DDR2 800 OCZ Ram
1 x 2GB DDR2 800 Ram
OCZ ModXStreme 500w PSU
Rosewill 350w PSU
ASUS 9600 GSO 384mb Video Card
ATI Radeon X1650 PRO Video Card
160GB Laptop Hard Drive
200GB IDE Drive
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 CPU cooler
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
Numerous random fans

I still have yet to decide on exactly which parts will be going under the oil, but that will depend on a few things:
- If I can get another video card, off of craigslist perhaps
- Stability Testing (Must be completely stable.  I can't swap components very easily, if at all, once they have been submerged.  A hardware failure of this computer would be a huge pain.)

My old system.  Contains DFI motherboard, Pentium E5300, some of the RAM Previously mentioned, OCZ PSU, ASUS 9600 GSO, 200gb IDE Drive.  Been replaced by my new computer.

The current 'test' system.  It is currently not in any sort of enclosure, so turning it on requires a screw driver.  Running Windows XP Professional.  Currently typing this blog post using this computer.

On the left, the Celeron E3200.  The right chip is the Pentium D 820.  Both chips are dual cores, for socket LGA 775

Benchmarking

Doing some quick benchmarks before I start overclocking.  This is a benchmark called Super Pi, which uses the processor to calculate pi to a varying amount of digits.  It took the system 53.3 seconds to calculate one million digits of pi.