2u box

C

cdabc123

Supreme [H]ardness
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Thanks to a generous [H] member I was able to obtain a motherboard and finally get a dual 1366 rig up again. I have a pile of around 10 dead 1366 boards that were used heavily for crypto mining and other server things. Most died due to sitting in storage, some to mining 24/7 for years, some oem intel boards were made out of chineseium and eventually perished to time, and my 2 single socket x58 stuff drowned as overclocked desktops (one due to condensation from a thermoelectric setup, the other from a water leak and storage).

But not only did I get the supermicro x8dtn and a pair of e5645s, I also received this fantastic box! In fact, so fantastic I decided to leave the motherboard in it and upgrade the board/box around it. After I recived the board and box I had all the other parts lying around for this computer in a box to be completely free. Similar to the cost of an empty box in most areas.

box specs-
supermicro x8dtn (have had an excellent time with 1366 supermicro boards and ran lots of x8dte's in the past)
dual e5645 (12c 24t 2.67ghz total)
48gb ecc ddr3
firepro w2100
80gb wd velociraptor (may need to find a ssd for the box, the clicking of the 10k velociraptor is comical and slow)
supermicro PWS-563-1H20 psu (great psu! I have a box of them lying around I use for everything and have used heavily for gpu mining)
Ubuntu 22.04, runs fine. I am looking for recommendations for linux distros worth trying. Ive only really messed with centos and ubuntu recently.


The shape, durability, and appearance of a box, coupled with the computational ability of a cool 1366 setup. What more could you ask for!
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Updated specs and tape:
1tb 980 pro nvme drive
ESXI with any os on it
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cdabc123 said:
. What more could you ask for!
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Maybe a couple screws to hold that heatsink? Not sure how the zipties are gonna do anything for you there. If you can't find any more screws, maybe take two from the one that is installed. Two halfass installed heatsinks is probably better than one fully installed and one floater. If this is how you treat your computers, I'm not surprised the other ones revolted. :p
 
toast0 said:
Maybe a couple screws to hold that heatsink? Not sure how the zipties are gonna do anything for you there. If you can't find any more screws, maybe take two from the one that is installed. Two halfass installed heatsinks is probably better than one fully installed and one floater. If this is how you treat your computers, I'm not surprised the other ones revolted. :p
Click to expand...
No the zip ties are fine, that heatsink has one screw on the far end and the tension of the zip ties as well as the thermal paste hold the heatsink down well, you can lift the whole computer by that heatsink without breaking the thermal paste seal. 2 screws would be better then one and the other heatsink has 4 so I could use two on each and be fine. I could also find a screw as I know I have them somewhere. Or I could do neither, the thermal protection on these xeons works well enough if there would be a issue. Which is not possible due to the nature of zip ties.
 
kurdt said:
Lol. You should add a Saranwrap window to really add that extra custom touch.
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It was going to be an all acrylic build till I relised how cool this box was.

Saranwrap and non rgb LEDs sounds ideal.
 
this looks like a static discharge disaster waiting to happen, while also being epic.
 
Its been upgraded.. Couldn't pass up a deal for a 1tb 980 pro nvme drive for $38. However, this motherboard does not support UEFI or recognize the drive. I tried clover with limited success, then threw esxi on it. Was able to install esxi on a separate hdd and boot any os from the nvme drive. Gpu and pcie devices were easy and painless to passthrough, unlike my am4 setup. It should be a fun hypervisor box, however one of the primary uses for this computer is to test pcie devices so ill have to dual boot windows from another drive for that.

Also upgraded the tape job to cope with this blistering speed. Removed the ghetto mount heatsink as i had a proper one laying around and my main desktop needed to steal the ghetto one for now.

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Would probably run cooler if you put one or two small fans on the side next to the one already there, closed up the top, and put a vent on the side opposite the small fans. Those server sinks are designed for forced air going across the board, in the direction of those arrows. One of those sinks should be rotated, btw. ;)
 
Nobu said:
Would probably run cooler if you put one or two small fans on the side next to the one already there, closed up the top, and put a vent on the side opposite the small fans. Those server sinks are designed for forced air going across the board, in the direction of those arrows. One of those sinks should be rotated, btw. ;)
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Airflow is hard to visualize in this case, that big green fan pushes alot of air its the only intake, the small fan is the output which vents cpu 0 air and the psu air which is noticeable and comes out the back. The larger black fan is the vent for cpu 0,1.

Thermals are pretty good, partially due to all of these components being pretty low tdp. When the box warms up it notably vents a substantial amount of hot air, both heatsinks are close to the same temp, and the fans are pretty quiet. I was going to add a air barrier between the two heatsinks to force more intake air through them.

Although I suppose I could do some science, rotate heatsinks and record temps.
 
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I looked into the thermals some more and they did need addressing. Temps were 85 and 75 after a long load. I added ducting and felt a noticeable improvement in hot air coming out the front exhaust fan. Temps are now 75 70 which is fine.

The nvme drive makes this westmere setup faster then it has any business being. It can simultaneously run a handful of os that all feel incredibly responsive compared to a regular ssd or hdd system. I'm glad I managed to shoehorn the nvme drive and the box has been a great esxi test bench so far. Played 8 hours of empire earth on it recently.

Changes:
Ducting.
Mesh and dust fabric front fan cover to improve acoustic tone.
Got carried away with tape once again.
Added carbon fiber switch plate for 5% weight reduction.
Installed abunch of os on it and found some practical uses for this box.
Reinstalled terribly slow 80gb velociraptor so I can test pcie devices without dealing with esxi.
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