Kinda Cheap Folding Box

[mikeki]

Bought the following stuff and put together a quick box. Goal is to use it as the start of a farm, but I suck so bad at Linux, I just installed WinXP on it for now.

Intel Pentium D 805 - It's a 2.66GHz dual core - $130
ASUS P5V800-MX Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - $52
FSP Group ATX300-PA version 2.0, SATA, 300W Power Supply - OEM - $23.50

I added a stick of 512MB Value RAM and a super old hard drive I had laying around, and bam, it's folding.

It's currently OC'ed to 3.00GHz and runs at about 55C. I probably put a little too much paste on it, and may redo that. The PSU isn't even warm at all. The Northbridge is fine (has a little heatsink on it). The southbridge, however, is hot as hell. I can hold my finger on it for about 5 seconds before I take it off.

Has anyone ever stuck a heatsink on there southbridge? I just don't want to fry something on this cheap board and investing $5 in a Zalman NB heatsink probably wouldn't kill me.

Thoughts?

 

[poddo]

I've never done it, but ive seen motherboards that have them. I can't see why a heatsink would fry anything. Go for it!

 

[Hito Bahadur]

Should be fine on adding that heatsink. If you are running the box nekkid it is probably good to do so, since the normal air flow through the case won't be there to cool it off.

 

[Imitation]

Yeah I'd toss a little heatsink on it. I put a sink on my NF7-S back in the NF2 days when that board was the hottest OC board around. I had been getting some soundstorm problems before I put it on, after I put it on I had zero problems. Alll I used was one of the aluminum sinks that come with the vantec iceberg VGA sink. The VGA sink went on my NB and a sticky thermal pad and alum sink on the south. Never got too hot then, so just about anything will do on top if it. You can always go high end with a decently large passive sink and some thermal epoxy.

 

[sobe]

Does anyone else have an 805 on YURT? This one seems to be a good producer from mikeki's numbers, especially on these 99x proteins, they fly on Intel's

 

[Killer[MoB]]

Does anyone else have an 805 on YURT?

No. Using the search, that's the only one that came up.

 

[mikeki]

I only have one 805, but my wife's new rig has a 2.8GHz Pentium D (I think it's an 820). It's in a Dell so I don't OC it at all. It's interesting to compare them. I also picked another another box for comparison.

Fold1 - 805
Janene - 820
owl-boxen - AMD 64 X2 4200+

Note, owl-boxen isn't my machine. I just wanted to find another box that had done some 99x's and 2095's. It is a dual core, and appears to be an awesome stud folding box.

I'm trying to understand the YURT statistics. The Pentium D's do about 220 PPD on 99x's. Is that 220PPD per core? I'm assuming the AMD is doing about 280 PPD per core on these?

I was getting ready to compare 2095's, but it looks like the stats are hosed for Janene (the frame PPD vs. WU PPD are very different). After typing all this, I guess patience in order because more data is needed.

Another question, this box appears to be a quad processor box. I'm assuming the PPD numbers are per processor, so the total box PPD would be four times the PPD here. I believe this also explains why the Total Work Time is so huge here. It's really 4x real time because 4 procs are working.

 

[Imitation]

I retract my previous statement about the southbridge cooling. I looked at the link and its already got a heatsink on it right? Well lucky for you its got a pushpin holddown so you can replace it pretty easy. Only problem you could have now is that they're a goofy spacing on the holes and nothing else will fit on it. If thats the case a big passive sink and epoxy would most likely be your only route.

 

[ICE_9]

I'm trying to understand the YURT statistics. The Pentium D's do about 220 PPD on 99x's. Is that 220PPD per core? I'm assuming the AMD is doing about 280 PPD per core on these?

Yep. this is how long it took on that core.

Another question, this box appears to be a quad processor box. I'm assuming the PPD numbers are per processor, so the total box PPD would be four times the PPD here. I believe this also explains why the Total Work Time is so huge here. It's really 4x real time because 4 procs are working.

The numbers are PPD per WU. It is a determination from that WU how long it took to run on one of those cores. When looking at dual core systems, realize that people do setup their systems to run two instances. If you see a system with 2 processors but only 1 directory, they are likely only running one instance of the program.

I think that box is just a dual processor setup with HT enabled to show 4 cores. Freaking sweet by the way.

 

[mikeki]

I retract my previous statement about the southbridge cooling. I looked at the link and its already got a heatsink on it right? Well lucky for you its got a pushpin holddown so you can replace it pretty easy. Only problem you could have now is that they're a goofy spacing on the holes and nothing else will fit on it. If thats the case a big passive sink and epoxy would most likely be your only route.

The Northbridge has a heatsink on it (or at least what I call the Northbridge). It's the big chip with no heat sink on it that is super hot. Ahhh, just looked at the picture . The chip in the upper right corner with a black heat sink on it? There is no heat sink on that chip on my board. Hmmm, will fix that tonight.

Thanks for pointing out the picture.

 

[Imitation]

Anytime man, we need stable boxen going into the summer to continue holding off those roos. If you really wanted stable, great cooling i'd just put about 4 nekked boxen on a rack. Then buy a double 120mm radiator, some tubing, a strong pump, and 4 cheaper waterblocks and just run them all on one loop. I wonder if that could be cost effective? ...goes to get WC prices...

edit: Sadly the swiftech 6000 series isn't anywhere to be found anymore, those things were dirt cheap. Oh well, 40-50 bucks a pop for blocks alone really isn't worth it.

 

[mikeki]

Nekked is fine with me, my office is AC'ed to 72F all summer, and the power doesn't bother me. If I just had a reasonable looking rack for naked systems, I'd do it.

I've thought about getting a local acrylic fabricator to make a simple flat piece of acrylic with mounting holes for some stand-off's for a MicroATX MB and space for a PSU and HardDrive. Have them fold up the front and back about 5" and put tabs on the top. Put slots in the bottom, so the tabs notch into the bottom of the shelf above it.

    /______\                ____              ____
    /______\           ____/    \____________/    \_____
    /______\          |                                 |
    /______\          |_______________________________|
                            (slot)            (slot)
     Side                       Front View (mainly to show tabs)

So much for my artistic talent.

The top view would show a space for a Motherboard, PSU, and Hard drive. If running diskless you just wouldn't use a hard drive. You could even mount 120mm fans on the sides for some airflow.

Get this done in smoked acrylic, route the cables reasonbly, and it might even be presentable.

Downside: Cost. Even after design fees, if it costs $20 per shelf, once you add a PSU and a Fan or two, your up to $50 per unit, which is almost the price of low end Antec Case w/ PSU. However, this would be more space efficient and cooler!