Sticking it under the house!

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createcoms

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 14, 2004
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90
Okay so my setup took years to build, and every self-respecting [H]'er would distance themselves from me. Fair enough, I realise I wasn't devoting enough $$$ to the cause and paid the price.

But I finally got there.

Went crazy on the radiator - GTX480! Was the biggest Danger Den had at time of crazy credit card clicking ;) So I HOPE that this will serve ALL future setups (and that I only have to change the waterblocks to AM3,4, etc etc).


And then since I don't enjoy the luxury of air conditioning, I decided the radiator was wasted sitting in a room that on a 25 degrees summer day finds itself at 35 degrees+ so I did the following:


First photo is the whole kit (pretty much) laid out on the carpet before launch:



And then we prepare the radiator for the launch:




Then it's under the house we go! I chose to make it more exciting by doing it at night with just my trusty 5watt luxeon LED torch (actually it's the most badass torch you ever did use so it might as well have been daytime). This photo is taken after I had crawled under the house all the way across to the area beneath the room the computer is in:



And here's some really poor angled shots - did you know it's hard to take photos when you cannot even see the viewfinder due to ridiculous space constraints?





That last one with my pretty face in it has a blurry patch due to protective plastic being held around the camera (it was dirty under the house!). And for those who find themselves barfing after looking at me, yes I do cleanup good so please invite me out for drinks on friday.

The not so pretty sight from outside (it's not like the neighbors had any sort of decent view before, the fence is too high!):



And then lastly the reason for the madness:



Just an example of the sort of extra cooling I effectively get by going for the outside location. Sure it's not summer here yet and so things will heat up - but like I said without air conditioning the place becomes a BSOD hellhole so this effort avoids that. And in winter, with less than 4 degrees celsius under the house the cpu struggles to touch 30 degrees Celsius (coretemp readings).

Just thought I'd share this with everyone.

:)


bAGdeaABm
 
Not summer yet ? wth are you ? Need to do something to keep the Vampire Bats from getting in the window crack but I am sure you will get around to that kind of stuff.

You will love the temps this summer, simple, cheap, effective. You are [H]ard dude ! Good show, thanks for the pics.
 
Glad to see someone else doing the same thing I plan to :)
Nice setup. Very well done.
 
You do know that you are killing your flow rate with that much tubing in your loop, right?

I hope you have at least 2 pumps, if not 3
 
I dunno, cool idea, but there are so many complications to something like this (long term). As in, how much are you really saving vs just keeping your room cooler as right now your window is propped open anyways. How long are the pumps going to last like that. Summer months, you are pretty sol :), Will critters eat the pipe/cable, will weather put a toll on the fans, will creepyies visit your radiator since it's nice and warm? etc etc etc.
 
Ockie said:
I dunno, cool idea, but there are so many complications to something like this (long term). As in, how much are you really saving vs just keeping your room cooler as right now your window is propped open anyways. How long are the pumps going to last like that. Summer months, you are pretty sol :), Will critters eat the pipe/cable, will weather put a toll on the fans, will creepyies visit your radiator since it's nice and warm? etc etc etc.
Click to expand...

Firstly keeping the room cooler now is not viable - as air conditioning creates an ongoing power cost as well as an install cost similar to this water cooling setup. The idea is to avoid reliance on wherever I happen to live since obviously if I get a better house with a better job I can bring in the radiator and do whatever. You speak about the window being open as if this stops the room from getting hot in the summer - it doesn't! With all windows open fully, this room exceeds 30 degrees during summer - the greenhouse effect of having such large windows destroys any cooling the open windows might bring (and there are plenty of days where there isn't any wind to speak of any ways).

How long are the pumps going to last? A long time I hope lol! We have no pipe or cable eating critters in New Zealand urban areas however I've got some loom for the section of the wiring that is between the window and the entry point to under the house just to keep the elements off it. The water pipe that is outside is hardcore stuff so even if something has a go at it I don't expect leaks (it appears to be double layered in addition to reinforcing meshed all around it).

Will creepies hang out on the radiator - quite probably, well spiders will but nothing else comes to mind. The cats might crowd around the blue box the radiator sits in but they can't actually get at it (thus the reason I secured it in the blue box). I plan to revisit the underworld in another 6 months (or sooner if I notice anything wrong lol!) to inspect things.
 
WOW, any warmer that 25C and I would be on the floor dead (well nearly), and my computers would be chugging along nicely.:eek:
 
I dunno AC is the way to go here, it was 109-115 last week. So I would not plan on that setup for where you go.... I'm in Cali BTW.
 
I would suggest putting some holes in your floor and getting a better case to put the radiater in just to make it look permanent and not temporary. Its a great idea. Hell put a huge ass hole in your wall and a big ass fan to draw up some cold air from your crawlspace into your house for free cooling lol.
 
Fortunately it doesn't reach 40 degrees celsius here (30 degrees would be considered extremely high here)like you guys are experiencing - I guess in such climates every house would already have AC and your bottom line includes the running cost.

It may look temporary from the outside of the house Nemik8800 but inside you can't tell and since these windows are on the side of a house that no visitor ever sees, and neighbors struggle to see (due to high fence) I couldn't care less what the outside looks like. Also modifying the house in any way shape or form is not a viable option - I don't own it!
 
(He's in New Zealand BTW, so for us on the Northern Hemisphere, it's the equivalent of March down there)

Great execution of natural cooling, I just hope you don't snow or below freezing, or you could run into some troubles. With that much cooling going on, it doesn't matter if your flow rate is half of what it was before (even that much tubing isn't insanely restrictive, water will still be flowing), you're better off using your available resources.

I've seen a couple different external cooling projects (some under a few feet of dirt, several in a garage, even a swimming pool), but this is the first under the house job I've seen. Way to think outside the box - your room might be cooler too since the heat is going below your house rather than inside :).
 
ikellensbro said:
(He's in New Zealand BTW, so for us on the Northern Hemisphere, it's the equivalent of March down there)

Great execution of natural cooling, I just hope you don't snow or below freezing, or you could run into some troubles. With that much cooling going on, it doesn't matter if your flow rate is half of what it was before (even that much tubing isn't insanely restrictive, water will still be flowing), you're better off using your available resources.

I've seen a couple different external cooling projects (some under a few feet of dirt, several in a garage, even a swimming pool), but this is the first under the house job I've seen. Way to think outside the box - your room might be cooler too since the heat is going below your house rather than inside :).
Click to expand...

Hey thanks! :) Oh and not to worry re:sub zero - as it only just dips below zero for a few hours during the early morning in the thick of winter (where I live, which is in the north island of New Zealand)and I will be sure to keep it running overnight to prevent the water freezing up.


Idea formed during the typing of this reply: Install a thermal switch which disables the fans when the ambient drops below a set point (2 degrees celsius?), and possibly do a bit of power saving? I could work it the other way if need be too, change half the fans for loud "triple digit CFM" models and have them kick in when the ambient rises above 25 degrees or something.....

And to think I was entertaining the idea of ditching desktops and being a laptop-only user!
 
Own or not.......a small hole saw in the floor with the carpet over it......no one would know, especially in the back of a closet.

Some door screen around the crate under the house would keep creepy crawlers out, dirt too.

The thermal switch is a great idea.
 
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