ultimatedesk Posted August 10, 2011 Posted August 10, 2011 What Intel board is that? I didn't think any current-gen boards came with PCI-X. It's an Asus! More deets to come soon, dontcha worry! looks very nice most of us have enuff wood working skills to toss a piece of plywood on some 2x4's with L brackets and call that good lol I know I have alot of wood working skills and tool but not in your level Wow, thanks bishop245 - I seriously don't have a lot of experience in woodworking. Just did a lot of reading lol! Wait until version 2! After gluing a few blocks of foam together with a spray adhesive, I trimmed the block down to the appropriate size using a bandsaw. Unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in order to do the vertical cut... So I took out the trusty hand saw! Here's the plan for the fan layout At first I tried cutting the holes with a good quality knife, but the cuts were not very consistent and it took a long time. I ended up using an old drywall saw, which worked perfectly. Test fit Cut some more holes Awesome! Let's see how it looks in the right-hand cabinet LOL - hilarious. It shouldn't fit like that. At least, it didn't during my initial measurements! I'll have to tweak that a bit later! On to the crazy fans. I decided to go with 3 instead of 4. There just wasn't enough room for foam between each of the fans, and I figured there would be a lot of vibrational noise if they were touching. I could always go to 4 in the future if this proves to be insufficient. Lookin good Stay tuned! More stuff tomorrow! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted August 10, 2011 Posted August 10, 2011 (edited) I just cant get enough of that stain. Edited August 10, 2011 by SpeedCrazy Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted August 10, 2011 Posted August 10, 2011 I just cant get enough of that stain. Thats some serious fan power right there. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wormy Posted August 10, 2011 Posted August 10, 2011 That looks awesome can't wait till I have the time and money to do something like that, keep up the great work!! I'm already looking forward to version 2 lol Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted August 11, 2011 Posted August 11, 2011 I just cant get enough of that stain. Thats some serious fan power right there. Thanks SpeedCrazy - the desk finish is wearing nicely too - I've already put tons of stuff in and on it without so much as a scratch! That looks awesome can't wait till I have the time and money to do something like that, keep up the great work!! I'm already looking forward to version 2 lol Hehe, thanks wormy! You know, the monthly budget for this project really wasn't too big... but then again, it's been 10 months lol! I was in an extremely fortunate position recently. A friend of mine's work was moving from a large location to a much smaller location, and he had asked me if I wanted to come scope out the old office for any old bits of computer stuff that might be useful to me. To my shock and amazement, I was indeed able to pick up some pretty fancy hardware that I would have never dreamed of owning. They must have done some pretty big upgrades to leave stuff like this behind! I was able to get a hold of a handful of Socket 775 motherboards with Core 2 Duo processors, a bunch of DDR RAM, a box full of Hard Drives, and some relatively decent (lower powered) power supplies. The real treasure though, was a pair of servers. You can see that I had already disassembled one of them: 2 Full 4U Antec Rackmount cases, each of them containing a Dual-Xeon motherboard + Processors. Both with FB-DIMM RAM sticks as well. This particular one contained a pair of Xeon E5410's, with 16GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM's, 4 1TB Western Digital Blacks (SATA), and the motherboard is an Asus DSBF-DE. The other one contained a pair of Xeon E5335's, with 4GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM's, 5 1TB Hitachi Deskstas (SATA), and the motherboard is an Asus DSGC-DW. Now - before we go on - someone had queried earlier about the PCI Express slot on the board pictured, and I had said something along the lines of "Ya ya, it's there, don't worry about it". I of course, actually looked at the pictures, and no, it's not. It is indeed a PCI Express 16x slot, but on this particular motherboard, it only runs at PCI8. Now, the other motherboard, the Asus DSGC-DW DOES have a PCIX16 slot. When it was released, it did not support the 54xx series of Xeon processors, but I checked the website and there is a BIOS update to add this functionality. I will have to do a test setup with that board to update the BIOS, and then it will be swapped into the desk with a full video card, both the E5410's, as well as the 16GB of RAM, so keep that in mind when looking at the rest of this update. No, unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the other motherboard. Cool stuff either way. Never, ever thought I'd have a dual processor motherboard. What an amazing find! These dual Xeon heatsinks mount directly into the motherboard tray, so unfortunately, I couldn't use those spiffy motherboard trays from Danger Den. Also, since they are of size "SSI", there's no way it would mount on a regular ATX motherboard tray anyways. Time to drill out a tray! It actually came out pretty nice and clean This is a bit of a shame, since I took the time to clean the processors, put new thermal compound and remount everything. I'm just going to have to disassemble it again anyways when I put in the different motherboard. Ah well. This is a bit of a hack job getting the tray mounted... Since the processors are mounted to the tray, I had mounted it outside of the desk, so when I went to fasten the tray to the desk, I was *gasp* actually lazy and didn't want to dismount the motherboard again... so umm.. I'm going to replace those odd-angled screws when I switch motherboards.. The power supply looks pretty good there. It's an Antec 650W - an Earthwatts maybe? I forget. I may consider replacing it with a unit that has a 120-140mm fan just to exhaust the air a bit better. The board has a requirement for a 24pin, an 8pin, as well as a 4pin, so I can't just use any power supply unfortunately. The cables, of course, are not nearly long enough to reach the connectors on the board. I've already ordered the extensions and hopefully I'll get them at the beginning of next week. Oh, you'll see that I've straightened out the fans as well. The cooling solution looks good. There will be two fans directly in front of the CPU's. I may consider putting an additional hole in the door to allow the CPU's and RAM to exhaust directly. There is one major issue with the right-hand cabinet setup. The original specifications called for an ATX board, which is significantly smaller, so umm.. I have no idea where the hard-drives are going to fit. lol! Fun times. Hope you're enjoying this flurry of updates. I may or may not be able to post an update tomorrow, as I'm going camping for the weekend! At the latest, I'll be posting again early next week! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted August 11, 2011 Posted August 11, 2011 2 of THEM!!! Why do i never find old stuff like that. That is the kind of find i will wait my whole life for! Are you using them both? Looks good. The fit looks perfect. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BluePanda Posted August 11, 2011 Posted August 11, 2011 I'm surprised you are using older parts for this build? Mind me asking why? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted August 17, 2011 Posted August 17, 2011 2 of THEM!!! Why do i never find old stuff like that. That is the kind of find i will wait my whole life for! Are you using them both? Looks good. The fit looks perfect. Pretty insane eh! I have never been that fortunate, that's for sure! Just an fyi though, turns out one of the server boards is a dud - probably a good reason it was destined for the trash heap!! I'm surprised you are using older parts for this build? Mind me asking why? Money my friend, money! I'm fairly certain that the Dual Xeon 2.33Ghz + 16GB of RAM will be faster than anything else I could have afforded to put in there. Don't you worry though - there is going to be some nice, new modern hardware as the gaming system! A huge thanks goes out to Gigabyte for supplying me with this amazing motherboard - a GA-Z68XUD4-B3. Without a doubt, the coolest motherboard I have ever owned! I could barely wait to open this up when I got it in the mail! And this poor motherboard tray that had been sitting for months and months covered in brown paper - finally had it removed. It looks even better than I could have hoped! Here is the test fit in the actual desk And with the fans in place I'm going to trim off the plastic tabs from the motherboard tray to make it a bit easier to build the tunnels for cable management. Also, I'm considering putting a pair of holes beneath the motherboard to pass cables through underneath. Lots of stuff happening in the next few weeks! I attempted to boot up the Asus DSGC-DW board (The one with the PCIx16 slot) but it would not boot. I'm afraid that that particular motherboard has gone bad, so I will continue to use the board with the PCIx8 slot. Anyone have any suggestions with regards to determining the best video card I can put in a PCIx16 slot with only x8 bandwidth? I was thinking I could look at the theoretical bandwith of an 8x slot and match it with that of the video card to maximize performance (ie. no point in installing a 5970x2 in an x8 slot). Anyways, hopefully will have a handful of updates this week! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpeedCrazy Posted August 17, 2011 Posted August 17, 2011 I attempted to boot up the Asus DSGC-DW board (The one with the PCIx16 slot) but it would not boot. I'm afraid that that particular motherboard has gone bad, so I will continue to use the board with the PCIx8 slot. Anyone have any suggestions with regards to determining the best video card I can put in a PCIx16 slot with only x8 bandwidth? I was thinking I could look at the theoretical bandwith of an 8x slot and match it with that of the video card to maximize performance (ie. no point in installing a 5970x2 in an x8 slot). Wait, this is the sever we are discussing? Why put a high end card in it at all? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
xPETEZx Posted August 17, 2011 Posted August 17, 2011 Even if you do plan to put a high end card in it, on more than one occasion it has been shown that the difference between 16x and x8 is so small, it is almost a margin of error. Its not going to be the difference between playable FPS and unplayable. Its gonna be a frame here and there, nothing more, and thats if the rest of your system isnt holding back whatever card it is anyways. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fogel Posted August 24, 2011 Posted August 24, 2011 Wow glad I didn't notice this thread when it first launched, was much cooler being able to see all this progress at once instead of waiting almost a year Great job though Definitley got my imagination pumping what my ultimate desk would look like if I had your skill, drive and patience... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ultimatedesk Posted August 29, 2011 Posted August 29, 2011 Wait, this is the sever we are discussing? Why put a high end card in it at all? Well, not necessarily a high-end card, but I do plan to occasionally load up a game on the server system for some LAN multiplayer Even if you do plan to put a high end card in it, on more than one occasion it has been shown that the difference between 16x and x8 is so small, it is almost a margin of error. Its not going to be the difference between playable FPS and unplayable. Its gonna be a frame here and there, nothing more, and thats if the rest of your system isnt holding back whatever card it is anyways. I did a bit of looking around as well and that's the conclusion I've come to too Wow glad I didn't notice this thread when it first launched, was much cooler being able to see all this progress at once instead of waiting almost a year Great job though Definitley got my imagination pumping what my ultimate desk would look like if I had your skill, drive and patience... Hehe, yup, it's been a long time coming eh? Thanks - and keep that imagination going - you never know when you'll have the opportunity / time to do something like this as well! So - it's been another few busy weeks, so apologies for the no updates. Have been enjoying those last rays of sunshine before the summer ends! I think I mentioned last update that I tried to boot up the Asus DSFC-DW board but had issues - here was the attempt: I got a green LED to light up (Standby power on the motherboard) but jumping the Power ON pins had no reaction whatsoever. Tried it with a different videocard, re-seated the RAM and CPU's, but still no luck. Moving onwards - since I un-mounted almost everything, I decided to keep the copper heatinks instead of the aluminum ones for the other motherboard. I also picked up a pair of these units from Rosewill via Newegg: They should do nicely for my hard-drive racks. I would like to mount them like so, except higher up: Unfortunately, they are deeper than the cabinet I built. At the time, I was thinking maybe they would stick out of my air intake window, and I would just build-out the section of the door with the air filter... Not exactly what I had in mind initially though. With most of the major components in place, I decided to start tackling the cable management with some cardboard templates, and then some 1/8" plywood: At this point I was a little frustrated with how slowly this portion of the project was going. Things weren't quite fitting the way I had planned, and they were not looking as nice as I would have liked them to... Maybe it's time for some thinking instead of doing. I decided (In hindsight, unfortunately) to go ahead and mount the hard-drive racks so I could get some better measurements and ideas of how to manage the cables nicely. Installed the fans and started to route some of the cables Took out a handful of old SATA cables... (Yes, let's not forget, that I'm a computer tech first, and a carpenter second, or maybe even fifth or tenth...) And had fun connecting all the bits and trying to get them in a reasonable state of organization Ugh... this will not do, this will not do at all. Might as well boot it up and see if everything works though (I had mounted and un-mounted the board several times, banged around a few things, etc, so might as well see if it's all still working!) This would be the first time I see if all the fans work as well. Keep in mind that this is with the door removed. Until next time.. still not quite sure what I'll be doing next. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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