Hi all,
Let's the get required portion out of the way first:
Build’s Name: Graveyard Watercooled 2U
Operating System/ Storage Platform: VMWare ESXi 6.5
CPU: Intel Celeron G3930
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A
Chassis: Dell Poweredge C2100
Drives: Seagate Barracuda 750 GB HD
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Add-in Cards: none
Power Supply: Dell Poweredge C2100 PSU
Other Bits: watercooling parts
Due to my frustration with the noise and power consumption of my HP servers, I decided to embark upon creating a minimalist, low-power server from some existing parts I had. Since I didn't have any experience with watercooling, I decided to dip my toe in the water (so to speak) and try to make a watercooled server.
Initially I wanted to stuff everything in a 1U server, but I had problems finding any watercooling solutions that fit in such a tight space. The typical problem was the size of the radiator; most just won't fit in 1U of space. After some searching, I found an AIO (all-in-one) solution that looked like it might work, the
Corsair Hydro Series H5 SF:
Corsair H5 SF | PC Perspective
After some wrestling with it, I found it to be unsuitable and decided to start over from scratch. This time, I bought a kit with a bunch of individual watercooling parts, and decided to use a 2U chassis. Here is the kit I bought:
Water Cooling Kit 240 Radiator CPU GPU Block Pump Reservoir Tubing Fan Heatsink | eBay
I had a Dell Poweredge C2100 that I bought to use as a NAS, but I ultimately opted to go with a different approach. So I gutted the server, and ended up only using the parts of the chassis, the power supply, and the power distributer (I guess this is what it is called?).
Off to a messy start...
I had to rip out almost all of the removable parts of the chassis, including the fans, fan bracket, and the above metal piece. Luckily (and unlike the HP equivalents), the Dell power supply was ATX-compatible, so it was just plug-and-play like I bought an ATX PSU off the shelf. I was even able to remove the extra cables I didn't use:
I initially had some leaks in probably the worst spot: the CPU waterblock
All of the other screw-in fittings fit snugly using only hand-turning, and one of the YouTube watercooling guides I watched stressed not to over-tighten them as they may crack the acrylic. So I left these two fittings screwed in too loosely, and the result was water dripping dangerously close to the CPU/motherboard. Thankfully, I put paper towels down to catch potential leaks, and no damage occurred.
The next problem was with the radiator. Since it is 120mm tall, and a 2U chassis can fit only maybe 80mm height fans, I had to orient it sideways (this is a view from the top):
Getting all of the air out of the loop was the next issue. It seems to gradually escape on its own, but if there is too much in the loop initially, the pump is only moving air, and the water doesn't flow. So I had to mess with the orientation and relative positions of the pump, radiator, and reservoir, in order to coerce the water/air into moving to the correct places.
I found this cool temperature gauge that screws in to the end of the reservoir and monitors the water temperature. In a lucky coincidence, the display part fit perfectly into one of the 3.5" bays on the front of the chassis:
You can also see that I stuffed the hard drive in the right-middle top bay. Obviously it isn't hot-swappable, but I don't really need it to be.
This is truly a Frankenstein-esque monstrosity, but it's still pretty cool (in more ways than one). Ultimately, I want to experiment more with watercooling servers, maybe even 3d-printing some custom parts to get things to fit properly, but that will have to wait for a time when I save up some more money.
Right now I'm waiting for the air bubbles to finish making their way out of the loop, and then it will get (gently) moved into my rack.
Let's the get required portion out of the way first:
Build’s Name: Graveyard Watercooled 2U
Operating System/ Storage Platform: VMWare ESXi 6.5
CPU: Intel Celeron G3930
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H110M-A
Chassis: Dell Poweredge C2100
Drives: Seagate Barracuda 750 GB HD
RAM: 16 GB DDR4
Add-in Cards: none
Power Supply: Dell Poweredge C2100 PSU
Other Bits: watercooling parts
Due to my frustration with the noise and power consumption of my HP servers, I decided to embark upon creating a minimalist, low-power server from some existing parts I had. Since I didn't have any experience with watercooling, I decided to dip my toe in the water (so to speak) and try to make a watercooled server.
Initially I wanted to stuff everything in a 1U server, but I had problems finding any watercooling solutions that fit in such a tight space. The typical problem was the size of the radiator; most just won't fit in 1U of space. After some searching, I found an AIO (all-in-one) solution that looked like it might work, the
Corsair Hydro Series H5 SF:
Corsair H5 SF | PC Perspective
After some wrestling with it, I found it to be unsuitable and decided to start over from scratch. This time, I bought a kit with a bunch of individual watercooling parts, and decided to use a 2U chassis. Here is the kit I bought:
Water Cooling Kit 240 Radiator CPU GPU Block Pump Reservoir Tubing Fan Heatsink | eBay
I had a Dell Poweredge C2100 that I bought to use as a NAS, but I ultimately opted to go with a different approach. So I gutted the server, and ended up only using the parts of the chassis, the power supply, and the power distributer (I guess this is what it is called?).
Off to a messy start...
I had to rip out almost all of the removable parts of the chassis, including the fans, fan bracket, and the above metal piece. Luckily (and unlike the HP equivalents), the Dell power supply was ATX-compatible, so it was just plug-and-play like I bought an ATX PSU off the shelf. I was even able to remove the extra cables I didn't use:
I initially had some leaks in probably the worst spot: the CPU waterblock
All of the other screw-in fittings fit snugly using only hand-turning, and one of the YouTube watercooling guides I watched stressed not to over-tighten them as they may crack the acrylic. So I left these two fittings screwed in too loosely, and the result was water dripping dangerously close to the CPU/motherboard. Thankfully, I put paper towels down to catch potential leaks, and no damage occurred.
The next problem was with the radiator. Since it is 120mm tall, and a 2U chassis can fit only maybe 80mm height fans, I had to orient it sideways (this is a view from the top):
Getting all of the air out of the loop was the next issue. It seems to gradually escape on its own, but if there is too much in the loop initially, the pump is only moving air, and the water doesn't flow. So I had to mess with the orientation and relative positions of the pump, radiator, and reservoir, in order to coerce the water/air into moving to the correct places.
I found this cool temperature gauge that screws in to the end of the reservoir and monitors the water temperature. In a lucky coincidence, the display part fit perfectly into one of the 3.5" bays on the front of the chassis:
You can also see that I stuffed the hard drive in the right-middle top bay. Obviously it isn't hot-swappable, but I don't really need it to be.
This is truly a Frankenstein-esque monstrosity, but it's still pretty cool (in more ways than one). Ultimately, I want to experiment more with watercooling servers, maybe even 3d-printing some custom parts to get things to fit properly, but that will have to wait for a time when I save up some more money.
Right now I'm waiting for the air bubbles to finish making their way out of the loop, and then it will get (gently) moved into my rack.
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