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Cirocco Live Liquid Cooled Rack

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the big-iron-on-the-hip dept.

Mark Grant writes "Cirocco have developed a liquid cooled rack of AMD Duron 1.1Gs in a Beowulf cluster. The rack has been installed in Cambridge University, England and has been under trial since Christmas. The system is being put through its paces running chemical research algorithms. Critical to Cirocco's liquid cooling system are the hot swappable quick couplings. These allow servers to be disconnected whilst the cooling system is in operation." The graph with live temperature readings is pretty neat.

5 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. nice rack! by joe_bruin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    didn't cray master the liquid cooled cabinet design, like, 30 years ago?

  2. Fluid connectors by Gordonjcp · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Do those special, magic, fluid connectors look like scaled down versions of ordinary hydraulic dry-disconnect spools to anyone else?

  3. 1.1ghz chips need liquid cooling?!?!? by sakusha · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is a stupid idea. They say that air conditioning is inefficient, but they could have easily done it efficiently with ductwork.
    I've worked with quick-couplings on megawatt lasers, and I can just give em one tip: couplings fail more often than computers. Just wait til they spring a leak because some idiot forgets to twist the ring properly, and he floods the whole rack.

    1. Re:1.1ghz chips need liquid cooling?!?!? by stratjakt · · Score: 1, Insightful

      If the design was good, the couplings would be located such that if one leaked, it wouldnt possibly get anywhere near the actual electronics. Like outside and below the case.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  4. Re:maybe... by ComputarMastar · · Score: 5, Insightful
    From the site:
    Each cpu dissipates just under 50W which is traditionally air cooled using a large heatsink and fan. This is fine for a stand alone computer but when multiple computers are used, eg a Beowulf cluster, the rise in room temperature and hotspots are an increasing problem. Normally air-conditioning is used but this is very inefficient. Cirocco directly cool the heatsink with water which can be cooled remotely and recirculated.
    Air cooling works well enough until you get many hot devices in a small space. Then you have the problem of some running too hot because the air thats supposed to be cooling them is already hot from cooling others.