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Homebrew Rackmount Watercooling
Airspirit writes "For those of you who believe that bigger is always better and have multiple computers in your house,
this system may be a way to keep them all cool and organized. As an added bonus, it will heat a medium sized apartment all by itself!
This article at Pro/Cooling gives a step by step walkthrough describing the evolution of this five gallon monstrosity. Not only does this cover the construction of the cooling system, but the drawbacks such as algae prevention and maintenance as well."
And just to be a little more mindful of what you are saying would you mind telling what region you live in? Winters vary quite a bit from place to place. Up here in Michigan the most recent winter was nearly record breaking with several below zero nights. I have a few computers that run 24/7 in my bedroom, but none of them can do much to improve the humidity when it's ten below zero outside. My room is upstairs, so I get a lot of heat from the lower levels anyways. Wouldn't a monitor provide a lot of heat too?
" Being that I'm in physics and I barely need a home computer, I'm always mystified by people who have things like rack-mount systems in their homes. I never manage to understand why you'd need that sort of thing."
;-)
Oh, music, movies, games, web, chat, photos... you know - fun!
I wonder if the algaes could be prevented by using something else than water, for instance chloromethane, freon or some sort of liquid alcohol/methane based substitute. In unsterile water, algaes often grow instantly when exposed to heat.
Yeah, dual CPUs produce a *lot* of heat.
I have here a dual Athlon MP 2000+. The temperature measured at the heatsinks is 56C and 62C. The difference is because one has arctic silver on the heatsink and the other the AMD thermal pad stuff.
Anyway, this thing gets amazingly hot. A bit more, and I couldn't hold my hand on top of the case, and it's got 9 fans in it! When I enter the room I notice that it's noticeably hotter than the rest of the house, even though that the computer is near an open window.
Now, it's really nice to use. Everything is *smooth* and I should not need to upgrade any time soon. When I do it'll probably be a dual system too.
Saltwater... that sounds like it might be a bit corrosive to the metals. Probably not a good idea. How about some bleach, and combine the thing with a washing machine?
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
I don't claim to be a scientist, but one thing struck me when I was reading the page about your project. At the end you kind of complain about the ambient temperature in the room from your cooling system. But you also complain that your stage 3 temperatures were higher then your Stage 2 temperatures. Yeah, I'll bet. If you really want to know what is just from the cooling system you have to adjust the room temperature so it is constant.
I mean, it it's the winter time in the first example and your temperature is low, but your room temperature is 65F, then that's one thing. But, if your temperature is high and it's the summer and your room temp is 85F then that's something else entirely.
It seems to me it's possible you have an uncontrolled variable roaming around destroying your data.