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  1. #1

    Bottom-line 1U for ~$300?

    Hi, I'm building my first 1U just for the hell of it. I've got 4 tower cases running FreeBSD on PIII's. The hard drives are failing, and the PIII's just aren't cutting it for me, so I decided to get a 1U (for space issues). I'm trying to build one for around $300 (yes, cheap!). I've got some components picked out, I just wanted to make sure they'd work OK together before purchasing. The main thing I'm concerned about is heat. I've BELIEVE i've found some micro-ATX boards with the DIMMs in the correct position so as to allow effective cooling. I'm curious if I could get away with passive cooling if I made sure I had some fans blowing across the CPU. I could easily fashion my own cooling system if I needed to. I just have no Idea how hot these processors will get in a 1U, especially if I decide to run my 10K RPM Raptors in RAID. Well, here's what i have picked out:

    ECS 760GX-M Micro-ATX Socket-754 - $53
    OCZ 512MB Low Profile DDR400 - $76
    Skyhawk 1U - $94
    Sempron 2200 - $56
    Some kind of heatsink/hsf
    2x Raptor WD360GD - (already have a few extras)

    One other thing I'm worried about is the SATA cables. The only one's I have are pretty long and have straight connectors. It seems like the height of the 1U would make it difficult to plug the SATA ribbon into the mobo, expecially if I use RAID. I could see fitting a 90 degree connector on one header, but what about the other one? I could buy some cheap $20 EIDE drives if I needed to.

    So would this all fit? Can I really make a 1U for $279? Would I need to buy some extra 40mm fans and recess the PSU? I don't want this thing burning up on me like the one shown in the "Postmortem of a dead AMD CPU in 1U" post. Where would I get a reliable 1U Heatsink (passive or active, prefferably passive) for this combination? Thanks for your time.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
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    Sempron 2200's dont run that hot, it's the pentiums you got to worry about . However, i'd reccomend that you have someone teach you, or have someone else build it for you. If you don't have experience with 1U building, it's not reccomended that you do it without any help.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
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    Sempron 2200's dont run that hot, it's the pentiums you got to worry about . However, i'd reccomend that you have someone teach you, or have someone else build it for you. If you don't have experience with 1U building, it's not reccomended that you do it without any help.

  4. #4
    Good, glad the Semprons aren't little ovens, but I will need SOME kind of heatsink. I would prefer a passive, but active would be OK too.

    I've been building PCs for years now, I would imagine a 1U would be a lot of the same. Are there any special precautions I should be aware of when assembling it? (besides not sticking foreign objects in the PSU)

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
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    Originally posted by Johntron
    Good, glad the Semprons aren't little ovens, but I will need SOME kind of heatsink. I would prefer a passive, but active would be OK too.

    I've been building PCs for years now, I would imagine a 1U would be a lot of the same. Are there any special precautions I should be aware of when assembling it? (besides not sticking foreign objects in the PSU)
    I dont have experience with building them either

  6. #6
    After about an hour of digging, I found a passive 1U heatsink for Socket A's. It's known as the JAC076C by Cooljag. They make a few passive HSF's also, as well as Dynatron. I guess i'll go with one of those. I'm so anxious.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    75
    Where to start... =]

    First off, the motherboard you have chosen will most likely not fit in a standard 1U chassis. The reason for this is the vertical audio ports.

    You can find right-angle SATA cables for dirt cheap. I buy them for around $2-3 each.

    I can't recommend the Skyhawk case. I try to stay away from using Skyhawk and Ever Case as much as possible. You should look into Antec and Chenming for a low-end chassis. The quality is great.

    Heatsinks.. passive cooling would be preferred, but sometimes it's just not an option. You will need to use an active heatsink if anything is blocking the path (ie: RAM). This is very common on desktop motherboards.

    If you need any help, feel free to send a PM!
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  8. #8
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
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    On a Sempron 2200, you will need a Socket A board, not a Socket 754.
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  9. #9
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    Jul 2002
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    yeah, i'm interest in building my own 1 or 2 u server just for fun. is it different from buidling a pc?

  10. #10
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    The only difference is that cooling is a much, much more important.
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  11. #11
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    The 2 main things with building this 1U server is going to be:

    #1:
    Finding a motherboard that either doesn't have audio jacks at all or has them running horizontally as to fit inside of the 1U Chasis. Vertical audio jacks (standard on desktop boards) will not fit the low profile type design of a 1U server chasis.
    You can find affordable boards with audio that have the horizontal audio jacks but you just have to know to do so. Chaintech (which I'm not very fond of) seems to almost always have the type of audio jacks which will fit (notice almost -- check tigerdirect for a cheap socket A if you want to go that route) in the 1U chasis. I would recommend going with Gigabyte or MSI though and if you do some searching you can find Gigabyte boards with the appropriate audio jacks as well.

    #2:
    Now the second part of this is the heat. If you get one of the cheap 1U ever case chasis with the front being completely "air-friendly". Then hook-up with a 1U active heatsink/blower combo and a few fans you will be in good shape as far as heat goes. Get some fan extension cables and splitters.

    Passive style, big copper heatsinks with large blowers mounted in the case
    to provide direct air-flow to the heatsinks (placement is important) is best but I have used the 1U heatsink/blower combo from dynatron (found for $20 or so) with great success (model: D32 - this is for P4's find one for your CPU specifically).

    Mobo Note: another option is to buy a board with the vertical style audio jacks and then use a desoldering gun or brute-force to carefully remove it
    (brute-force and carefully -- LOL). Although not the best solution it does work.

    Good Luck.

    Fans that fit the low-end 1U evercase model found on www.newegg.com are also sold on newegg.com model DF1204BA.

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Mar 2005
    Location
    Michigan, USA
    Posts
    529
    Would this Evercase http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=CA-R9138B2 work for this type of setup? Is a 200w power supply good enough to run a 2800+ Sempron? I am intrested in building a budget project server for my website.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    silicon and earthquakes
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    Cheap 1U case suppliers?

    Almost at the risk of hijacking this thread, can anyone recommend a cheap 1U case/power supply supplier?

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
    Location
    FL, USA
    Posts
    949
    I have built about dozens of rackmount boxes over the last few years.

    A few things I've picked up:

    Cases
    Don't skimp on the case. The case needs to be rugged and the power supply should have good connectors on the back. I have seen cheap 1U psu's have issues with the fans and power connection area.

    Squirrel-cage fans.
    I prefer the squirrel-cage fans. These are loud but the move the air. We always make sure that the case has at least 2 fans. Try to get fans that can plug into the mother board fan headers, this way you can monitor them remotely with lm_sensors or equivalent.

    Server vs. desktop motherboards.
    One thing about a desktop board is that it may have numerous components that you don't need on a server (like sound, com ports, etc). Every component adds heat and provides another point of failure. So we always use true server motherboards.

    The Build.
    Make sure all drives are well seated. If you co-lo this, the rack the box goes into will have a lot of vibration. You don't want things rattling around. Also, remove any uncessary cables (e.g. floppy, cd-rom etc.). Use tie downs to keep cables well managed to maximize airflow.

    Case Mods:
    I have seen many newbie builders try to "improve" a case. If you buy a well designed case, it should not need improvement. Opening up holes or removing foam inserts etc. may disrupt airflow. If you get a case from a major vendor, you should consider that there are probably 10000's of other servers using the same case without modification.

    BIOS:
    If this is to run headless, don't forget to toggle the bios to ignore errors on boot. Also, make sure to set it to power on after power failure and setup CPU temp limits.


    Heatsinks:
    For CPU cooling I prefer to use a large copper passive cooler. If an actice cooler fails, your CPU will fry. Many of active heatsinks do not have correct fin orientation to permit much passive cooling. With a passive heatsink, you rely on the case fans for cooling. Since our cases always have at least 2 fans blowing over the cpu, we always have some cooling even if a fan fails.



    As for cases, I like the Supermicro SC811 series. Solidly built and has a range of prices.

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  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
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    Originally posted by huck
    Don't skimp on the case. The case needs to be rugged and the power supply should have good connectors on the back. I have seen cheap 1U psu's have issues with the fans and power connection area.
    I can't stress that point enough. Buy a quality chassis or you will have problems later on. Whether it’s a cooling issue or a power supply failure, you will end up spending more time and money in the end.
    "The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." - Albert Einstein

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Atlanta, Ga
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    lol I am sorry but... 2200 sempron on a 754 socket board with a socket a heatsink? ummmm how long have you been building computers again?

    Socket 754 Semprons start at 2800+
    754's do heat but not that much more than the Socket A's.
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  17. #17
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    Re: Bottom-line 1U for ~$300?

    Decide why you want to build a 1U server.  Is is space, money, or reliability?

    (One might think reliability given your current problem with drives)

    1U servers are not the right approach if you are trying to be frugal.  Stick with towers or mini-towers.

    For a reliable 1U server you must use an engineered system, not just a pile of parts you have bought on your own.

    Specifically, an "engineered system" means:

    Server-class motherboard, not a cheap desktop board jammed into sheetmetal sardine can.  Hint - server boards don't have audio jacks.  Most server boards don't have parallel printer ports either.

    Brand name chassis with certifications - manufacturer has paid for the mechanical, safety, and rfi testing to pass government and business regulatory authorities (UL, CSA, FCC, VDE, VCCI, etc.)  NOTE:  you might not care about the government stickers; it is the fact that in order to pass the mfgr must actually do some engineering and not just throw sheet metal into a vise and bend it into a rectangular case.

    Thermal engineering is the key and only as a complete system.  If you buy a bunch of parts, even good ones (motherboard, chassis, etc.) that have never been assembled and tested as a unit, then there is no thermal engineering.  That's why servers have very specific limited lists of certified parts/vendors -much more stringent than simply PC compatibility standards (if it boots, it works mentality)

    More venting is not always better. Counter-intuitively, you'll see that the well-engineered systems have thermal dams and airblocks carefully placed to limit and guide the airflow.  Cheap boxes just have lots of vents that let the cooler air escape before it ever runs over the hot components and actually does any good.

     

    Originally posted by Johntron
    ...The hard drives are failing...
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  18. #18
    Join Date
    Nov 2002
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    I completely agree with Spiv. Use name brand hardware, and you'll be good to go.
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