Passive cooler for G2 (rPGA988b)

[yaxattax]

I'm just providing a little update on this.

I've got my gear and I've assembled it. The heatsink/fan assembley was a bit of a nightmare, and I ended up using a bit of acrylic to adapt the 50mm fan mount of the heatsink to the 80mm fan mount of the fan adaptor. The following picture shows the arrangement with the acrylic adaptor I crafted circled in red:

http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/6430/serverxn.jpg

I've managed to assemble the lot, although that fan adaptor arrangement obscured the DC-DC power supply from fitting in the ATX power slot, so I had to buy an ATX cable extender and then use cable ties to prevent the DC-DC power supply from being able to touch anything metallic and shorting. Theres also only just enough clearance for the actual fan cable to slot into its place in the motherboard, and if I want to remove the fan, I actually have to remove the motherboard, then the entire assembley, and take it apart piece by piece.

I've managed to power on and have a fiddle in the BIOS. No fan control as noted, but it does not run at full speed, only 900 RPM, and if that proves to be too loud I believe I can control the fan speed from within Linux so I am not too bothered. The BIOS reports the CPU temp as "low" .. which doesn't mean a lot but at least its not critical, and the cooling arrangement hopefully should be sufficient. Once I've got an operating system on it, I will load test it and then I'll know for sure. Before I do that, I need to make one more physical modification so that the DC input power adaptor is secure, at the moment it is completely loose and I am not happy about that.

 

[yaxattax]

Sorry for the multiposting.

Some updates:

Got it running in 24/7 setup now (apart from reboots while I administer and install everything). Tonight will be the first night I run it, but I'm sure the fan will be essentially inaudible, although in the dark of night the tiniest sounds have the tendency to be striking. The PWM on the motherboard seems to be working quite effectively as I can barely hear it and I can hear a change in tone when I put it under load. Unfortunately for me I cannot control the fan speed, no pwm controller is visible to the OS. Maybe thats by design, but its a shame. If I have real issues with heating, I can throttle the CPU.

So far, I've run a few quick tests, usually a few minutes is good enough to see what kind of temps the setup will hit:

4 core load @ turbo speed (3.00GHz) - 75 degrees celcius (65W at the wall)
4 core load @ normal speed (2.20GHz) - 65 degrees celcius (45W at the wall)
4 core load @ 800MHz - 55 degrees celcius (21W at the wall)
1 core load @ turbo speed (3.30GHz) - 70 degrees for 1 core, 40-55 others (37W at the wall)

I'm reasonably pleased with those temps, although its not hot weather at the moment, will be interesting to see how the cooling does in higher ambient temperatures. The whole system is somewhat performance overkill, so depending on how well the virtual machines perform, and whether I have temp problems, I might cut the cpu frequency down - I did intend to disable turbo so I should probably at least do that.

It draws 14W idle at the wall, and I'm dead chuffed with that - comparable with an atom system, except it will perform a whole load better when it needs to. Overall I think this makes the hard work worth it. For those who are waiting for ivybridge, one can reasonably expect even lower power consumption, as the ivybridge seems to be geared at maintaining the same performance with a smaller thermal budget - less wasted heat is less power consumption.

I don't know what speeds the fan is running at, as nothing seems to available to report it (although I might find out otherwise later on), but I know it is not fast - when I set the same ones to 600RPM in my main rig, they are louder than my server still. I don't know what kind of airflow is moving through the setup, but it seems adequate. I can't help but wonder if a large fanless heatsink could have done the job.

 

[lsv]

4 core i7 45w? What is this black magic? :O

 

[yaxattax]

This is the black magic:

http://ark.intel.com/products/50067/Intel-Core-i7-2720QM-Processor-(6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz)

Interestingly, telling the bios to disable cores does not change idle power load - still 14W idle at the wall.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

This is the black magic:

http://ark.intel.com/products/50067/Intel-Core-i7-2720QM-Processor-(6M-Cache-up-to-3_30-GHz)

Interestingly, telling the bios to disable cores does not change idle power load - still 14W idle at the wall.

Its a laptop CPU -____-

 

[yaxattax]

Its a laptop CPU -____-

What gave it away?

 

[sammysmalls]

To anyone thats interested,

I have an X9SCV-Q in a small case and I can confirm its damned hard to keep the CPU cool. I have an i7 2.7GHz 2620m ES and unless I have a case fan it trips the overheat alarm. Speedfan tells me that it gets to 98C. Thats hot. A case fan keeps everything manageable, but thats the bit that generates the noise. I have a near silent fan on the CPU cooler. I'm just trying to find the quietest case fan I can.

This is the case I'm using http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/APU-Compu...nd_Vision_Amplifier_Parts&hash=item2ebd30c607


Just as a sidenote, I think the Jetway board is probably a better bet unless you want to use the board for a server. There are no fan controls for three pin fans, and everything is focused on it being as robust as possible. Its a solid board and the best thing is that the Supermicro will run VMware ESXi 4 and 5 with no hacking of the kernel.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers

Doug.

 

[yaxattax]

Hi Doug,

I'd have liked a case like that actually, but I am glad I didn't (but it does look VERY nice) - my 120mm fan mounted onto the stock heatsink always keeps the system below 75 degrees, and I've got 4pin PWM fans. I think in general you are right that it depends on the application, and I would definitely recommend 4pin fans to go with the X9SCV-Q.

Its good to hear that VMware is doing well there - I chose xen and I have nothing short of a pile of nightmares so far, mostly due to the fact that the mainboard is EFI boot only with no option to revert to legacy BIOS. In fact the server is currently in an unbootable state, due to my latest round of fiddling

Cheers,

Yax

 

[Primergy]

It has been a while, sorry.

I (ab)used an old Swiftech (MCXC370) socket-A cooler. The base was left unmodified and fits just barely! The holes meant for mounting the original fan lined up almost perfectly. Since the copper is really thick, I first widened the existing holes to the diameter for the screws I wanted to use (aligning the holes 100% at the same time), then I drilled a bigger hole 2/3 down for the tightening springs. In the process the cooler lost a few rods because the bigger holes collided with their holes.
All work was done with a small $50 used bench-top drill press from Craigslist.

Not pictured:
My case uses a 120mm fan in the back with grille. I was able to snap an older Intel cooler (4pin) in there in a 90deg angle so it hovering perfectly center over the cooler. (1100rpm idle, 1700rpm under max load-Turbo )
I was not able to go past 72degC with this setup.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55582675@N08/7366655372/sizes/l
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55582675@N08/7366655448/sizes/l
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55582675@N08/7181428051/sizes/l

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Ghetto

 

[Primergy]

Ghetto

Not every project is an art contest. Cooler fits & works.
Might look nicer if I remove the same amount of rods from each corner, make them all look the same.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Ghetto but it works.

You have a nice sense of creativity.

 

[yaxattax]

It has been a while, sorry.

I (ab)used an old Swiftech (MCXC370) socket-A cooler. The base was left unmodified and fits just barely! The holes meant for mounting the original fan lined up almost perfectly. Since the copper is really thick, I first widened the existing holes to the diameter for the screws I wanted to use (aligning the holes 100% at the same time), then I drilled a bigger hole 2/3 down for the tightening springs. In the process the cooler lost a few rods because the bigger holes collided with their holes.
All work was done with a small $50 used bench-top drill press from Craigslist.

Not pictured:
My case uses a 120mm fan in the back with grille. I was able to snap an older Intel cooler (4pin) in there in a 90deg angle so it hovering perfectly center over the cooler. (1100rpm idle, 1700rpm under max load-Turbo )
I was not able to go past 72degC with this setup.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55582675@N08/7366655372/sizes/l
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55582675@N08/7366655448/sizes/l
http://www.flickr.com/photos/55582675@N08/7181428051/sizes/l

Very nice work! Its better than my cooler with plastic hanging out everywhere and I'm a little concerned that my fan hangs rather far away.

How long did the job take you?

 

[Primergy]

Very nice work! Its better than my cooler with plastic hanging out everywhere and I'm a little concerned that my fan hangs rather far away.

How long did the job take you?

Thanks, I think drilling was done in ~1hr. Had to be careful not to drill the holes for the springs too deep on the side with the step / less thickness on the underside.