V600B New Build

Soldato
Joined
13 Jul 2005
Posts
19,348
Location
Norfolk, South Scotland
I've just built up this V600B as a mini-server and I'm sort of regretting it - gotcha's so far:

V600B1sm.jpg


V600B3sm.jpg


The Blue Orb I bought fouled the back of the case, so I've had to go with a Golden Orb - it's fine though as the processor is a stock P4 940

The HDD rack only takes 3 drives so I've had to fit one into the bottom 5.25" bay to give a 4 disk RAID 10 setup

I cannot find anywhere to hide all the cables so the interior looks like carp

It's running pretty hot - I was going to reverse the side fan and make the case positive pressure like my PC3-725 but you can't as it's a special fan so you can use the 'Patent' mechanism to adjust it left and right.

I might have to do my own 'Patent' modification to get a decent fan blowing some cool air in there front and back.

The sharp-eyed amongst you will notice that I am using the two gaming rigs 'Game Boy' and 'Game Girl' as a table to work on. I really should have more respect!
 
It'll be fine - I just have to fit it with a pair of YS-TECH FD1238's (both blowing in) and we'll be away.

For 1 HDD it would be fine. The best thing about it is how small it is.

And I would have posed it on top of the PC3-725, but it would have blocked the fans and everything would have gone pear-shaped and it's not pleasant seeing a grown man cry ;)
 
CaSh_MoNeY said:
Dude that looks a right mess :eek:

Just a thought, could the psu be turned the other way so hot air is being sucked away from the cpu area and out the rear?

Not sure if that would help as there cant be much airflow in the case now.

It is a right mess. But it's difficult to see how to tidy it up.

The PSU is oriented the correct way around as the 92mm orb cooler blows down - it would conflict with the 120mm fan in the PSU. The PSU runs very cool indeed though!

The real issue is that the fans are underpowered - they are lovely and quiet, but they move very little air. The more powerful YS-Techs will pressurize the case and there is ample exit venting to allow the air out.
 
Yewen said:
Then you have picked the wrong case for what you want to do with it!

Quite amazed with what you have fitted in there though, would never have considered more than two hard drives in that case.

That seems quite harsh - anyone can buy a server case and stuff it full of HDD. I prefer something a bit more stylish and not everyone wants a square box for a server.

And why did they supply 3 slots if it only has cooling for 2 HDD? The fact is that the HDD are not the issue - the problem is the poor cfm rating of the standard fans.

It just needs tweaking.
 
G7? I don't know that one. I'll have a quick look on the web site and see...

Ah - It's a PC-7 where they're ruined the airflow!

I think I'll give that one a bodyswerve actually ;)

I've got a rig out there with 6 HDD in a Silverstone '08 and no issues with heat at all. I built a 4 HDD system in an ASUS PH-1 case, again, no heat issues.

This V600 case definitely has cooling issues way beyond 4 HDD.
 
Raikiri said:
4 HDs in the smallest full ATX case I have seen... asking for trouble maybe? :p

Surely this isn't the smallest full ATX case you've seen? Most desktop cases are full ATX and they have much less spare airspace than this thing does. I think it's bigger than a PC-7! It's a normal tower case turned through 90 degrees so it's low and deep rather than tall and shallow. It's actually quite a big case, but they've wrecked the airflow somehow. 24 hours and some big, slightly louder fans will fix it.
 
CaSh_MoNeY said:
Yea sorry i wasn’t aiming that at you, i understand you dont have many options in there.

Modular PSU maybe? would give you some cable management at least.

I have to admit - I was expecting a bit more sympathy :rolleyes: - but yes, I'll try it with a Hiper in there. I'm hacksawing 0.1" off of one side of the Blue Orb at the moment so it will fit - I think having a 120mm fan will make a big difference to the airflow over the surface of the motherboard.
 
The system is a P4 940 so it would be expected to run a bit hotter than your Athlon 64.

I also have 4 Hitachi 7200rpm HDD running in RAID 10 off an Adaptec hardware SATA RAID card.

The graphics card is a passively cooled Nvidia 6200.

I think one key factor you may be missing is that I am deliberately stress testing this system so I have been running 2 threads of folding at home and I am running a batch script that repeatedly executes a search of a large zip file on the HDD subsystem. I also have the Air Conditioning turned off so it's about 35C in here with 6 PCs running. In other words it's not your average office/games PC situation!

Anyway - after 12 hours running flat out the case temperature is 38C, the processor temperature is 63C (from the CPU diode) and 57C (direct measurement off the base of the cooler) and the graphics card heatsink temperature is 75C. The PWM heatsink temperature is 65C. The HDD shells are 40C, which I would expect as they are sat in front of a fan.

I did try the PSU oriented around the way you suggested, but the CPU temperature increased by another 5C and the PSU case temperature went from 30C to 50C, which is way too high for a key component like a PSU.

As a guide - every temperature in this case (apart from the CPU) is 10C higher than an equivalent system running in an Eclipse with 3 YS-Tech fans.
 
The room temperature was a steady 35C (I do have AC in my home office as I have so many PCs in there it would otherwise be unbearable) and the AC was turned off.

I now have swapped the 2 120mm Lian-Li fans (1 inlet, 1 extraction) with 2 Thermaltake Thunderblades. Just by feel I reckon the Lian-Li's were about 50-60cfm/min and the Thunderblades are quoted at 84cfm. They certainly feel markedly more powerful. Both fans now blow inwards. The processor temperature has dropped 7C, the case temperature has dropped 10C and the PWM temperature has dropped 15C! I have 2 YS-Tech 125cfm fans coming tomorrow and they will hopefully give me a bit more, for not a lot more noise.

In addition my 'mod' which involves using 4 Acousti-mounts to fix the 'patent' fan to the mounting bracket means it can be slid about at will, which is much easier than the 4 thumbscrew solution supplied by Lian-Li.
 
p0rks0da said:
Weird i would have thought having 2 fans blowing into the case without anything pulling out would have made the problem worse, just goes to show. Glad you're getting a better result anyhow.

There are so many holes in the case that the air is forced out all over the place. It's practically the perfect positive pressure case.
 
I don't know what CPU cooler you are using, but I'm using the Thermaltake Blue Orb with a bit cut off to get it to fit and a 120mm fan blowing downwards really does mix things up at board level.

I am significantly happier now - and it'll just get better when the 125cfm YS-Techs arrive.
 
Yewen said:
Looking at the case, it does not seem to have anything that could cause otherwise, but do you think that dust will be the same as on a v1000?

Can not see any new ways for it to get into the case so it should be ok; worth asking. :)

I've just fitted a second Thermaltake Thunderblade to the patent holder in a pull : pull configuration and I cannot lay a piece of paper on the top of case, the air bleed is so strong. Temps have also dropped another 2-3 degrees all round.

I'm going to fit felt filters (try saying that after 2 litres of strong Slovakian "Kelt" beer) to each so I can't see any dust issues to be honest as everywhere else, air is leaving the case.
 
Yeah - I would really recommend it now that I've got the cooling sorted. I've even started tidying up the cabling now - it'll never be 'properly' tidy though.

The only problem I have now is that I have to hand it over to it's real owner on Thursday :(
 
Ok - for those who wanted to see it when it was tidied up;

With the Lian-Li steathed drive covers on

V600BV22sm.jpg


I finally got the Blue Orb in there (orbital grinder is my new best friend!) so it now runs properly cool. (50C CPU socket temp under load)

And it's a little bit tidier :rolleyes:

V600BV21sm.jpg
 
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I was a bit P.O'd about the drive bay covers as the one on the Koolance the chassis holes line up with the upper (bigger) hole where as on this the case holes line up with the lower (much smaller) of the two holes. So I drilled them out and it fits fine. Not what I expect from Lian-Li though.
 
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