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Haven Game Server MkIV
Current Server Upgrade done! 4.5 GHz Overclocked Quad Core NWN2 Server! w/RevoDrive X2 SSD! W00t!
Introducing the Mark IV, the fourth iteration of the haven game server. (Actually brief moments when it ran on other computers.)
Should be the most powerful, fastest NWN2 Server on the planet.
Running with 78 people on and almost no lag! Most populous NWN2 Server! (At this moment anyway, others may have seen higher peaks, although that's higher than most server's cap.)
Accepting donations at paypal: barfubaz ( at ) methean.com. See Haven Server Fund
Made an outlay recently and still have some bits and do-dads to purchase, so additional donations are welcome. Have started ordering components on a sweet new game server system. Spent most of the money in Paypal donation account (thank you to the recent donors, you know who you are), then over $1000 on my credit card. I think all told this beast was close to $3k.
Danger Den watercooled case. (My first time watercooling, so want a kit and good instruction manual, heh)
Waterbox Plus
Waterbox Plus Kit
ASUS Rampage III Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
EK ASUS Rampage III Extreme Full Board Cooling Block Kit
G.SKILL Perfect Storm 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17066) Desktop Memory Model F3-17066CL9T-6GBPS
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro RSA00-AMBAJ3-US 1000W (Probably could have gotten away with 750W, but hey the price was not much different)
Already have an Intel Hex Core i7 980 Extreme chip to power it. (Update: Ended up using a 975X for now since it's reputed to be a bit less sensitive to burning out with higher voltages.) We'll see what overclocking level we can get it to sit stable at. Hoping for around 4.5 GHz (Update: Success! 4.5 GHz achieved!). should be able to do at least 4.2. (Yes I know the 995X just came out, probably isn't worth spending a thousand on for the small difference.)
Current server is going to become the DB and ADL server (and maybe web).
Have decided on Pump (lowest point) -> CPU Block -> Chipset Block -> Reservoir (Highest Point) -> Radiator -> Pump intake
Ideally I think res would be last, but I think since that necessitate an additional crossing from the upper deck to the lower and back, it would be suboptimal.
Okay, it doesn't say so in the teansy manual, but the pump needs the fan speed connector plugged into a motherboard. Had to rope in another computer to get that working in my pre-build flow tests.
Haven Server Fund
Haven (Server)
Haven Game Server MkIII
Haven Game Server MkII
Haven Game Server MkI
Introducing the Mark IV, the fourth iteration of the haven game server. (Actually brief moments when it ran on other computers.)
Should be the most powerful, fastest NWN2 Server on the planet.
Running with 78 people on and almost no lag! Most populous NWN2 Server! (At this moment anyway, others may have seen higher peaks, although that's higher than most server's cap.)
Accepting donations at paypal: barfubaz ( at ) methean.com. See Haven Server Fund
Made an outlay recently and still have some bits and do-dads to purchase, so additional donations are welcome. Have started ordering components on a sweet new game server system. Spent most of the money in Paypal donation account (thank you to the recent donors, you know who you are), then over $1000 on my credit card. I think all told this beast was close to $3k.
Build Notes
Danger Den watercooled case. (My first time watercooling, so want a kit and good instruction manual, heh)
Waterbox Plus
Waterbox Plus Kit
ASUS Rampage III Extreme LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
EK ASUS Rampage III Extreme Full Board Cooling Block Kit
G.SKILL Perfect Storm 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133 (PC3 17066) Desktop Memory Model F3-17066CL9T-6GBPS
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro RSA00-AMBAJ3-US 1000W (Probably could have gotten away with 750W, but hey the price was not much different)
Already have an Intel Hex Core i7 980 Extreme chip to power it. (Update: Ended up using a 975X for now since it's reputed to be a bit less sensitive to burning out with higher voltages.) We'll see what overclocking level we can get it to sit stable at. Hoping for around 4.5 GHz (Update: Success! 4.5 GHz achieved!). should be able to do at least 4.2. (Yes I know the 995X just came out, probably isn't worth spending a thousand on for the small difference.)
Current server is going to become the DB and ADL server (and maybe web).
Waterflow
Have decided on Pump (lowest point) -> CPU Block -> Chipset Block -> Reservoir (Highest Point) -> Radiator -> Pump intake
Ideally I think res would be last, but I think since that necessitate an additional crossing from the upper deck to the lower and back, it would be suboptimal.
Note
Okay, it doesn't say so in the teansy manual, but the pump needs the fan speed connector plugged into a motherboard. Had to rope in another computer to get that working in my pre-build flow tests.
See Also
Haven Server Fund
Haven (Server)
Haven Game Server MkIII
Haven Game Server MkII
Haven Game Server MkI
Tags: Comments
Mon, 2011-03-28 10:18
#1
Update: Spent much of yesterday working on this (after I ended up in the office on other matters), managed to recruit a coworker to help on this.
Big task was to mount the flooded heatsinks on the motherboard without draining and removing them from the loop. We had drained the reservoir a little so that we could unscrew the top and remove the case lid for more room (with a turkey baster in the res, heh).
Careful work placing thermal pads in preparation for the waterblock placement. The chipset waterblock was very much an added level difficulty, but from all I've read will be needed with the overclocked RAM.
Tricky. Managed to work out some procedures different from the instructions to allow us to do this. Small squares of scotch tape affixing the screws to the back of the motherboard with washers and spacers in place. (The instructions would have us "gluing" the plastic spacers to the chipset block with thermal paste, which sounded insanely difficult to avoid dislodging at least one of the seven while we placed the waterblock.) Pulled off tape carefully before screwing them in (no pics of this since there where all hands on mobo during this procedure). All of the slack I put into the cooling system was needed, glad I didn't make it tighter.
We did get a slight leak as all the handling unscrewed a fitting, on the chipset heatsink. But that was quickly fixed.
Chipset heatsink in place. CPU heatsink in place. Motherboard screwed in place... graphics card had to have a screw removed before being pushed into place (annoying) and then replaced, and memory in place with mem fan. Declared victory for the day.
This marks the completion of the most difficult work that we where largely unused to. Today may get time to wire things up to the internal power supply and get things nailed down.
Still to come beyond wiring is: BIOS updates (known to be required), some burn in testing and finding stable overclock settings. HDD & SSD installation. Completing case assembly, including some custom work on the reservoir mount and adding an additional case fan. OS installation and finally NWServer set up.
Big task was to mount the flooded heatsinks on the motherboard without draining and removing them from the loop. We had drained the reservoir a little so that we could unscrew the top and remove the case lid for more room (with a turkey baster in the res, heh).
Careful work placing thermal pads in preparation for the waterblock placement. The chipset waterblock was very much an added level difficulty, but from all I've read will be needed with the overclocked RAM.
Tricky. Managed to work out some procedures different from the instructions to allow us to do this. Small squares of scotch tape affixing the screws to the back of the motherboard with washers and spacers in place. (The instructions would have us "gluing" the plastic spacers to the chipset block with thermal paste, which sounded insanely difficult to avoid dislodging at least one of the seven while we placed the waterblock.) Pulled off tape carefully before screwing them in (no pics of this since there where all hands on mobo during this procedure). All of the slack I put into the cooling system was needed, glad I didn't make it tighter.
We did get a slight leak as all the handling unscrewed a fitting, on the chipset heatsink. But that was quickly fixed.
Chipset heatsink in place. CPU heatsink in place. Motherboard screwed in place... graphics card had to have a screw removed before being pushed into place (annoying) and then replaced, and memory in place with mem fan. Declared victory for the day.
This marks the completion of the most difficult work that we where largely unused to. Today may get time to wire things up to the internal power supply and get things nailed down.
Still to come beyond wiring is: BIOS updates (known to be required), some burn in testing and finding stable overclock settings. HDD & SSD installation. Completing case assembly, including some custom work on the reservoir mount and adding an additional case fan. OS installation and finally NWServer set up.
Mon, 2011-03-28 14:51
#2
looks awesome!
Mon, 2011-03-28 18:47
#3
Update:
- Wired up initial fans, pumps and MoBo
- First Boot, and running well under its own power.
- Overclocking early tests are good, Mem overclocked well, CPU is running overlocked to 4.2 GHz (using BIOS easy overclock settings) and still under 50C (well, peaked at 50C).
- BIOS Upgrade finished
Tue, 2011-03-29 19:38
#4
Update:
- C:RevoDrive X2 100GB Installed
- Velociraptor 300GB Installed (For vitual mem and backups), was doing a lowlevel format as I left.
- Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit installed and updated.
- Drivers, etc. Installed Asus Tools
- Android App for bluetooth overclocking installed. (I know, wtf? But hey that's pretty cool, I can monitor the MoBo's temps and tweak settings from my android phone. geekpoints++)
- Some tweaking to go and still haven't closed up the box, but getting pretty exciting.
Fri, 2011-04-01 15:11
#5
Had a scare yesterday, lost ability to boot afer a crash.
Turns out it switched to a backup BIOS after the crash and this second BIOS had not been upgraded to deal with the SSD. Fixed and secondary BIOS is now updated.
Am having some trouble getting good stability with both Mem and CPU overclocked together. Takes time figuring out all these myriad of settings and combinations.
Have gotten busy again on other things as well.
Turns out it switched to a backup BIOS after the crash and this second BIOS had not been upgraded to deal with the SSD. Fixed and secondary BIOS is now updated.
Am having some trouble getting good stability with both Mem and CPU overclocked together. Takes time figuring out all these myriad of settings and combinations.
Have gotten busy again on other things as well.
Mon, 2011-04-11 15:24
#6
Did some work on this recently.
Swapped CPUs: my home 975x for the Mark IV's 980x (gawd was that a bitch), hoping one of them would show "lucky numbers", can get up to 4.0GHZ and stay pretty stable but was hoping for more.
Am doing research on more esoteric BIOS settings.
Swapped CPUs: my home 975x for the Mark IV's 980x (gawd was that a bitch), hoping one of them would show "lucky numbers", can get up to 4.0GHZ and stay pretty stable but was hoping for more.
Am doing research on more esoteric BIOS settings.
Thu, 2011-04-14 14:50
#7
Finally getting some overclocks worth posting about.
After doing a ton of research, I found that the easy overclock guides tip of just increasing the CPU Multiplier, only net you up to a mere 4.0 GHz or so. I could get around 29-30x133 for around 4 GHz.
Lowering the multiplier and increasing the BClock got me much higher overclocking. (26 Mulitplier and x 133 Mhz BClock is stock).
Got 4.5 GHz and change on the Core i7 975 Extreme by running 27x167Mhz . Memory needed to stay a little low at just over 1600 Mhz.
Had to also turn hyper-theading off. Fiddle with a bunch of settings in the BIOS to do this.
In my stress tests did get kinda hot mostly in the mid 80s to mid 90s Celsius (nearly reached for the kill switch at the 100C peak), but stayed stable with no crash. I think I can improve the cooling a smidge. We'll see how hard NWN2 pushes it. Would like to keep it in the 70s for a server. Idles at 50-60. May have to back off 1 or 2 on the BClock to keep it cool enough.
- Bar
After doing a ton of research, I found that the easy overclock guides tip of just increasing the CPU Multiplier, only net you up to a mere 4.0 GHz or so. I could get around 29-30x133 for around 4 GHz.
Lowering the multiplier and increasing the BClock got me much higher overclocking. (26 Mulitplier and x 133 Mhz BClock is stock).
Got 4.5 GHz and change on the Core i7 975 Extreme by running 27x167Mhz . Memory needed to stay a little low at just over 1600 Mhz.
Had to also turn hyper-theading off. Fiddle with a bunch of settings in the BIOS to do this.
In my stress tests did get kinda hot mostly in the mid 80s to mid 90s Celsius (nearly reached for the kill switch at the 100C peak), but stayed stable with no crash. I think I can improve the cooling a smidge. We'll see how hard NWN2 pushes it. Would like to keep it in the 70s for a server. Idles at 50-60. May have to back off 1 or 2 on the BClock to keep it cool enough.
- Bar
Tue, 2011-04-19 20:37
#8
Finished assembly and racked the beast today.
Also finished some work on getting some base services needed for admin ready, moving forward.
- Bar
Also finished some work on getting some base services needed for admin ready, moving forward.
- Bar
Sun, 2011-05-29 18:32
#9
More figures for ya. Tagged 55 online with 22 in the main area of sharessia... No lag.
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