ZEUS (Fractal R4 | blue/black | internal UT60 Rad) - by alpenwasser

alpenwasser · Apr 23, 2013

[COMPLETE] ZEUS (Fractal R4 | blue/black | internal UT60 Rad) - by alpenwasser

[size=+2]Table of Contents[/size]

[size=+2]Prologue[/size]

For those few who have actually read the entire introductory novella for HELIOS, don't worry,
this won't be nearly as long

.

The purpose of this rig will be to serve as our new server/HTPC and possibly do some BOINC
computing. It will be placed in our living room in a sideboard, which is why it's not in a bigger
case.

[size=+2]The Name[/size]

Zwieback Exceeding Useful Specifications.

Because: Why not? Zwieback is a hilarious word, and in English doubly so :lol:
(I don't know why I think that, I just do.)

[size=+2]Main PC Guts[/size]

M/B: MSI Z77A-GD65
CPU: Intel i7 2600k
RAM: TBD
GPU: Onboard
SSD: Intel 335 60 GB
HDD's: 4 x WD RE4 2 TB
HDD's: 3 x WD Red 3 TB
PSU: BeQuiet 550 W
Case: Fractal Design R4 w/ window side panel

One thing missing here is a dedicated audio card. I will be running the optical SPDIF
from the M/B to a Denon AVR-4308. The rig will mainly be used for watching movies,
so it does not require the best of the best with regards to audio. If sound quality does
indeed prove to be lacking (my dad is quite the audiophile, so he will surely inform me
of that), I can always add it later, using a flexible PCI-E riser card (see below for why
that would be necessary).

[size=+2]W/C Parts[/size]

CPU Block: EK Supreme HF Acetal/Copper
Pump: Aquacomputer Aquastream Standard
Res: Aquacomputer Aquainlet blue anodized
Rad Fans: 3 x SP120 quiet
Radiator: Alphacool NexXxos UT60 360 mm

[size=+2]Modding[/size]

The R4 is quite a roomy case and would have ample room for an internal 360 radiator in
60 mm thickness with some minor modifications to the front. However, since seven
HDD's take up quite a bit of room, that's not an option.

Therefore, I will be replacing the entire back side of the case with a custom panel
modded to fit the radiator (next to the back I/O panel). Since I won't need any add-on
cards, besides possibly an audio card (see above), this should work nicely.

[size=+2]Pictures[/size]

As with HELIOS, I will be hosting the pics on my server, hyperlinking each picture
in my posts to its full resolution version.

To get a custom resolution, for whichever reason, use:

Code:

http://www.alpenwasser.net/images/imagename.extension/w000/h000/

Where w000 and h000 are the desired width and height in pixels (you do need
the preceeding "h" and/or "w" though). It's sufficient to use one of the two. If
you use both, the image will be resized proportionally and the pixel values given
will be treated as maxima.

Tripp · Apr 23, 2013

nice man didnt think you would be starting another project, so soon i look forward to seeing how this turns out

The Orange One · Apr 23, 2013

Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

alpenwasser · Apr 23, 2013

Tripp said:
nice man didnt think you would be starting another project, so soon i look forward to seeing how this turns out

Haha, yeah I will actually be doing three builds more or less concurrently. However, this one
and the third one will either mostly be parts which I have cannibalized from my previous ZEUS
(see the HELIOS log for a few shots of that) or for which my dad has paid. After all, this one
will be a machine for all residents of our apartment (I paid for the HDD's and the W/C for the
most part though), and the third PC will be dad's new office machine.

So I'm not swimming in money or anything, it's just a general upgrading of our apartment's
IT infrastructure, hence everything more or less at the same time.

The Orange One said:
Looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

Thanks!

pcjunkie429 · Apr 23, 2013

Subbed. The rear-mounted 360 rad mod sounds interesting. Can't wait to see how this turns out. :notworthy: :lol: :boink:

Cheers, AW. :beerchug: :downit:

UkGouki · Apr 23, 2013

subbed looking forward to the pics and the inevitable updates of awesome hardware

Volume · Apr 23, 2013

I'm looking forward to this! Subbed

alpenwasser · Apr 23, 2013

Starting the New Back Panel: Drilling for Insanity

[size=+2]Starting the New Back Panel[/size]

The Case

I'm sure all of you have seen an R4 before, so I won't be posting pics of it in its stock form.
Here it is after removal of the back panel.

The Back Panel

The old back panel out of its natural habitat.

Rivets

A few rivets had to be sacrificed for the greater good

Paint Jobs

Ah yes, the happy coincidence of this build

The new back panel will be made from the Caselabs SMH10's bottom plate. I have replaced
the stock bottom plate in my SMH10 for HELIOS with a meshed version, so this one is no
longer needed. It has the perfect width for this and is high enough (the unneeded height will
be cut off, naturally).

Besides the good dimensional fit, the Caselabs bottom panel also has a very nice powdercoat
job that matches the R4's very nicely. Not that this will ever be seen (placed in a sideboard),
but it's still nice to have this matching.

Dimensions

As mentioned above, perfect width.

Tape

Low adhesion tape. Sadly it is not available here in a wider version, but this will do nicely.

Edges

Starting the tape job at the edges.

Corners

And the corners.

First Tape Layer

The first tape layer completed. Over this will come a second layer since this one alone does
not provide very good protection against mechanical damage during drilling work.

Second Tape Layer

The second layer serves as the main protection from mechanical damage.

Radiator - Corner Bolts

First I drilled the corner holes for bolting the radiator to the panel.

Mesh Pattern

Here it is: The masochist inside me has spoken :lol:
Instead of going the usual route of just dremelling (or jig-sawing) out the opening for the radiator,
I've decided to go a different path and "simply" make the relevant part of the new panel into
mesh by drilling lots and lots and lots and lots of wholes. :crazy:

I made a pattern which I printed onto sheets of paper and then taped onto the panel. This
served as a reference for drilling the wholes.

For those interested: Pattern Link (pdf)

For different spacings you can easily scale the pdf up or down.

Anyway, on to the work:

Overlay

Since the radiator is longer than a sheet of A4, I needed to compose the pattern from several
sheets of paper (well, two).

Red Zone

The red zone denotes where I should not drill :lol:

Drilling - Start

I soon realized that I would have to overlay the entire paper with a protective sheet of adhesive
tape. It just tore up too easily. Should have used adhesive paper.

Nooo! :cussing:

Right before the finishing line of phase 1, the drill bit broke! Aaargh!

Phase 1 Complete

After about four hours of drilling (ouch, my wrist

):

Phase 1 Complete - Naked

And without the tape. Clearly I have made some mistakes, but it's not screwed up too badly.
Since nobody will ever get to see this anyway once the rig is in service, it doesn't matter
that much if it's not perfect (although my pride would certainly have liked that :lol: ).

I have not yet counted the wholes. The bigger and smaller wholes are from where I had to
improvise due to the best suited drill bit breaking.

What's Next

Making the entire mesh to the correct hole size and fixing mistakes where possible.
Deburring those holes.
Painting them black.
Making the mounting rails for fixing the new panel to the actual case structure.

That's it for today, I have to go hold my wrist into some warm chamomile solution :lol:

pcjunkie429 · Apr 24, 2013

IMO, that would've came out better if you'd just cut the big hole for the rad out, then put some modder's mesh or a rad grill behind it. Like you said, no one will see it anyway, but you still would prefer it to look good.

.

alpenwasser · Apr 24, 2013

pcjunkie429 said:
IMO, that would've came out better if you'd just cut the big hole for the rad out, then put some modder's mesh or a rad grill behind it. Like you said, no one will see it anyway, but you still would prefer it to look good. .

Haha, but that would have been too easy :lol:

Seriously though, it will look a lot better when it's finished, I promise. Some of the holes will
still be slightly off, but it will be a lot more difficult to tell because they will be painted black
on their edges and their inside surfaces, and the radiator on the other side will also be black.
Also, I will give them a nice cleaning and deburring. At the moment they just really stand out
because of the naked alu and the white background behind the plate.

But I thought I'd post some progress pics along the way to give a better impression of the
working process. After all, it's sort of anticlimactic to just see the end result imho. Besides,
I can always dremel the whole thing out if I'm not happy with the end result, that option has
not gone out the window yet. But I wanted to give this a serious try because I really like the
idea of having the mesh integrated into the panel's structure (that's just the mechanical
engineer inside me :lol: ).

Sir-Weasel · Apr 25, 2013

I think the greek god's and titans will be proud of ZEUS :lol

when its done ofcourse)

And this rig will be the ruler of them all ( the oder god's and titans that is )
And he will rule over all your storage and he will keept it safe at all costs :lol:

( this picture is from age of empires ( the nostalgia

))

alpenwasser · Apr 25, 2013

Sir-Weasel said:
And he will rule over all your storage and he will keept it safe at all costs :lol:

He bloody well better, it was expensive enough. :lol:
Although I did buy the RE4's right before the Thailand floods, so the prices I got for them
were actually lower than current ones for their successor (or the RE4 itself, which is still
sold here). But still, enterprise drives cost a #%!@load!

Sir-Weasel said:
( this picture is from age of empires ( the nostalgia ))

Oh yes, the nostalgia. I only ever got to play the demo for various reasons, but even with that
I had tons of fun. Might have to go play the high-def version if I get the time over summer.

Thanks for the support!

Zoot · Apr 26, 2013

That's a pretty overpowered HTPC, in CPU terms anyway. The one I put together recently for example was based around an AMD A4-5300 in comparison.

What OS are you planning on using?

alpenwasser · Apr 26, 2013

Zoot said:
That's a pretty overpowered HTPC, in CPU terms anyway. The one I put together recently for example was based around an AMD A4-5300 in comparison.

Yes it is indeed. That's because I will be running BOINC on it (or maybe F@H), so the computing
power will not go to waste (it's also the main reason for the custom water loop, not really
needed for a "reasonable" HTPC or server setup

).

Zoot said:
What OS are you planning on using?

Probably Arch Linux. I've had pretty good experiences with their VPN setup guide and suite.
And since I've been using the O/S for about two years now I'm pretty familiar and comfortable
with it. Interestingly, despite the constant warnings about cutting edge software and the
stability of rolling release distros (another thing I like about Arch, much more suited to my
preferences than fixed release styles, but that's really just a matter of personal taste for me),
I have in those two years only once had an update bork up a machine so that I had to
reinstall (or rather: reinstallation was the quickest way to solve the problem as opposed to
hours of trying to fix it other ways).

This machine will also serve as our VPN server for personal stuff and business for my dad's
and my own data (well, my backups and his main data repository). My dad is self-employed
and often works from clients' offices or his g/f's apartment, so having access to one
centralized data repository without having to constantly sync between his laptop and his
desktop(s) should make his life considerably easier.

And for me it will be mostly about having a backup repository of my data.

I will probably use SSHFS to mount the server's drives and partitions on my own machine.
It's really convenient and a lot easier to set up than NFS, for example. And since it's very
easy to use there's a lot fewer possibilities to make mistakes with regards to security,
which with me not being an expert is also a big plus.

If I get really adventurous, I might use FreeBSD, with which I've been experimenting since
last fall. The main advantage of that would be ZFS, which is absolutely awesome (especially
for a server). I'm nowhere near to being able to really utilize its potential, but even with the
little I've learnt about it so far it's already rather magnificent. Main drawback: SSHFS has
a bug which produces a segfault after a very short while (as of last month), so I could not
use that, and I haven't been able to get NFS to reliably work between my Linux machines
and FreeBSD yet, so that would be a major source of headaches.

I know that you can use ZFS with Linux, but those solutions just don't seem stable enough
yet, and I really don't feel like putting my dad's business data in the hands of beta software

(nor my own, to be hones).

I will probably first install FreeBSD and see if I can get the VPN stuff to work as easily as
with Arch, then check how SSHFS behaves. If all is good, I'll probably start converting my
ext4 Linux HDD's into a nice ZFS pool, because ZFS would be really nice for a server, with
it being able to take snapshots of your FS and stuff.

If it doesn't work, I'll install Arch. The only thing I'd really miss is ZFS, and it's not like ext4
hasn't been working for me (although ZFS would be really nice :wub: ).

For those who are into this sort of thing, the software side of this build will probably turn
out more interesting than the hardware stuff tbh.

mehere · Apr 27, 2013

^too deep for me

on/off button, games , mail and facebook and I'm done

alpenwasser · Apr 27, 2013

mehere said:
^too deep for me on/off button, games , mail and facebook and I'm done

Haha, don't worry, I won't judge you for that :lol:

Operating systems (especially the UNIX kind) are just something I'm interested in, and if
you're willing to invest some time to read up on stuff there's some pretty awesome things
you can do with/on them.

But I'm aware this isn't everybody's cup of tea, and I think that's perfectly ok

Zoot · Apr 27, 2013

alpenwasser said:
Yes it is indeed. That's because I will be running BOINC on it (or maybe F@H), so the computing
power will not go to waste (it's also the main reason for the custom water loop, not really
needed for a "reasonable" HTPC or server setup ).

Even then the water cooling is probably overkill.

alpenwasser said:
Probably Arch Linux. I've had pretty good experiences with their VPN setup guide and suite. And since I've been using the O/S for about two years now I'm pretty familiar and comfortable with it. Interestingly, despite the constant warnings about cutting edge software and the stability of rolling release distros (another thing I like about Arch, much more suited to my preferences than fixed release styles, but that's really just a matter of personal taste for me).

Out of curiousity, would Arch be a "bit bleeding" edge for a server? Would you be better off with something like CentOS or my friend - Debian Stable?

alpenwasser said:
If I get really adventurous, I might use FreeBSD, with which I've been experimenting since last fall.

I haven't ever tried FreeBSD. Although I see Debian has a branch with the FreeBSD kernel. It might be an OS to tinker with on my AMD Sempron 2600+ system which is currently running Debian Squeeze as a Torrentslave.

alpenwasser said:
For those who are into this sort of thing, the software side of this build will probably turn
out more interesting than the hardware stuff tbh.

Looks like it!

alpenwasser · Apr 27, 2013

Zoot said:
Even then the water cooling is probably overkill.

I've actually run this CPU with this radiator in my previous rig (link), and for an overclocked
2600k it's a pretty good fit IMO. Also, keep in mind that since this will also be an HTPC,
low noise is desirable.

Zoot said:
Out of curiousity, would Arch be a "bit bleeding" edge for a server? Would you be better off with something like CentOS or my friend - Debian Stable?

Aaah, I see what you're trying to do here

Tbh, if I was an IT professional and setting this up for a client I would probably not use Arch,
but I've decided to give it a shot since

I'll be around to more or less quickly resolve any troubles,
besides that one screwup (which was related to Gnome, which I'm no longer running ),
I've actually never had any issues with Arch's stability or reliability.

But indeed, your suggestion does not actually sound unreasonable, if I don't run FreeBSD
I might actually have a look at that, so thanks.

Zoot said:
I haven't ever tried FreeBSD. Although I see Debian has a branch with the FreeBSD kernel.

Yes it does indeed

. There's also an ArchBSD project which has recently sprung up and
uses Arch's package manager (which is pretty awesome IMO), though I don't think I'll be
using that for this machine. Maybe for HELIOS. The biggest plus for ArchBSD for me would
be that it's also rolling release.

Originally I gave FreeBSD a shot for a few reasons, the more important ones being:

I had been reading up on the history of Linux, UNIX and all their relatives and since FreeBSD
is generally considered to be a true genetic Unix (whereas GNU/Linux is merely Unix-like
in its behavior, but has an original code base of its own) I was just curious about what the
differences between a true Unix and Linux are and how they translate to user experience.
I was also doing some reading on file systems at the time and stumbled upon ZFS. After
watching several hours' worth of youtube videos on it, I just had to give it a try.
FreeBSD being used as a foundation for other devices (the PS3's operating system for
example IIRC) piqued my interest as well.
Quite a few debates have been fought over whether Linux' rather anarchistic approach to
things is superior over FreeBSD's more focused project leading philosophy. I wanted to see
if that could even be noticed by a non-expert end user. So far I can't say that I have, besides
maybe with regards to documentation, tutorials and community culture, but not in actual
O/S or application user experience.
I wanted to broaden my horizons.

Zoot said:
It might be an OS to tinker with on my AMD Sempron 2600+ system which is currently running Debian Squeeze as a Torrentslave.

If you do give it a shot, there are quite a few tutorials on youtube on it which helped me
with first installation. Driver support actually seems to be pretty good. WiFi, sound etc.
worked out of the box for my laptop (a Dell XT2).

But there are quite a few fine differences when it comes to configuration (config files as
well as config tools), and I have to admit that I don't yet feel really comfortable in FreeBSD.

The biggest difference is probably the portage tree, how you manage your system and
keep everything up to date. On the one hand, it's rather Gentoo-like since you usually
compile most applications (besides the core O/S on first install, but that too can be
re-compiled from source after installation), which is pretty cool. Though technically I suppose
it's the other way around, with Gentoo being inspired by the whole portage tree thing. On
the other hand, I have not yet managed to achieve a clean and smooth full-system update
process that's as easy as simply entering "pacman -Syu"; the process is quite a bit more
involved (understandable if you have to recompile most of your binaries on your machine
of course).

But even if I don't go with FreeBSD for now, the sheer awesomeness of ZFS and my technical
curiosity will probably drive me to further experiment with FreeBSD in the long run.

Zoot · Apr 27, 2013

alpenwasser said:
I've actually run this CPU with this radiator in my previous rig (link), and for an overclocked
2600k it's a pretty good fit IMO. Also, keep in mind that since this will also be an HTPC,
low noise is desirable.

I hear you about low noise.

For instance I was hoping to get by with the AMD stock cooler for the APU based HTPC I built, but I had to plop my old Akasa Evo into it instead as the cooler was just too loud, plus the board insisted on running the fan full tilt all the time. Can't complain though, it was only €40.

alpenwasser said:
Aaah, I see what you're trying to do here

I'm quite the Debian fan, just in case you hadn't noticed.

Although I wouldn't be of the opinion that *everybody* else should use it though.

alpenwasser said:
But even if I don't go with FreeBSD for now, the sheer awesomeness of ZFS and my technical
curiosity will probably drive me to further experiment with FreeBSD in the long run.

I'll have to admit I know nothing about ZFS. The buzz was all about BTRFS the last time I was au fait with all the Linux/Unix file systems. I'm still rocking EXT3 for instance.

alpenwasser · Apr 29, 2013

Further Work on New Back Panel

[size=+2]New Back Panel - Progress[/size]

Today I cut the back panel to size (mostly) and made the cutout for the I/O shield. The fan
grill holes are drilled and deburred, but not yet painted.

Overview

It fits almost perfectly into the R4. I do need to make a few minor adjustments (taking a mm
off here or there), but overall the fit is damn near perfect.

Perfect Width

Not much to say here. Width of the SMH10's bottom panel is perfect.

Overview

To give you an impression of the concept behind all these shenanigans

Radiator

A closer look at how the radiator fits in.

Space Left

The space left between the M/B and the rad.

That's it for now, thanks for visiting

ZEUS (Fractal R4 | blue/black | internal UT60 Rad) - by alpenwasser

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