cheap cooling for crunching farm

[trevinom]

It seems that watercooling is the best way to go to achieve high and stable OC marks. How much does watercooling run and how hard is it to set up?
I'm thinking if I go to a garage sale and pick up a cheap refrigerator, I can mod it to include lan and power hook ups. I can even mod it to include VGA cable and USB hook-ups. I could probably fit about 5-10 boards in there and lower the temperatures to about 10C. I could probably mod the freezer part of it and that would allow me some really good OC capabilities.
I recently bought a $75 frig at a garage sale...it's the avocado-colored, 70's type, but it works pretty good. I might take a saw to it just for the heck. I figured I do DC projects so could do a frig farm of OC'ed crunchers....


What do you guys think?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

overclock and rendering farm shouldn't be in the same thought. if you want a stable setup to endlessly crunch numbers then overclocking shouldn't be a valid option unless you love to waste time.

 

[myocardia]

I've got to admit, that's the dumbest idea I've heard in my 32 years on this planet. I hope that you're kidding. Oh, and he said it was to use for DC (distributed computing), not for rendering, Whack.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

yea but there is still a 24/7 load, overclocked, which still isn't even the greatest idea(same thing to me). if your pushing hardware past its limits a non-stop load is one of the last things you really would prefer to impose. rendering or not, hes still wants to crunch endless numbers.

 

[StageLeft]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
yea but there is still a 24/7 load, overclocked, which still isn't even the greatest idea(same thing to me). if your pushing hardware past its limits a non-stop load is one of the last things you really would prefer to impose. rendering or not, hes still wants to crunch endless numbers.

*shrug*, I've always had DC on my overclocked computers. Generally an overclock is not valid unless it's totally stable, and if it's totally stable there is no problem running something on it 24/7!

The original poster should note that I am almost entirely certain that several computers would grossly overpower the cooling abilities of a fridge. I've had a single PC raise the temperature of a bedroom by a good 5 degrees. Throw several into a small space and you'll end up with a stove, not a fridge

 

[mastertech01]

Not to mention that the fridge would have to run 24/7 just to keep up and it puts off a hell of a lot of heat itself.

Ive run as many as 10 DC computers in my computer room. It gets nice and toasty even with AC running.

 

[trevinom]

Well, I figure, I already have a frig running in the garage with my 6 other computers 24/7, all OC'ed about 5-8% on average. They are in various stage of dressing. 2 are nothing but a MB(with built-in video, lan, sound), CPU, PSU, Mem and HD. I have unplugged the monitor, keyboard, and mouse...so would only need a power cord and lan cord coming out. The frig should be able to handle at least 3 or 4 of these systems without working too hard. Freon-based cooling is what I would call it. The freezer should be able to handle another couple...
32 years and you hadn't thought up something like this myocardia?

I don't know...

 

[high]

lets just hope your 70's style fridge doesn't crap out once it's loaded with DC's....can we say fire hazard

 

[myocardia]

Trev, I don't like destroying hardware. And I'll look for some of the threads where I've recommended that someone use one of those ~$100 mini refridgerators to cool his water for his water-cooling setup, which works great, btw. But all 'fridges produce moisture. It's the way that they are designed to work. If you are crazy enough to go putting computer components inside of one unprotected from the moisture, good luck to you.