Project: The Ultimate Computer Desk

[ultimatedesk]

Fan Setup

Is that a Dual-XEON processor motherboard? It looks evil.
And congrats on winning the Rig of the month from Modders Inc!

It sure is! More details about that to come, for sure! Thanks!

After gluing a few blocks of foam together with a spray adhesive, I trimmed the block down to the appropriate size using a bandsaw.

Unfortunately, it wouldn't fit in order to do the vertical cut...

So I took out the trusty hand saw!

Here's the plan for the fan layout

At first I tried cutting the holes with a good quality knife, but the cuts were not very consistent and it took a long time. I ended up using an old drywall saw, which worked perfectly.

Test fit

Cut some more holes

Awesome!

Let's see how it looks in the right-hand cabinet

LOL - hilarious. It shouldn't fit like that. At least, it didn't during my initial measurements! I'll have to tweak that a bit later!

On to the crazy fans. I decided to go with 3 instead of 4. There just wasn't enough room for foam between each of the fans, and I figured there would be a lot of vibrational noise if they were touching. I could always go to 4 in the future if this proves to be insufficient.

Lookin good

Stay tuned! More stuff tomorrow!

 

[ultimatedesk]

Server Setup

I was in an extremely fortunate position recently. A friend of mine's work was moving from a large location to a much smaller location, and he had asked me if I wanted to come scope out the old office for any old bits of computer stuff that might be useful to me. To my shock and amazement, I was indeed able to pick up some pretty fancy hardware that I would have never dreamed of owning. They must have done some pretty big upgrades to leave stuff like this behind!

I was able to get a hold of a handful of Socket 775 motherboards with Core 2 Duo processors, a bunch of DDR RAM, a box full of Hard Drives, and some relatively decent (lower powered) power supplies. The real treasure though, was a pair of servers. You can see that I had already disassembled one of them:

2 Full 4U Antec Rackmount cases, each of them containing a Dual-Xeon motherboard + Processors. Both with FB-DIMM RAM sticks as well.

This particular one contained a pair of Xeon E5410's, with 16GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM's, 4 1TB Western Digital Blacks (SATA), and the motherboard is an Asus DSBF-DE.

The other one contained a pair of Xeon E5335's, with 4GB of DDR2 FB-DIMM's, 5 1TB Hitachi Deskstas (SATA), and the motherboard is an Asus DSGC-DW.

Now - before we go on - someone had queried earlier about the PCI Express slot on the board pictured, and I had said something along the lines of "Ya ya, it's there, don't worry about it". I of course, actually looked at the pictures, and no, it's not. It is indeed a PCI Express 16x slot, but on this particular motherboard, it only runs at PCI8. Now, the other motherboard, the Asus DSGC-DW DOES have a PCIX16 slot. When it was released, it did not support the 54xx series of Xeon processors, but I checked the website and there is a BIOS update to add this functionality. I will have to do a test setup with that board to update the BIOS, and then it will be swapped into the desk with a full video card, both the E5410's, as well as the 16GB of RAM, so keep that in mind when looking at the rest of this update. No, unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the other motherboard.

Cool stuff either way. Never, ever thought I'd have a dual processor motherboard. What an amazing find!

These dual Xeon heatsinks mount directly into the motherboard tray, so unfortunately, I couldn't use those spiffy motherboard trays from Danger Den. Also, since they are of size "SSI", there's no way it would mount on a regular ATX motherboard tray anyways. Time to drill out a tray!

It actually came out pretty nice and clean

This is a bit of a shame, since I took the time to clean the processors, put new thermal compound and remount everything. I'm just going to have to disassemble it again anyways when I put in the different motherboard. Ah well.

This is a bit of a hack job getting the tray mounted... Since the processors are mounted to the tray, I had mounted it outside of the desk, so when I went to fasten the tray to the desk, I was *gasp* actually lazy and didn't want to dismount the motherboard again... so umm.. I'm going to replace those odd-angled screws when I switch motherboards..

The power supply looks pretty good there. It's an Antec 650W - an Earthwatts maybe? I forget. I may consider replacing it with a unit that has a 120-140mm fan just to exhaust the air a bit better. The board has a requirement for a 24pin, an 8pin, as well as a 4pin, so I can't just use any power supply unfortunately.

The cables, of course, are not nearly long enough to reach the connectors on the board. I've already ordered the extensions and hopefully I'll get them at the beginning of next week. Oh, you'll see that I've straightened out the fans as well.

The cooling solution looks good. There will be two fans directly in front of the CPU's. I may consider putting an additional hole in the door to allow the CPU's and RAM to exhaust directly.

There is one major issue with the right-hand cabinet setup. The original specifications called for an ATX board, which is significantly smaller, so umm.. I have no idea where the hard-drives are going to fit. lol! Fun times.

Hope you're enjoying this flurry of updates. I may or may not be able to post an update tomorrow, as I'm going camping for the weekend! At the latest, I'll be posting again early next week!

 

[derekimo]

Looking good. Nice coming across all those extra parts too.

 

[boohbah]

Just read the entire thread, somehow i missed it before, What a fantastic job you have done so far and the finish on the wood is spectacular for plywood. will be following this thread with much interest ,good luck

 

[PwnFrnzy]

So you basically got a Dual-XEON E5410 motherboard, processors and RAM for FREE?!
I envy you.

The build seems to be coming together very smoothly, soon the final product shall be reveled.

 

[Maxwell]

I am so excited to see the finished product.

As for the hard drives, you could just have the SSD's inside with the computer, then do all of your storage drives externally. That would also help keep the computer cool.

Something similar to this.
Computer Desk LED Plexiglass Case Mod | Hack N Mod

 

[A Guy]

Your fantastic desk is attracting free high end PC parts They want to live there, lol. Enjoying this thread immensely. A Guy

 

[ultimatedesk]

Gigabyte Board

Looking good. Nice coming across all those extra parts too.

Thanks derekimo, I have been extremely fortunate and grateful! What timing as well!

Just read the entire thread, somehow i missed it before, What a fantastic job you have done so far and the finish on the wood is spectacular for plywood. will be following this thread with much interest ,good luck

Thanks boohbah for joining in and commenting! Stay tuned, there's still plenty to go!

So you basically got a Dual-XEON E5410 motherboard, processors and RAM for FREE?!
I envy you.

The build seems to be coming together very smoothly, soon the final product shall be reveled.

It's been an incredible ride, PwnFrnzy!! Thanks for the positive comments!

I am so excited to see the finished product.

As for the hard drives, you could just have the SSD's inside with the computer, then do all of your storage drives externally. That would also help keep the computer cool.

Something similar to this.
Computer Desk LED Plexiglass Case Mod | Hack N Mod

Mmm, I have certainly considered it.. we'll have to see! I have a few aces up my sleeve still!

Your fantastic desk is attracting free high end PC parts They want to live there, lol. Enjoying this thread immensely. A Guy

Lol yes, that is a great way of looking at it, no? Thanks!

A huge thanks goes out to Gigabyte for supplying me with this amazing motherboard - a GA-Z68XUD4-B3.

Without a doubt, the coolest motherboard I have ever owned!

I could barely wait to open this up when I got it in the mail!

And this poor motherboard tray that had been sitting for months and months covered in brown paper - finally had it removed. It looks even better than I could have hoped!

Here is the test fit in the actual desk

And with the fans in place

I'm going to trim off the plastic tabs from the motherboard tray to make it a bit easier to build the tunnels for cable management. Also, I'm considering putting a pair of holes beneath the motherboard to pass cables through underneath. Lots of stuff happening in the next few weeks!

I attempted to boot up the Asus DSGC-DW board (The one with the PCIx16 slot) but it would not boot. I'm afraid that that particular motherboard has gone bad, so I will continue to use the board with the PCIx8 slot. Anyone have any suggestions with regards to determining the best video card I can put in a PCIx16 slot with only x8 bandwidth? I was thinking I could look at the theoretical bandwith of an 8x slot and match it with that of the video card to maximize performance (ie. no point in installing a 5970x2 in an x8 slot).

Anyways, hopefully will have a handful of updates this week!

 

[PwnFrnzy]

I don't think that an x16 slot with an x16 card vs. an x8 slot with an x16 card will have any sort of a noticeable difference. You could run just about any x16 card on an x8 slot without issues as far as I know.

 

[Corpsecrank]

Glad to see someone else is making a desk too lol. I am going all out on one soon also. I plan to build mine as a 3 piece corner style desk. You wold have the middle segment diagonal in the corner and each side of it running along the walls.

Essentially it will be one whole desk comprised of 3 pieces that can be taken apart so I can move it easily. I am using heavy materials and the desk is going to be big enough that I need it to come apart easily so I can move it around when I need to.

 

[ultimatedesk]

Testing and Cable Management

I don't think that an x16 slot with an x16 card vs. an x8 slot with an x16 card will have any sort of a noticeable difference. You could run just about any x16 card on an x8 slot without issues as far as I know.

Thanks PwnFrnzy, after doing a bit of searching around that's the conclusion I came up with as well

Glad to see someone else is making a desk too lol. I am going all out on one soon also. I plan to build mine as a 3 piece corner style desk. You wold have the middle segment diagonal in the corner and each side of it running along the walls.

Essentially it will be one whole desk comprised of 3 pieces that can be taken apart so I can move it easily. I am using heavy materials and the desk is going to be big enough that I need it to come apart easily so I can move it around when I need to.

Very cool Corpsecrank, what kind of wood will you be using?

So - it's been another few busy weeks, so apologies for the no updates. Have been enjoying those last rays of sunshine before the summer ends!

I think I mentioned last update that I tried to boot up the Asus DSFC-DW board but had issues - here was the attempt:

I got a green LED to light up (Standby power on the motherboard) but jumping the Power ON pins had no reaction whatsoever. Tried it with a different videocard, re-seated the RAM and CPU's, but still no luck.

Moving onwards - since I un-mounted almost everything, I decided to keep the copper heatinks instead of the aluminum ones for the other motherboard. I also picked up a pair of these units from Rosewill via Newegg:

They should do nicely for my hard-drive racks. I would like to mount them like so, except higher up:

Unfortunately, they are deeper than the cabinet I built. At the time, I was thinking maybe they would stick out of my air intake window, and I would just build-out the section of the door with the air filter... Not exactly what I had in mind initially though.

With most of the major components in place, I decided to start tackling the cable management with some cardboard templates, and then some 1/8" plywood:

At this point I was a little frustrated with how slowly this portion of the project was going. Things weren't quite fitting the way I had planned, and they were not looking as nice as I would have liked them to...

Maybe it's time for some thinking instead of doing.

I decided (In hindsight, unfortunately) to go ahead and mount the hard-drive racks so I could get some better measurements and ideas of how to manage the cables nicely.

Installed the fans and started to route some of the cables

Took out a handful of old SATA cables... (Yes, let's not forget, that I'm a computer tech first, and a carpenter second, or maybe even fifth or tenth...)

And had fun connecting all the bits and trying to get them in a reasonable state of organization

Ugh... this will not do, this will not do at all. Might as well boot it up and see if everything works though (I had mounted and un-mounted the board several times, banged around a few things, etc, so might as well see if it's all still working!)

This would be the first time I see if all the fans work as well. Keep in mind that this is with the door removed.

Until next time.. still not quite sure what I'll be doing next.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Good grief

Mate you have put some work into it eh?? I saw the suggestions for the filters and I personally like those medical grade mesh ones that I use on my own build (pretty ordinary compared to yours) as they are so fine.

I also use that bridal tulle (single or double layered) for those little and awkward shaped spots (from inside the case) held on with tape usually that can be taken off cleaned and put back in place with new tape or just renewed - it's cheap enough.

The medical grade ones I use are magnetic that are taken off for cleaning (usually stuck on the outside of the casing) so I guess being pretty smart you could make up your own removable ones??

But all the same am very impressed

 

[ultimatedesk]

Seasonic and a New Layout

Mate you have put some work into it eh?? I saw the suggestions for the filters and I personally like those medical grade mesh ones that I use on my own build (pretty ordinary compared to yours) as they are so fine.

I also use that bridal tulle (single or double layered) for those little and awkward shaped spots (from inside the case) held on with tape usually that can be taken off cleaned and put back in place with new tape or just renewed - it's cheap enough.

The medical grade ones I use are magnetic that are taken off for cleaning (usually stuck on the outside of the casing) so I guess being pretty smart you could make up your own removable ones??

But all the same am very impressed

Medical grade mesh? Bridal tulle? Man, those are some great ideas, thanks! I may go ahead and return that bulky furnace filter lol!

First off I want to give out a huge thank you to Seasonic, who has decided to sponsor The Ultimate Computer Desk by sending a ~really~ sweet Power Supply my way. An 850 Watt Seasonic Gold.

Thanks Seasonic! We'll take a closer look at that PSU a bit later..

I had been a little frustrated with the layout of the Dual CPU Xeon board for quite some time, so I finally made the decision to ditch it and setup the right-hand cabinet with an ATX sized board. This is more in spec with my initial design - the extra couple inches makes a big difference, and it will make it easier to upgrade in the future as well.

On one hand, I'm a little disappointed that I won't be using that super geeked out board, but rest assured, I'll find something else neat to do with it.

So I went ahead and removed everything and started from scratch. Looks way better already:

I then decided that, unfortunately, through the miracle of cable limitations, it would make a lot more sense if I put the optical drive in the front of the case, as opposed to up above the desk, where I had originally wanted to put it. So, time to do some more cutting.

The masking tape managed to pull off some of the polyurethane, but have no fear, I will be making a faceplate that will contain the power button, LED's, and USB ports that will cover that spot up quite nicely.

And, we've gone so far, yet, gained so little, eh? It'll get done, I swear!

 

[jeepmann4x4]

+1 for website with an Order Button!!

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Great stuff

Just another suggestion instead of using that masking tape try the Sellotape - opaque type it peels off much better as the masking tape tends to "cure" onto any surface and eventually become brittle. I sued to use it a lot for painting the house and sealing furniture after I made it and that's what happens if it's left on for any length of time.
Another alternative is tape called Micropore a medical tape we use at work and easily removed if really stuck with a solution we know out here as Zoff - it "melts" the tape adhesive but doesn't harm any surface.(Great stuff for getting really stuck on dressings on oneself too - as I am sure if you are like me you have cut or abraded yourself doing the woodwork LOL!!)

I use the Sellotape for my filter jobs and no probs.

Jeez but the unit is looking real good - gonna be something to behold so impressed.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

This is so much fun watching the progress from design to completion I almost don't want it to end........maybe start on design number two a fold away computer hutch which breaks down for easier moving?

 

[ultimatedesk]

New Layout Work

+1 for website with an Order Button!!

Hehe, wouldn't that be nice? Unfortunately, there's a minimum 10 month waiting time though lol!

Just another suggestion instead of using that masking tape try the Sellotape - opaque type it peels off much better as the masking tape tends to "cure" onto any surface and eventually become brittle. I sued to use it a lot for painting the house and sealing furniture after I made it and that's what happens if it's left on for any length of time.
Another alternative is tape called Micropore a medical tape we use at work and easily removed if really stuck with a solution we know out here as Zoff - it "melts" the tape adhesive but doesn't harm any surface.(Great stuff for getting really stuck on dressings on oneself too - as I am sure if you are like me you have cut or abraded yourself doing the woodwork LOL!!)

I use the Sellotape for my filter jobs and no probs.

Jeez but the unit is looking real good - gonna be something to behold so impressed.

Wow, thanks ICit2lol - I'll keep an eye out for that Sellotape - I should be able to get it at the local hardware store? I've still got a few more cuts to do on the finished portions, unfortunately. Thanks for the positive comments!!

This is so much fun watching the progress from design to completion I almost don't want it to end........maybe start on design number two a fold away computer hutch which breaks down for easier moving?

Thanks linnemeyerhere! I'm so glad you and others are enjoying this - you've been a key part of my motivation to do work on it consistently and in a high quality fashion. As far as number two... This being my first "project log" and also "special project for computers" - I've got to say... I'm hooked!

Just between you and me (And I guess all of the Seven Forums members reading this log lol) I think the next project I'm going to attempt to use that dual-cpu board and make... a homebrew laptop for kicks lol

Feeling a bit more motivated about the right-hand cabinet, I decided that the foam fan-holder had to go. It was too large, was akward, and was difficult to keep straight and in the proper position.

I decided to put together a nice and clean fan holder:

After doing some measuring, I took it to the drill press for the initial holes (I didn't have a hole saw for 120mm fans unfortunately... that would be pretty huge!)

I then took out the spindle sander to sand right to the line. Just an fyi, I swapped out the spindle for a much larger one. This was my first time using this type of sander, and I was very impressed - the degree of accuracy and control is extremely high - perfect for sneaking up on the pre-drawn lines.

Time to drill some holes for the fan screws

And a test fit. The product came out quite nicely - accurate cuts, all 4 of the positions are secure with screws, and this piece should be much easier to align in the proper location in the case.

I had cut a few other new pieces for cable management, but they were rough cuts, as I will not know their exact dimensions until I install hardware. I can't install hardware until I finish cutting and drilling in the right-hand cabinet, and since there is still the issue of the power button, LED's, etc...

Time to get started on that, I suppose!

Kinda looks like a bull head eh?

 

[PwnFrnzy]

It's awesome the amount of sponsorships this beast of a project has obtained. I'm sure some other major companies may contribute as well, what major company wouldn't want their tech in there?

Sucks the Dual XEON had to come out, but one must sacrifice to gain, with the ATX you should have more room for the tech to plan to put in there, I also like the idea of the layout of the buttons, LEDs, and USB ports you will be putting in the front there. And good luck on Cable Management, that is always one of the hardest parts of big builds.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Lovely stuff

Just looking at the fan setup yeah this is where I would be putting those filters (if they are on the outer surface) and seeing it's a reasonably thin sheet it's on - how about some of those silicone "frames" to go between the fan and sheet I know they are not that noisy but given there are a few for the extra few cents - worth it I reckon.

Nearly forgot the tape is called "invisible" out here maybe some different where you are - I'll send a pic - go to dash for the workhouse!!

 

[toetag]

i love this idea! well done.