Anyone built a completely silent folding rig

[v00d00]

I have been looking at the new Palit KalmX 1050 Ti cards with passive heatsinks, and wondering if I could get two of them on to an integrated Baytrail board with two pci-e slots (x16, x1) to create a silent folding box that is worth 340-360k/day for not much power usage (looking through the specs probably about 170w total for the board/cpu/ram and two cards, OS running from an SD Card and tmpfs, folding mounted to a second sd card or maybe a small ssd).

So has anyone done it, or anything similar? The goal of this project is silence and PPD. Heat I am not worried about and at worst a single large fan running at a very slow speed should suffice to remove heat.

I know that my current 1050 Ti is worth roughly 180k/day and uses 67w of power (full load) according to nvidia-smi. But its loud. The 970 sat next to it is just as bad. Together they generate a max of 500k/day but power usage is much higher (and a fair amount of heat is produced). It would be nice if I could do a bit less, but not hear them at all (or even barely hear a single fan).

[foldy]

I read some tests for different GPU custom models and some are louder and others you cannot hear even when fans running. Also for CPU cooling and case fans there are some which cannot be heared from the closed case (RPM < 800) but you need more of them. For power supply when it can provide 650 watts then maybe at 350 watts some already start to make noise and others stay silent up to their max watts.

You can also limit your current 1050ti and gtx 970 power usage e.g. with MSI Afterburner to 50% which increases efficiency and stops noise.

MSI GTX 1060 takes 120 watt for 400k PPD and you cannot hear the fans from closed case. So this may be an alternative.

I think for heat dissipation it is best to have many ultra silent fans instead of no fans. Fans with RPM < 800 you cannot hear from closed case.

[v00d00]

My current system is running Linux, so no afterburner support. I can change the 970's settings, but the 1050 Ti is locked at whatever it runs at, which is currently about 1700MHz, and the fans are not controllable from the driver. The 970 i can turn down a bit and do occasionally.

This new project stems from boredom and to see if it can be done. I will probably build a custom case for the rig, maybe based on a chimney design (probably using 4 angled 200mm fans running at the slowest speed possible). PSU wise a max of 300w. I dont know yet on the rest, but total expenditure for the hardware should be as cheap as possible. Also really want to keep total power usage below 200w. The OS will be Linux based and will basically run headless with SSH for dealing with problems.

[Nathan_P]

Seasonic do a 400w fanless PSU, I've used it and its great - not cheap but an excellent supply

[v00d00]

Cheers for that info. The PSU was one thing I havent considered yet.

[jrweiss]

Not completely silent, but close. See the specs in the sig for 2 quiet, low-power-draw rigs. Both GPUs are fanless; PSUs are fanless Kingwin Stryker 500W. CPU coolers are Noctua NH-D14, all case fans are 120mm Noctua.

I've seen mention of other Palit fanless GPUs. I don't know their quality.

The Noctua fans are MUCH quieter than any other fans I've used, including the stock Lian Li fans. These days you can probably find suitable cases that accommodate 140mm fans. Also, both fanless PSUs to 550W or so, and PSUs to 850+ Watts that are designed to run fanless (with sufficient airflow through the case) at up to 50% load are available.

I'm currently researching a parts list for my next build, which will likely be a Ryzen 7-1700 and a 1050ti.

[bruce]

The OS will be Linux based and will basically run headless with SSH for dealing with problems.

Some things can only be done with SSH, but don't forget to configure at least one non-headless machine on the LAN to allow FAHControl connect to <hostname>:36330

[v00d00]

I was planning on using webcontrol by forwarding the port over ssh. I havent used the official fahcontrol program in years. I create my custom config.xml, test it, deploy it and still use a pure command line client. I use the webcontrol to stop and start when needed, but this machine will very rarely be stopped. I also have a bunch of backend scripts that control everything, email me logs and show progress within a local webpage on the lan.

I do still have two non headless systems, one doesnt fold (pure gaming rig w/ windows) and my main linux system which runs two gpu clients. But I prefer to use the simplest method for control I can. I also dont think FAHControl works on Slackware, but I havent tried it in a while either.

Offtopic, I have been doing this almost as long as you, bruce. I can still remember those behemoth P696's on the v3 client that would take a day to process. To think I can now do 10 units of much higher complexity in one day and get an amount of points for them that people would dream of back then. Not to forget the Genome@Home project. Things have come a long way since then.

[bruce]

Yep. FAH has come a long way, hasn't it.