OT: CRAC

[Brian Chabot]

Bill McGonigle wrote:

> Now, the question: what really works?  Who's in a big colo that uses
> passive cooling?  Who has a Liebert in a small computer room?  Who
> just cut a hole in the wall and put in a $79 AC from the warehouse club?
>
> Any horror or success stories to share?


I recently got a new (to me) dual PIII 500 to set up as a server in my
basement.  Well, I set it up in the living room... in August.  (My
living room is NOT cooled in any way...)  One evening taking a break the
thing starts beeping like crazy.  I didn't know it had a heat alarm.  So
I kill the unnecessary apps and the next day, while at work I can't ping
it.  I call home and the roommate informs me it's beeping.  I have him
put a fan on it and talk him through a reboot.   It worked.

My desktop is a Frankenstein monster.  The side is off and I'm
suspecting the CPU fan is not working at full capacity.  There is
currently a 2-fan window fan thingie where the side should be and it
hasn't siezed since.

At a company I used to contract at, they had their server room in a
closet.  Guess what happened when they added 14 new servers to the
rack?  Yup.  Heat failure.  We talked them into a cooling system.  Cheap
bastards first bought a unit the size of a square R2D2.  Not enough.  So
they get someone to put in a real AC system.  A couple days later, I
walk into the server room... It's nice and cool.... but my feet are now
making a splashing sound.  Seems they forgot to hook up the drain tube. 
(It was actually draining ON the top of the rack and this was no trickle.)

Lesson learned:  If you can't make your own cooling system, spend the
blasted money and do it right the first time.  check everything
frequently and do not trust the HVAC guy.

Brian