Ghetto 2U Folding rig

[Fluxmaven]

Now that it's finally cold out, I've been spinning up more systems to run Folding@home. I already have a 42u and a couple 12u server racks, so it makes sense to build a few rackmount rigs to better utilize space. 

 

This one is the combination of all the cheapest stuff I've acquired in the past year.

 

Motherboard - Supermicro X12STL-IF $39.64 - This was miscategorized and listed in the watercooling section on ebay. Seemed to be BNIB.
CPU - $34.98 - Pentium Gold G6500 Used ebay find.
PSU1 - $34.98 - 1u HP 1200w platinum that came with the breakout board and some PCIe risers. (decommissioned mining system). 
PSU2 - $20.09 - Mean Well LRS-100-12 powering a PicoPSU that came with some board I bought to benchmark a couple years ago. 
GPU - $194 - RTX 4070 Ventus. Got lucky and snagged this from Microcenter. Typically I get decent deals on open box stuff there. This was actually a new card that was in the clearance section. I've seen a couple of times where a last gen GPU will pop up for for crazy cheap. Maybe they find a random box in the back and the SKU is so old that when they scan it in it instantly goes to super clearance pricing?  
Case - $7  RackChoice 2U. Appeared new and unused. Got from an auction place called BidFTA that has several warehouses around here. This is the 3rd rack case I've picked up cheap from there. 

Any other tidbits were things I already had in the spare parts bin. 

 

The V1 proof of concept using a 170w PSU I salvaged from the e-waste pile. The SATA to PCIe power adapter was a little too ghetto for my taste. Mocking up with an old Quadro. Finally found a home for the slime green 80mm Gelid fans that have been sitting in the OnlyFans pile for way to long. 

 

 

 

Finally decided to toss everything together and get it up and running. 

 

 

The look on the kids face when he saw what this rang up at was priceless. Realizing I bought it in July and am just now doing anything with it makes me want to quit my job even more. Being out of town for work all the time makes it hard to work on my computer projects. 

 

 

Nice thing about using a server board is it has IPMI so I can manage the thing headless. It's running Linux Mint XFCE because I'm not enough of a nerd to use CLI. I'll play around with LACT to dial in an undervolt.

 

 

Already doing pretty decent.