AliExpress Water Cooling my nVidia Tesla GPUs

With the Tesla M40s, I was able to create a powerful and economic virtual machine box capable of hosting 4 gamers simultaneously. There was only one issue.... it was LOUD.
Water cooling them seemed like a good solution to eliminate the deafening blast of the blower fans I needed to keep them cool. And to keep the cost down, I turned to the usual suspects from AliExpress and Amazon.
But first... What am I drinking???
Block 15 Brewing (Corvallis, OR) Sticky Hands Tropical IPA (7.8%)
Links to items below may be affiliate links for which I may be compensated
Check out the parts from today's video on Amazon or AliExpress:
Tesla M40 12GB: ebay.us/2OD6VL or ebay.us/40kdCU
Tesla M40 24GB: ebay.us/FW9GWQ
be quiet! Pure Base 600: amzn.to/34K6JJO
be quiet! Shadow Rock 3: amzn.to/3I99wde
be quiet! Silent Wings 3 140mm: amzn.to/3isPosl
Universal GPU Water block: amzn.to/3EcZaIW
G1/4 3/8 ID Barb Fittings: amzn.to/3OgIdCe
Fosa Pump/Res Combo with Temperature Display: amzn.to/3viv1E6
3/8 ID PVC Soft Tubing: amzn.to/3rr2Mlv
280mm Copper Radiator: amzn.to/3Od0n7K
Grab yourself a Pint Glass or T-Shirt from craftcomputing...
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Music:
Bossa Antigua by Kevin MacLeod
Link: incompetech.fi...
License: filmmusic.io/s...

[@JasonCrosen]

Roadkill of PC hardware...I like this concept.

[@nicholascopsey4807]

Water cooling turned your teslas into a baby? Amazing how advanced technology is nowadays

[@overthinkingtech]

Your GPU server vids make me want to run a single thin client and just remote in to play games. Also a great option for kids. Give them raspberry pi's with parsec to the game server. 17:40 Player 2 is adorable

[@blendpinexus1416]

oh yeah. or just old computers. literally anything that you have laying around or is cheap. and you could kill their gaming if they are misbehaving.

[@micahroth2332]

jeff, it's so nice that you saved some of that draft latte for the baby. awesome work on this build.

[@ImOnMy116]

I don’t know why it is so entertaining to me, but as someone who has built and rebuilt open loop water cooling systems a number of times, watching someone else run into a variety of similar issues to what I’ve had is very validating, and I rarely tire of it. Thanks for sharing the ups and downs, very very relatable!

[@greenprotag]

A nice pair of 92mm slim black fans (one per card) on a 3d printed bracket cooling the VRM/PCB would be spiffy. But in general optimizing the case airflow and putting the panels on could solve that issue as is.

[@draggonhedd]

You can run the fans on 7v by using the 12v as positive, and 5v as negative. The fans don't care, they just see a voltage differential. A better solution though would be an external fan controller.

[@power-max]

This is a very bad idea. The rails on the PSU are not 2-quadrant. They can only source current, not sink current. If there is no load on the 5V rail, then the fans would dump current into the PSU, but the diodes prevent that and the 5V rail would rise theoretically up to 12V on the 5V rail, when the current from the fans exceed the current of the 5V loads it could result in everything on the 5V rail being destroyed. (Motherboard, hard drives, SSDs...) In practice, as long as the load (amps) on the 5V rail exceed that of the fans then it should work. So definitely don't do this with high power fans and DEFINITELY not the standby 5V rail, since there is barely any load on that rail and I don't know how the mobo would tolerate over-voltage on that rail.

[@draggonhedd]

@@power-max been doing it for 20 years without issue, but that is still good to think about.

[@power-max]

@@draggonhedd It works because, in your case, you had enough load on the 5V rail for this to not be a problem. Not sure if in a practical PC there is a scenario where you the load on the 5V rail is less than the current dumped into it by standard low power 12V case fans (100mA to 500mA or so). So yes in practice you can get by with it. But it is bad practice. The better solution is to simply stick a resistor in series with the fan. This is exactly what the special RPM limiter cables do. They just add a resistor of a few hundred ohms in series.

[@Inject0r]

@@power-max back in the days, the 5V power rail was also a lot stronger than in the present day. The 12V rail has gotten a lot stronger these days. And by a lot, I mean A LOT A LOT! If there’s any rail you should be watching out for, it’s the 12v rail. Even though they have been separated to multiple rails. It’s best to use a populated 12v power rail for powering a fan at 7v, by using the 12v and 5v power.

[@power-max]

@@Inject0r The ampacity of the 5V rail isn't the concern, it is the _negative_ current that would result by connecting a load between the 12V and 5V rail. If there is no load on the 5V rail (unlikely in the practical case, albeit). The 5V rail is not designed to have current go into the PSU. That can result in the voltage rising above 5V since it can't sink current, only source current.

[@Verzox]

Ohh I've been waiting patiently for this video. can't wait to see how it turned out

[@CptPatch]

The real question is, what's that milky-looking beer that the baby was drinking?

[@frogbertrocks]

I think it was that coffee from earlier on in the video.😂

[@CoalitionGaming]

Woop Woop Swiftech! Man you're on a roll with showcasing parts from name-brand-but-lesser talked about brands or product lines for water-cooling.

[@quest791]

Next time consider using a copper shim to have the water block connect with the die. This will allow the block to contact the die and the backplane and let you cool everything. Just something I have done before

[@Mark300win]

Can you please help me find such copper shim? maybe an ebay or amazon link or shim size would help! Thank you

[@charlesashford3647]

I would love to see a zip-tie challenge... but, David and Computers don't mix, or rather... when they mix... it's bad.. really bad.

[@DeletedContent]

Great Content. You're so underrated compared to anyone. You should be the Linus Tech Tips and themyster. But, you're serious and a seriously great content creator.

[@gg-gn3re]

I've had aliexpress water cooling stuff for the past 10 years, running almost non stop. Works fine

[@TheJohanJonker]

Your GPU gaming VM's was a great series to follow with you.. I have X79 system with 256GB ram 2780 with 2 Quatro RTX3000 cards, I'm having nightmares with.. I just cant split the GPU's with good results.. So I'm limited to 2 GPU based VM's that's working just perfectly, but artifacting like mad when split into 4 systems

[@SuperFireWolf57]

This one is gonna be a banger i already know

[@Watgit]

About half a year ago I purchased a Tesla m40 24gb and since I had a dead MSI GTX 770 Twin Frozr 2Gb OC I used the cooler on the GTX 770. I had to take out the original heatsink completely including the VRM solution (the gtx 770 heatsink wouldn't sit properly on the die otherwise), but with some memory heatsinks from amzn and some jumper wires to connect the cooler fans to the mobo fan header, now my Tesla M40 runs at idle at 25ºC and under load the max I saw was 68ºC so far. The only issue I have is that I don't have an expansion bracket for it.

[@mycosys]

Advertises thumb trackball, immediately switches scene to prominent Elecom Huge. Never change Jeff.

[@patrickjoseph3412]

I always click as soon as you post a video. Working the wetrack at Safeway listening to the video lol

[@mrsittingmongoose]

I replaced my thermal paste and pads on my 2 m40s. Dropped temps by like 15c. With that, I was able to use much slower fans on them.

[@ReturnJJ]

I saw that you did this on another comment, plus some BIOS mods? Do you perhaps have a post somewhere documenting all the mods you’ve done with your M40? Which paste and pads, which BIOS did you flash, what server do you run on, do you have a fan attached to the Tesla itself?

[@tonyjohansson8395]

From my experimentation with the M40 I installed a Raijintek Morpheus II Core. Its works just fine. Currently controlling fans via a motherboard header. Still planing to do some moddifications to the M40 but I haven' found the time.

[@charleswofford5515]

I see this is an old comment. But. What fans did you use?

[@tonyjohansson8395]

@@charleswofford5515 I used 2 Noctua NF-F12 iPPC-2000 PWM. Cooling performance is good and noise is very low. It basicly performs as a Titan X(Maxwell) but with 24GB VRAM. Haven't gotten around to doing any hardware mods yet. I am not allowed to use my soldering station due to my wifes cat. Next year I will have my own dedicated hobby room, might do something fun then.

[@charleswofford5515]

@@tonyjohansson8395 Thank you for your reply. Are you using it to run VM‘s. Or are you using it for other reasons? Considering building a gaming server using an M 40.

[@rgloria40]

mmm...make me want to turn to total immersion into mineral Oil or EC dielectric system for my project. Thank for letting us know you can take off the air cool system of K80 Telsa Graphic GPU Card. To save money, I was thinking of Olive Oil or some cooking oil. Mineral Oil is food grade for candy making and some salad dressing....as well as a laxative.

[@chubbysumo2230]

freezemod has quite a bit of other watercooling stuff outside the USA, and is a brand that is pretty common on frozenCPU.

[@0vers33r1]

Im doing a freezemod only water cooling build atm.... i'll tell u how it goes 🤣

[@gabrielegaetanofronze6690]

Great stuff Jeff! Awesome videos as always!

[@JohnADoe-pg1qk]

@17:42 I think there is a leak somewhere, the reservoir ist almost empty. 😁🙂

[@jojodosjogos]

Hey, not sure how importing from Ali works out for you, but E5 2696v3's are at an all time low over there, and are just great CPUs overall.

[@panman1964]

I used that exact same block to water cool my gtx950 Worked a treat :) On the fan front have you considered looking at the aqua computer Octo? Connects to a usb header and allows fam control based on any sensor paremeter, including GPU temp, you desire

[@katherinesilens2994]

Use double sided tape to secure the pump a little bit. I also have a spare 240mm GTS radiator with Arctic fans + some spare Barrow copper fittings you can borrow if you like.

[@noth606]

16:20 or so onwards, Junior is paying close attention and planning out how to improve on the systems further once he becomes the ruler/admin of things.

[@goxodsgames7987]

Funny thing I actually did this last year when i saw his first videos on the tesla's, but instead of using aliexpress I used an aio with nzxt adapter at the time it was about $120. right now the thing is just sitting around trying to get an epyc to consolidate my gaming rig and my home lab to save on power costs... all in one server proxmox / gaming / storage..

[@mikebroom1866]

30 mins gave me an LOL. I knew what was coming...

[@todayonthebench]

At 5:00 and forth I can't help but wonder why you didn't just take a metal file to the protruding copper edges of the water block itself. Copper is rather easy to file and one can somewhat quickly take off a mm of material in short order. So cutting that front plate were in my opinion inept. Especially since the front plate also helps to spread out the heat from the VRAM. It is a simple case of, "Always risk the cheaper and more easily replaced part."

[@Dean_Smith]

Always good fun to see a great value approach

[@schematica]

You have to be one of the coolest dads bro.

[@cannaroe1213]

That random nvme drive failure just perfectly epitomizes the struggle of the computer nerd. "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose; that is life." - Picard

[@mutosanrc1933]

dude thats not the backplate at 4:54 or so. the backplate lies infront of you.

[@nathanielmoore87]

Hey Jeff, loved the video. Good to see your little apprentice too. Wonder what he thinks of the "brew" in that bottle. 🤔 Lastly, I couldn't help but notice the Whisper Project shirt. Perfect for this build, even if Jerry is working on a HMMWV which is miles apart from building a PC.

[@thelockster6321]

6:17, you got lucky here, this config is just better as it allows easy cleaning, as the the rad will matt the dust and debris allowing you to just peel them off the rad instead of having to deep clean the fans, the top mount would still be ideal, yet the rad being in front is better than being behind.

[@speedyferg]

I actually did something similar with my Tesla K20x, strapped a 120MM AIO to it using a 3d printed bracket. Ended up having to dremel the front plate to allow the block to sit flat on the gpu die but damn does it keep it cool. One thing is that it's absolute hell getting these to work with anything but integrated graphics on bare metal windows

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

i heard tell of people using it with other gpus but with registry edits . i havent got them(tesla plus 2nd nvidia gpu ) going yet so im going that integrated graphics on my laptop route.

[@jagdtigger]

Next time use a smaller diameter tubing, it wont matter as long as it matches/sligthly bigger then the fittings inner diameter.... As for the fans you could get a poweradjust3 and a splitter.

[@Splinterx182]

NZXT Kraken G12 and a 120mm aio would be a more efficient and elegant solution!

[@renchesandsords]

about those fittings, I don't think they're aluminum since I was able to cut off the threaded ends of two of them and solder them together to make a double ended barb, aluminum would have made that nigh impossible. I would guess that they're brass instead

[@raycert07]

i really love these videos. i bought a m40 for gaming and i want to know the inside and out of these gpus and what you have done with them.

[@slurp50s]

I would personally 100% do this if I could think of a way to fit the reservoir and everything in my R730 case. I got 2X P40's sitting in my R730

[@supergoofy123]

Thanks for the video. This is a very interesting project. Now with watercooling it became awesome and quiet. Also advise: Please do not expose your kid to youtube. I wish you prosperity, happiness and good health for you and your family.

[@Primoz.r]

Re non-ferrous barbs, brass is also non-ferrous. If you have a surplus, attack it with a file, I'm guessing they are chrome plated or something similar? Also, 60 mm thick radiator? Doubt...

[@bellator86]

If you wanted you could run the fans at 7v... Connect the positive to 12V and negative to 5V and Voala ;) Did this a long time ago on a home made fan controller (3 speed)

[@reinraum7972]

"As always" ... a very interesting video :) I wonder if an Arctic Accelero Xtreme might also be a viable and quiet air cooling solution.

[@blendpinexus1416]

a little thing i just did to my k40 and will probably work just as well on the m40 is getting a bunch of cheap low profile m.2 heatsinks and use those on the memory and vrm part and some airflow over the cards and the result is awesome and stupid cheap as aliexpress has numerous heatsinks like that for $2 or less per piece, especially when bought in a dozen pack.

[@cannaroe1213]

Because you put 400W of heat into the internal air with the pull config, the air-cooled VRMs are going to have a much higher baseline temp. They won't cook, but I bet if you spin all the fans 180 they'll drop 10C

[@pedro_8240]

12:50 Yup, that's what happens when your OS drive dies, I had the misfortune of experiencing that twice with two NVMe Samsung EVO drives, the first barely cleared the Windows installation.

[@6LordMortus9]

Not sure if you have a 3D printer, but if you did, a 3D printed bracket could have saved you :)

[@milescarter7803]

I'm thinking that the screws are supposed to come in from the back and the springs and nuts go onto the water block.

[@chrispeak3928]

Is that your cohort in crime making an appearance? Fun idea for a build, btw.

[@Upsett5755]

have you tried bit mining with these older generation grid through tesla series cards?

[@fluoros1092]

Putting aluminum fittings to apparently brass inlet/outlet of a pump... That's a perfect way to cause galvanic corrosion!

[@CraftComputing]

I'm so worried....

[@computersales]

I'm just surprised they require so much air flow in a PC. Mine run in my server at 70C with preheated air from the CPU and low/medium fans.

[@RubyRoks]

Much quieter, although running it in its original configuration without hearing protection for a year would go a long way with taking care of the pump noise and coil whine

[@TAP7a]

Love a problem that goes away on its own....

[@tt3233]

I wonder if you could figure out away to make an m.2 water block work on a gpu vrm's? just something I thought of at the end of this video.

[@TheWebstaff]

So are you going to print some shrouds over the cards now and some intake manifolds and make this a show case b roll?

[@fetus2280]

Nice mouse, To bad it only Right Handed .. I would love a ball mouse exactly like the sponsors.

[@jan-Juta]

There are plenty of similar (and even better) ambidextrous trackballs out there. I'd recommend a kensington orbit if you don't want to break the bank.

[@fetus2280]

@@jan-Juta Ya, ive checked out a few, the only problem i have with them is the Ball Placement being Center . Id prefer Thumb use / Ill go have a look at that Orbit, who knows? Cheers mate .

[@TheAnoniemo]

A copper shim would have solved the spacing issue at the start there, no dremeling required.

[@crazycarryout]

with thermal paste on both sides?

[@TheAnoniemo]

@@crazycarryout Yes, just to take up the extra distance.

[@7MBoosted]

I have always wondered if someone could get an Arctic Accelero cooler to fit on those one gpu tesla cards.

[@marcogenovesi8570]

He said in a Talking Heads he was going to milk those cards for 4 or five videos, and by god he is going to milk them until they are dry lol. That's dedication

[@CraftComputing]

I've got a new baby to feed, so I need all the milk I can get.

[@Gastell0]

Erm, you're not supposed to mix aluminum and copper in single water loop...? And you could have cut into waterblock for half thickness of the plate?

[@MizeKa]

Yep, they recommend not to. Been running 360mm aluminium rad on copper cpu+gpu waterblocks, brass fittings for.. over two years no with no issuees. Am walking on knife's edge here.

[@McCuneWindandSolar]

I wonder if those GPU's would be good for security camera systems using Blue Iris.

[@alignedfibers]

Is that sound in background the water pump, thats annoying sound. Sounds like an intoxicated cricket.

[@RobertJene]

Did you happen to check the VRAM temps after doing this mod?

[@denvera1g1]

Now to do on the "no longer tesla" A100 80GB

[@jherdamrhoimagallanes8464]

I do have an aliexpress liquid cooling(it shopee ph though but the part can be found in aliexpress). Its better than expected. Although its not like this. Its bykski though. And some un branded brass copper radiator. And acrylic reservoir. Cost me around 50 usd. The 1st pump is terrible ang i got a better silent pump which runs like branded.

[@tkpenalty]

Brass compression fittings on aliexpress are ultra cheap, not sure why you had to go with aluminium barbs?

[@righteousone8454]

I hear a predator sleeping in the background. You may wanna get this checked out

[@balcopc]

Great video man! I've got a new-ish Supermicro 1028-GRTR with 3 K80's. It's in LIKE NEW condition, 2 TB HDD, 128GB Ram Same CPUs you got I think. I used to crack hashes with it until they came out with the 4090! It's a beast but it's just sitting here doing nothing if you know anyone interested. I used to work for somebody infamous, a multi billionaire supporting his 5000 client WAN. I can tell you know your shit and that you are the real deal. Would love to chat!

[@frankenstein3163]

is the pump noisy ? Sounds like you had one hell of a time with this project.

[@robertfontaine3650]

Very nice the P40 are as cheap and this is an inexpensive entry to machine learning.

[@samuraislayer9864]

I didn't see the memory on the front of the cards had any heat sinks, how did the memory handle the lack of heatsink?

[@DeCapitanOG]

What's that annoying clicking sound? Is something hitting one of the fans or is that the cheap pump?

[@OspreySoul]

I think it had something to do with his mic. If you listen, it fades out when he pauses.

[@DeCapitanOG]

@@OspreySoul yes the mic picks up the noise... Lmao

[@uberchemist]

Can't tell what's happened with the video quality... maybe some smoothing filter or the background lighting? It's got blurriness around areas of detail and it really bothered me. 😵‍💫

[@hornetIIkite3]

I think the system just needs a mineral oil dunk

[@repatch43]

I just noticed, on your back shelf: do you seek jamaharon?

[@CraftComputing]

Who doesn't?

[@repatch43]

@@CraftComputing HAHAHA! Love you videos!

[@Tuttoquelchetrovo]

No heatsink on the vram?

[@virtualben89]

Oh Baby Craft!

[@Prophes0r]

What happened to the second video about fully self-hosting the remote desktop/Game streaming? I see you using Moonlight. Do you actually have the self-hosted thing figured out yet? personally, I'm unwilling to require access to some silly cloud authentication just to use a GPU remote desktop or stream a game from a system I can reach, or a Tv in the other room.

[@CraftComputing]

That video is coming VERY soon. I'm writing it as we speak.

[@Prophes0r]

@@micahroth2332 it literally is not. Moonlight is a game screaming CLIENT, that connects to NVIDIA Gamestream. That means the machine "serving" streams uses all the normal internet-connected nonsense through NVIDIA. To be clear, I'm talking about streaming or remote desktop with no internet connection. Period. Not just the actual server>client stream. No authentication. No pairing. Nothing.

[@dualbeardedtech]

Man it sucks to be short on supplies

[@manray8513]

hey man, thanks for thorough information. i have dell t5610 running with dual xeon E5 2670 v2, 126gb ram and 3060 TI. i just find on the market a nvidia tesla v100 for cheap, do you think this card will work for this setup? i use them for running simulation on solidworks. any suggestion?

[@milescarter7803]

Cheapest water cooled would be 120mm AIO (maybe used even)

[@Catge]

Great video

[@mrcrackerist]

I wounder what would have happened if you cooled the air cooler with the water block.

[@virtualtools_3021]

Better than nothing but much less effective than cooling the die

[@0vers33r1]

I'm confused on how he connected the pump etc?

[@223surf]

Craft Computing, Excellent work. Question for you, for a business is this a legal solution or is it still in violation of NVIDIA licensing? Thanks!

[@Shuroii]

You should consider calling an Nvidia rep or contacting their support for this question.

[@praetorian5499]

Dude I literally have a bin full of those style teslas sitting in my office. What should I do with them?!?!

[@ranger-kev]

You could send me a few 😅😂

[@surewhynot6259]

Yes I'll take one!

[@josephravu5039]

pick me! pick me!!

[@WeatherWX]

Learn Python and Train an AI?

[@nhanphan1147]

Hi there, Love your video. I have a pair of tesla k80 and I am water cooling it using the Aliexpress water cooling block. I use them to run a machine learning model. Even with water cooling, the temperature of those k80 is above 90 degrees causing them to shut down. Do you have any idea how to solve it?

[@Alejandro_Figueroa]

IS this M40 or P40? I got a P40 and the cable provided burnt. What cable did you use to connect it to the motherboard in the event it is P40?

[@eelco_de_haan]

got hold on a new tesla t4 for 100 euros, but even with the various printed fan shrouds/holders i run up to 83c, along with insane fan noise. which makes the wife aggressive.... is this method with the universal watercooler also valid for a T4 card, or are there specific t4 water cooling solutions ? would love to use the card without worrying i might get killed in my sleep by the missus.

[@virtualtools_3021]

I cooled a similarly sized a2000 by filing the hestsink into a flat metal plate then bonding a 80x40 solid copper waterblock to it with conductive epoxy

[@notme4526]

China has 2 companies barrow & byiski which actually make really nice water cooling parts of course it's not as cheap as some of this stuff from the video,but there stuff has been featured on some of the biggest PC modders builds/channels. It's only worth buying from them if your going to order a good amount of stuff but they cost about 50% less than EK with stuff that's just as nice an sometimes nicer but shipping can add 30 to 60 bucks. I have a D5 from borrow that's been running great for 3+ years and since they priced well I have 2 spares still new in the box ready to go if I ever need them lol.

[@Safetytrousers]

The only block I could find that would fit my RX 5700 was a Bykski. It's a good block but the instructions were photocopied on to A4 sheets and were so tiny and blurred that they were unusable, and they were not online.

[@rushunt2131]

So here is what I am doing and I think it would work, they are so cheap and I have a home lab, I remote connect to it from another pc. that is not really a virtual machine, I dont game with it, but I do run plex and think this would help with encoding and whatever else I throw that way, if I put one of these tesla's in it since I dont connect a monitor to it, and I decided to play a game on it would it work?

[@Nexus--9]

Can this set up be duplicated with the M10's? I've got a DL380G9 with an NVIDIA M10 in it so cooling isn't an issue but wondering if I could get the drivers working, I'm currently using unraid as the base OS with a windows 10 VM, I've managed to pass a lower spec GPU through to the VM which I can then partition to a couple of VM's but it's not amazing, if I could use the M10 then that gives me 30-something gig on the graphics card to play with

[@YammyBoh7]

Have you tried turning off and on again?

[@alertol]

Does a kid included or You had to craft it yourself ? (in earlier video it turned out the cat is not overclockable)

[@mattmurphy1065]

You might get this a lot, but I think it would be more meaningful and make more sense to me if you did an initial beer tasting at the beginning. Give initial thoughts. Then at the end of the video wrap up with your overall opinion. I get why you don’t do this and I’m sure most people here don’t even care about the Beer, hell I don’t even drink myself! Just my opinion.