Server closet

I forgot to mention, that I previously had the homelab next to my desktop, because I had no other place to have it. About 2 months ago I moved it into a closet, and I was happy that everything fit perfectly, to the grade where it’s hard to adjust anything without having to pull out some of it to reach in with my arm. However, it was not an easy task to pull this off.

First, I needed to pull in power. This was the task that took the longest, because I first needed to make room inside the closet so I could accommodate the hardware. What’s more, I needed to consult an electrician about laws, cost and possible recommendations. Sadly, because of the apartment electrical outlets being mostly non-grounded, I had to settle with that to reduce cost significantly (200€ for non-grounded; 500-1000€ to ground one room). Anyway, it took me almost a year before contacted them, and a couple of weeks more before then responded and came and fixed it under 2 hours.

Then to put everything in, I first thought to drill some holes in the closet for network, but let it be until I had put everything in place and tried it out. I’m glad I did, because after I closed the door, the temperature rose with no sign of stopping. I therefore left the door ajar about 10cm and the temperatures was then contained. However, the server sat idle at 85C, which means it was throttling. I discussed with a fellow homelabber which mentioned that AMD Ryzen series had added an easy great way to reduce power usage, and therefore temperature, with just changing a value, with very little risk damaging it. I reduced my PPT from 88 to 65, and that reduced the idle temperature to 60-65C. While it will reduce the maximum performance for all cores combined, I rarely fully utilize one core to the max, and even rarely use more than half of the cores to maiximum, meaning I reduce temperature without reducing overall performance.

I’m planning to reduce voltage later, but I’ll leave it at this for now.