Previously on LTT, I tasked Elijah with
the impossible. To build an eight V8
gaming setup that can be deployed in just 30 minutes for whale land. And man,
it has been a painful month and a half sourcing parts, fitting it all into the
server rack, validating power, cooling, storage, and even networking, and
deploying it here at Smash Champs kind of sucked. Linus, Ow.
Linus, you can remove your blindfold.
Holy Wow.
We got red versus blue racks. >> Yeah, and there's enough room in them
that we could double this next year. >> Shut up. >> Yeah.
Well, we don't get to game yet, though. Wait. I don't even get to game on it?
Not yet, because first we need to talk about the super cool deployment system
we used, because theoretically, it will allow us to handle the updates and
maintenance of all 16 computers as fast as you could normally do one of them.
Okay, fine. But I bet it can't update as fast as I can do the segway to our
sponsor. I have to be fast because I have a
mission, and no matter how hard they try, they'll never stop me from
spreading the word about how Odoo has all the business apps you need in a
single subscription. I'll carry word of their 15-day free trial until my legs
give out, which they won't, of course, not ever.
When we left off, we had chosen all of the hardware and just needed to figure
out how to pack 16 systems into a quick deploy rack and simplify system
management. My original instructions were to keep everything as dense as
possible, and based on these early mock-ups from Justin, it looked like we
could have gotten away with about eight gaming systems for every 12 uses of rack
space. It's pretty damn good. Too bad it didn't happen. See, the Radeon 970 XT
Prime GPUs we ended up with were just a tiny bit thicker. I'm not complaining
since ASUS sent over all of these cards, and honestly, it forced us to rethink
the design in a way that I think is going to vastly improve the thermals of
our entire setup. And besides, it gives me an excuse to have two racks in the
iconic two colors. We got these server racks sent in from Hammond. They're
actually the same guys who got the orange server rack here at Labs, and
I've heard they've done something very special to them considering this one's
named blue Q assembly, This one says red.
>> red Q assembly. Oh my goodness, this is
so Wow. That's a very deep red.
We probably could have guessed that by red assembly, but this looks That was
gorgeous. >> Okay, I want to see the blue one now. >> yeah, yeah.
Oh, careful with this. What, towards the camera? It's a 3D experience. Ooh. Wow.
Red versus blue, baby. I love this. Oh, would you look at that. Holy cow. That
is gorgeous. Oh, these are sick. These are awesome.
I think it's safe to say we're going to have enough room. Our goal from the
original plan is to have all of the IO of the motherboard and the GPUs on one
side, and then the cables, we might have to remove the doors or cut a hole, but
we want the cables to come out from here along the lines of our gaming stations.
Each rack is for each team. So I guess on one side we'll have it and on the
other side we'll have it. And then at the bottom here, it actually looks like
we're going to have pretty decent ventilation. We want a line of fans
because we want as much air flow as we can. Normally with the server rack, you
have the air coming in the front and blowing through to the back. In this
case, because of how we're going to have our motherboards and our GPUs laid out,
we're going to go for more of a bottom-top design. I'm going to leave
this in your hands now to finish building it, and I'm going to talk to
you guys about how I'm going to deploy the operating system and the games, cuz
the plan has changed just a little bit. I still want to go with diskless
booting, meaning there's actually no drives in our machine to save on both
cost and management complexity. My intention was to run something
similar to Kenton's gaming house since he did document everything, but if
something goes wrong, I don't want to have to rely on calling Kenton or hoping
he updates his GitHub scripts. I'm sure he would, but we needed something that
was hopefully guaranteed to have long-term support.
And that's where GG Rock comes in. These guys make purpose-built software for LAN
centers and e-sports events. That's us. And the best part is that if I fall down
the stairs again, What was that? Totally ate it. They have
a support team that our events coordinator, Chase, can reach out to
anytime he wants.
I mentioned in part one that I would need a high-speed storage server in
order to network boot each rack from, but the problem was I didn't actually
find one yet. Oh, how about this one?
The Minisforum MS-A2 is super power efficient thanks to its mobile
processor. Ooh. And it's small enough
that I could tuck it into either one of the server racks or maybe even upstairs
in the server room. It features dual 10 gigabit network ports on the back, and
it has more than enough RAM and CPU cores that meet GG Rock's
recommendations. They were a little hesitant. Usually they want to use
proper server gear, like ECC memory, for example, but they did note that the
network card, or the NIC in this little guy, is what they recommend. So I say we
go for it. The main reason that GG Rock was concerned about our NIC is that
having a fast, reliable network connection is crucial when you're
booting multiple computers off of a storage server. Also, they are going to
use PXE boot and iSCSI, which can be,
in the industry term, a To minimize our chance of running into
issues, we're going to set up Debian on our Minisforum server exactly like the
guide says. Exactly. Do not ask me how I know that.
Then we're going to wget and install link for the GG Rock server, wait for it
to download, and configure our network interfaces. This is important to help
with routing and making sure that our gaming computers will be able to find
our GG Rock server. We type one last command, and that's the whole setup
process. Now, we're going to add two 8 TB M.2
drives in RAID 1. We probably won't have one of these fail, but since we're
having 16 machines depend on reliable
storage, an extra drive seems like a small price for a small man to pay.
We'll create one disk image for games and a separate one for booting Windows.
Now we need to upload an image to use. We're going to go with Windows 11 for
now, but we chose these Radeon GPUs from ASUS both for their excellent price to
performance and to give ourselves just a little bit of flexibility to run Linux
on these systems once SteamOS becomes an actual thing. Now we just need to head
over to our gaming machines and enable PXE boot. After rebooting, it will
attempt to boot into Windows, but it will not work. That would be too easy,
wouldn't it? Next on our GG Rock machine, we find that computer and
choose the right network driver to inject into the Windows image. Reboot,
and hopefully let it finish up the boot up process.
Hopefully. It took me a while. From there, though,
we can enable write backs. That way when I'm finished updating everything I need
to on this one PC, we can then save everything to the master image. And that
now means that theoretically, every machine can boot off of the same image.
Theoretically. Theoretically? I guess we should build
some actual computers. This here is eight of the 16 systems we're going to
use in one of our server racks, and Justin spent the last couple days 3D
printing a whole variety of mounts that
is going to help us get all of these systems in that server rack. Which one's
that? This one here is for the motherboard. Okay, and then what are these ones that I'm holding? Power
supply, graphics card. Got it. And how are they going to lay out for us to be
able to assemble this nicely? They're not just going to loosely lay in the
rack. >> No, no, they'll bolt here to these shelves I got. Got it. Okay, I see now
the pattern of these holes kind of line up with these holes. Correct. How many
computers per shelf? I modeled for up to three, really tight, but because of the
new server racks that we got, we should be able to just fit two per cuz we have
more height now. >> Cuz we have more height. Got it. Okay, so then let's build one shelf, I guess.
Yeah, let's get one together and let's see how it's going to fit height-wise.
Motherboard mount go there. Power supply will mount somewhere along this back
rail here. And then the graphics card >> And then the graphics card will line up
wherever is comfortable for the PCI extenders. Got it, cuz I ordered very
long ones cuz I wasn't sure at the time where this GPU was going to mount, if it
was going to mount like down or up or To be fair, that was the right call. Okay.
Okay, and then what are we using to mount it? Just these like threaded screws or whatever? Yep, standard M6
bolts and these nuts. Got them. Got them.
Snug fit. Uh apparently the PCBs have
some tolerance to them. You see, it's just a little bit. Ah, it'll be fine.
You know what? No. I'm going to I'm just going to shave that down a little bit. I don't trust it.
>> Don't do this at home, kids. Not with your PCI risers.
Push. Ooh. >> I hated that so
much. There we go. Okay. All right, we got our
fans. Yeah. You want You know, you want to roll on this because Thank you for bringing my
only fans. It's the only fans we'll need.
That was a funny joke. Linus would have made the same joke. That's the problem.
Okay. There you go. >> Cool. Awesome. All right. Now, round
two. Oh, yeah, I guess we do need Oh my god. We got to do this eight times.
Now all I need to do is build eight more and then ship it all to the badminton
center. I'm not going to do that on camera. I'll
see you guys there. Eight more. >> Well, like eight more computers, not
eight more of these. I would die if I had to do eight more of these. It's now
the Friday before Whale LAN. I already threw our Mini Swarm MSA 2 upstairs here
in the server room and I confirmed with the infrastructure team exactly which
port I should plug it into. And as you can see, it's here on our
network. Now, all I have to do is wait for Linus to be free being done setting
up some of the couches and stuff, and then we're going to try to set up all 16
in our 30-minute goal. While I wait, I got to thank ThreatLocker for helping us
out with the Whale LAN event. They're helping provide some of the network security here for the event, so that way
it protects our computers and your guys's. They also provide protection for
us at the office. So, thanks ThreatLocker. We're just finalizing getting the AV8s here set up as if they
were kind of set up by someone else, meaning all the cables were in place, the tables were in place. Then we're
going to call Linus over to do the monitors, the keyboards, the mice, the headsets, and power it on.
And hopefully, everything will work. I just got to route the last cables, the
displays.
Okay, I've got an update. I was going to test boot one of the systems just to make sure it does work, so when Linus
comes over and sets them all up, it's like, "Wow, this is amazing. Look how
good I did." I'm not getting any of them detected now
when I'm trying to network boot them. And Dan's blasting crab rave, and it's
driving me nuts. We're trying to figure out what's going on with the networking, and then it
might also be display cables. I don't know at this point. It's coming down to the wire for Whale LAN. I wanted to test
one computer for you, that way, "Oh man, everything's so magical and beautiful."
I'm struggling to see my PXE server
to boot everything from. So, we have to configure DHCP to be able to network
boot. It's getting there. This is a quick 30-minute setup though,
Linus. It's almost 4:00. When you start, it'll
be a 30-minute setup. >> Are we going to be able to get this down to that? In the future, yes, because we
would have ideally the proper length cables that would be always in a bundle.
And just could they just like be coiled up in the cabinet?
>> 100%. Okay, cool. >> Yeah. This is a first-time deployment.
It's going to have some irons and bugs that need to be Well, no. >> It'll have some irons to bug. Iron
So, we're rebooting one more time. Uh Elijah ran a command to try and refresh
some of the settings on the server, and let's see what happens.
That is also very good. >> Hey! Windows logo.
We can go home.
We got one of 16 done. But, that means the next 15 will be
easy. Theoretically. Now I'm ready to get Linus for our quick 30-minute setup.
It's 4:00 p.m. No, it's uh 4:20 p.m.
Nice. Nice. Nice. Linus, Linus. We're actually ready now if you want to set up
the rest of them. I wanted to do one as a test before we just jumped all 16.
Dude, she's responsive. That's not bad.
>> as our network is, essentially. Dude, she just She just works. She's like a
computer. Okay, well, let's set up the rest. Okay. Do you think we can do it in
30 minutes because I have to leave in 27 minutes for LAN show? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
This only took like four or five to get to here, so the rest should be fine.
I mean, you guys probably saw the Whale LAN setup vlog, so you know that we've
both been here all day, and I know that he's full of sh Yeah.
We went way over the top on the monitors for these. We don't want anybody blaming
our AV8 systems. So, these are from ASRock's Phantom Gaming line. They're
1080p IPS. Okay, that doesn't sound that
impressive yet. 520 hertz.
Are these labeled? Uh yeah, whichever one's the furthest that way is the one
you get. What What are you talking about? No, I just mean are these labeled?
>> No. That's number eight though. Are you sure? How do you know? Wait, what?
Yeah, cuz it was laying there. We did this earlier. We We organized
this earlier. >> even help, dude. And then this is your USB hub that we're going to plug our
keyboard, mice, and headset into. >> Elijah, you're killing me. Yeah. Slowly.
>> This so is this project. Dude, this is sick. I didn't know there
was going to be lighting. Dude, oh, she's warm,
she's warm. >> Yeah, we might want to pop the top off almost. What we might want to do is put
a bunch of cooling fans up here. Then, if we did put the other side in and have
enough to have each of these be an 8 by 8, then we could just kind of
create an air funnel. And the IO is actually surprisingly organized.
Everything is just on the ends here. Motherboards, GPUs, and everything's
labeled. Love it. And each computer only
has three cables, the Ethernet, one USB which goes to a hub, and then the
display. Damn. You have your pog perfectly organized garage, I have my
POS perfectly organized system.
This is not going to be one of those projects where we just get it half-baked
over the line and then just leave it, right? >> Well, I mean, we can make it another
video in a quarter. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is final form, right?
Yeah. For our peripherals, HyperX stepped up. They sent us 16 of their
headsets, their keyboard, and their mice. That way, everyone here is on the
same playing field. Nobody gets an advantage with their special little keyboards or their super light mice.
We're all the exact same. Half an hour, he told me.
Unless you want overtime. Have you tested these headsets to make sure that
they handle a hub okay? Sometimes audio on a hub can be not great.
>> Hm. I don't know, every time I've listened
to the hub, it's been fine. That's not what we're talking about. >> Oh, oh, oh. I think we just need to make
sure the monitor's on the right input. I might have to reboot because we're using DisplayPort.
>> Uh-huh. But, theoretically, theoretically, we have
them all. >> Theoretically. Oh, should we shout out Motion Grey who sent over 16 chairs, not
to mention a crew of people to build them for us? Wait, that was That was
actually Motion Grey that That was pretty chill of them. Oh, cool.
Any luck on your networking? No. Shawn right now is making some changes at the
same time we're trying to set this up, and I think we got blocked in some way.
So, AJ's communicating with him. In a couple hours, so theoretically.
Theoretically. I will be halfway through LAN show.
Yeah, and I will be done this setup. Okay.
I'll see you tomorrow, buddy.
I've seen better cable management, but hey, we put a fair bit of lipstick on
that pig. Yeah, looks great, doesn't it? But, you can boot up any of the games
that are on the desktop, Linus. There's no storage in these systems. It's all
booting over iSCSI, and it will work totally fine.
Buddy! That's sick. Dude, this is what
I'm talking about. That took 20 seconds, and I am in game,
ready to go. We had an issue where all these computers weren't able to see the
server that Linus created. So, what we actually have done is we've changed the
Windows setting to make it a private network. Now, what we're going to do is we're going to try the system where we
update one of them, and it should apply to all. So, we just did it to the blue
eight computer there. Now, all I have to do is hit check mark to apply it.
Applied. Change. Okay. Uh-huh. Then we hit apply.
Now, you're going to notice all the systems are out of date. So, theoretically, all we now have to do is
reboot them, and as we reboot them, they will be getting that new network change.
I also set the default refresh rate to 520 hertz. >> Oh, yeah, that as well then. So, it
should should be going to all of them.
Okay, here they go. They're rebooting. The storage is a touch slow when
everything's getting hit at the same time, but realistically, for gaming,
especially some of the older games that we're going to be playing, it shouldn't matter that much.
I want to give a huge thanks to all of the partners that made this possible. We're going to have everything linked
down below, including the ASUS GPUs, the Mini Swarm motherboards, the G.Skill
memory, the Western Digital drives, the Hamon Server Racks. I'm probably
forgetting something, but it'll be down there. Oh, and GG Rock for all of the
software help as well. And of course, our sponsor.
>> That was a really cool video, Elijah. Really great job. >> Thanks. It's time for a song now though,
so But first, a question. How do we explain what Odoo is? That's not a touch
screen. Odoo is a smartphone. Are you referring to how you can use Odoo on
your smartphone? Nah, Odoo is a smartphone. What? Listen.
I don't get it. I thought it was super clear.
Do you mean Odoo is like a smartphone? Well, yes. That's exactly what I meant.
Oh, well, why didn't you say that? I like phrasing it as a metaphor. Well, I
prefer a simile. I like the word onomatopoeia. Us too. Bam!
If you guys enjoyed this video, go check out part one where Linus first gave me
the task to try to build one of these machines. That's where we discovered
what hardware we're going to use, and we tried to brainstorm some ideas about how
to deploy them.