Server Room

Computer Server Room

Hello Interested Customers!

With this project we were asked by Neptune, Inc of Los Alamos, a contractor to the EPA, to attend to the care and feeding of some very special computers. Combined, these servers are the equivalent of 1,000 high end laptops. They are used for weather scenario modeling via users logging in from all over the world. They demand specific humidity and temperature conditions within a narrow range, and when all running together the din they create is incredible, reaching 130db! Truly, they sound like a jet engine. In the intro photo you can see the air-conditioning units and the "swamp cooler" on the far wall behind the servers. This photo below is of the outside electrical panels.

You can see the new meter to the left in this photo. It was necessary to upgrade the electrical service to the entire building to run these computers and their needed cooling requirements. Equivalent to two home clothes dryers running continuously, plus the power requirements of the cooling units themselves, an addtional 50amps 3 phase 240 volt of potential was required to be added to the building. We removed the brick and dug down 5 feet to access the transformer just out of this shot, pictured below. The new service line was then run into the server room.

Returning to the room itself you can see the "egg-crate style" foam on the walls. We treated this room like a sound studio. We used extra heavy Sheetrock, 5/8. for the walls, a kind of vibration isolation clip, called a hat channel, and a dropped ceiling above, all filled with foam and insulation to mitigate the intense sound from the cooling fans.

Such an interesting experience being in the room with the foam and having the "ring" of a room missing. The foam addition proved to be the key factor in keeping the sound reasonable! Here on the outside in the next photo you can see the exterior of the machines. Also, you will notice that we kept the original window, to maintain the buildings exterior appearance, but built a "utility wall" to the inside to contain the equipment, add security to the room, mitigate sound, and keep the heat from the sun down.

Thanks for taking a look and let us know if we can build any special rooms for you!