My third ESXi host, ESX-3, runs an NVIDIA A2 instead of the L4 found in ESX-1 and ESX-2. The A2 is a lower-power data center GPU with a 60 W TDP compared to the L4’s 72 W. Like the L4, it is passively cooled and supports NVIDIA vGPU. I am cooling it with the same…
Category: Home Lab
n3rdware NVIDIA L4 Coolers: 3-Slot vs 1-Slot Compared
As part of my collaboration with Robbe from n3rdware, he designed two different aftermarket coolers for the NVIDIA L4: a 3-slot version and a 1-slot version. I tested each one on a separate ESXi host running the same stress test. This article brings both results together in a direct comparison so you can see how…
NVIDIA L4 Cooling Results with a Custom 1 Slot Cooler from n3rdware
I’m happy to say that my collaboration with Robbe from n3rdware has finally reached the finish line. He has been designing and selling custom GPU coolers for years, with most of his customers coming from the home lab community, so this project was in very capable hands from the start. As part of this collaboration,…
My NVIDIA L4 Now Runs 18°C Cooler with a Custom 3 Slot Cooler
I’m happy to say that my collaboration with Robbe from n3rdware has finally reached the finish line. Robbe has been designing and selling custom GPU coolers for years, with most of his customers coming from the home lab community, so this project was in very capable hands from the start. Our goal was to build…
Building My Custom iSCSI/NFS Storage Server
The Custom Storage build was one of the most serious server builds I have done, and I am very happy with how it turned out. Here is the story in more detail. For more than a week, I was busy building my Storage server. For years, I had planned to make my existing servers diskless,…
After Upgrading vGPU from 16.9 to Newer Versions, nvidia-smi Fails on ESXi: “Couldn’t communicate with the NVIDIA driver. Make sure that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed and running.”
I recently ran into a tricky issue while upgrading NVIDIA vGPU on a VMware ESXi host using an NVIDIA A2 GPU. On my Management Core Server, I replaced an NVIDIA Tesla P4 with an NVIDIA A2 because the A2 has more VRAM and supports newer vGPU releases. The P4 is still a capable GPU and…
Building a Custom Silent Cooler for NVIDIA A2 and L4 Data Center GPUs with n3rdware
My goal with my home lab has always been clear. Keep it as silent as possible and as cool as possible, without sacrificing performance. Recently I started working more seriously with the NVIDIA A2 and the NVIDIA L4. Both are data center GPUs designed to operate inside rack servers with strong, directed airflow. They do…
Crysis 2 Remastered Breaks Gaming Memory Leak World Record
Before diving into the world of data center workloads, I decided to warm up by testing the performance of the PNY NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell Workstation Edition GPU with a variety of games. I played a handful of titles, and before long, viewers on my YouTube channel started suggesting more games to benchmark with…
Why Every Home Labber Should Attend Events Like VMware Explore
Before Silicon Valley turned into what it is today—endless tech campuses and VC pitches—there was this little thing called the Homebrew Computer Club. It wasn’t fancy, it wasn’t organized like a conference, and it definitely wasn’t about business plans. It was just a bunch of people who were genuinely obsessed with figuring things out, meeting…
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