Taming the C6100

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Toddh

Member
Jan 30, 2013
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10
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Looking at the air flow through these there is considerable obstructions. However it seems to me one of the largest is the restricted exit at the rear of the chassis. I have both the infiniband Mez card and something in the PCI slot. That leaves very little perforated metal for all the hot air to escape. The top nodes have the advantage of the vents on the top of the case but the bottom two do not.

I did take the white labels off power and other connectors at the front of the mb since they are a further air restriction.

Also if you are not running all the hds I would leave the middle slot open and install hds in the top and bottom trays. The middle being directly in front of the opening in the backplane where air is pulled through by fans.

Just some thoughts.

.
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
3,184
1,545
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A question to those who have change there origiginal fan.

Do you notice a significant difference on power consumtion?
A modest one. 5-10W out of 180-200W idle. Its tough to be precise because there is a lot of fluctuation at idle.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
12,511
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A modest one. 5-10W out of 180-200W idle. Its tough to be precise because there is a lot of fluctuation at idle.
On that front, have you noticed it being ambient dependent? It seems like a 60F ambient idle is much lower than at 70F.
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
3,184
1,545
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On that front, have you noticed it being ambient dependent? It seems like a 60F ambient idle is much lower than at 70F.
I haven't tracked it with that kind of detail. Once I racked/stacked everything I pulled the kill-a-watt off, so it's hard to measure now. My UPS does do power logging, but only for everything plugged it...it doesn't have per-circuit logging. It does have an ambient temperature log, so I guess I could make some inferences...
 

Chuckleb

Moderator
Mar 5, 2013
1,017
331
83
Minnesota
I think I got to the backplane when installing the fan replacements. I just had to remove the screws on the sides near the handles and also the screws on the back side of the handles. That allows the front drive cage to slide forward and out.
 

s0lid

Active Member
Feb 25, 2013
259
35
28
Tampere, Finland
My way of silencing this box:



Yup, sketching a waterblock :D
Custom built, using 3x of 50mm x 50mm copper bases from Alphacool HF 38 Missouri gpu blocks (got em cheap and they're efficient as hell).

These limitations are fun. Overall max height 28mm, on nb 18mm, 5x2 0.1" cmos header between nb and cpu1 and possible places for fittings are few.
Going to have fun with this ^^

E:
First sketch from the bottom:


More incoming when I get the gpu waterblocks.
 
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bdbarb

New Member
Apr 4, 2013
4
0
1
I spent some time looking at a quieter cooling alternative and think I may have a very simple solution. I ran plastic cable ties through the top empty trays on one of these and mounted 4 Cooler Master 140mm 16DB fans that provide 60CFM each directly over the xeons. I'm a little worried about not having fans on the hd's with all 12 bays being populated that I may work on when I get time and if i notice they are hot or not. I'll post pics up of this sometime soon, but for now if you measure the screw holes on the case, there's a couple right about 120mm apart. For the 140mm fans I am running a tie between two screw holes to make a spot for a tie where there is no hole. I'm re reading this and think a picture is worth a thousand words!

The other issue I had, was that I could not get Windows 2008 R2 to install to the onboard raid, would reboot to a blu screen. Mine only came with the intel ICH10R but did come with 12 x 1TB drives which at the price for them included would have been exactly the same just for the empty drive mounts! Anyway, my solution to this if I haven't posted already was to buy an x1 pcie card with an msata slot (Also has internal and external sata ports). I'm waiting for a 128GB Msata SSD to show up in the mail now, and was successfully able to install Windows to an external HD. Figure I hadn't seen any molex or sata power connectors flopping around in there, and the Msata is powered by the controller... also fast as hell! Costs 150 per board for that little trick. Hope this helps anyone looking for a quick solution too.
 
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Smalldog

Member
Mar 18, 2013
62
2
8
Goodyear, AZ
s0lid-

If you do this waterblock idea (and I think it's pretty clever!) how are you going to pump water in, cool it and store it? I thought about this and turning the case into a 6U since basically with longer cables (power, SAS, maybe a few others), the machine can be "exploded" into a 6U or larger case with plenty of vertical room between nodes.

I think I am going to order up some extra C6100's and see what I can do with them as far as breaking them up to do something like watercooling with some off the shelf solution, and mounting larger 120mm fans to cool everything else, maybe from the top, or at a 45 degree angle blowing toward the read of each node.

I am anxious to see how this works out for you.

Jeff
 

s0lid

Active Member
Feb 25, 2013
259
35
28
Tampere, Finland
s0lid-

If you do this waterblock idea (and I think it's pretty clever!) how are you going to pump water in, cool it and store it?
Jeff
I think i'll have the block inlets and outlets at CPU0 facing front of the chassis and exit/enter the chassis from upper psu's blank plate.
Otherwise external cooling, phobya 1080mm pump, quick release fittings and yet to be named pump :D

The initial plan was to have the inlets and outlets cut both sides of mellanox mezzanine card.
 
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briancl

New Member
Apr 2, 2013
15
0
1
I bought the San Ace 80 9GV0812P1H031 from Mouser, and I'm trying to figure out how to terminate the new fans. I'm considering cutting the terminated connector off of the original fan and split that one. I need to extend the wire on the new fans anyway, so I could cut the old wire with 6" or whatever I need for each fan. I don't see a lot of value on a used C6100 fan, and I could always splice it back on. Good idea? Bad idea?

I looked through the thread but didn't see it, does anyone know what the pinout is?

BTW, my fans are 4 wire only on a 5 pin connector. I have the older fan controller board, PIC-16 I believe? The one that doesn't take the Fan controller firmware upgrade.
 

Smalldog

Member
Mar 18, 2013
62
2
8
Goodyear, AZ
the 6u idea is neat what case were you thinking of using?
I didn't really have any case specifically in mind. Was going to see if my dad would bend some metal for me and kind of go from there.

I have three C6100's now, and looking to pickup a few more to gut out completely and rebuild into something vertically larger (chassis-wise) from the ground up.

Jeff
 

mrkrad

Well-Known Member
Oct 13, 2012
1,244
52
48
if you ever see a SE1220 HP you'll see they splice two fans into one (two real big-uns). It's basically a DL180 G6 chassis with ILO2 and dual intel nic's (instead of junky broadcom). plus double cooling
 

RimBlock

Active Member
Sep 18, 2011
837
28
28
Singapore
I bought the San Ace 80 9GV0812P1H031 from Mouser, and I'm trying to figure out how to terminate the new fans. I'm considering cutting the terminated connector off of the original fan and split that one. I need to extend the wire on the new fans anyway, so I could cut the old wire with 6" or whatever I need for each fan. I don't see a lot of value on a used C6100 fan, and I could always splice it back on. Good idea? Bad idea?

I looked through the thread but didn't see it, does anyone know what the pinout is?

BTW, my fans are 4 wire only on a 5 pin connector. I have the older fan controller board, PIC-16 I believe? The one that doesn't take the Fan controller firmware upgrade.
You could try this fan connector (4-pin PWN can to Dell 5 pin fan connector, 8") from Frozen CPU. I have not tried it but it may save a fair bit of playing around.

I just cut off the cable from the original fans and then soldered them on to the Supermicro (San Ace 80) fans.

RB
 

Mrlie

Member
Jan 1, 2011
32
2
8
45
Oslo, Norway
For those who have done the modification, and also have the equipment - how does the C6100 sound after having the fans silenced/replaced, compared to a Norco 4x20 (with original Delta-fans installed)?
I have a C6100 inbound, but I need to silence it since I will have it inside a closet inside my appartment.
 

Smalldog

Member
Mar 18, 2013
62
2
8
Goodyear, AZ
For those who have done the modification, and also have the equipment - how does the C6100 sound after having the fans silenced/replaced, compared to a Norco 4x20 (with original Delta-fans installed)?
I have a C6100 inbound, but I need to silence it since I will have it inside a closet inside my appartment.
I bought the Supermicro fan, and plan on doing this mod tomorrow.
 

Mrlie

Member
Jan 1, 2011
32
2
8
45
Oslo, Norway
Please take pictures of the procedure if you are able too. Even though PigLover and others have make great guides in this thread, the more documentation is better.

My moddingskills is limited to swapping out fans and connectors, and I havnt bought any replacement parts yet.