Silencing 2u Supermicro 826 fans

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VirtualBacon

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Aug 21, 2017
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I have a Supermicro 826BA-R1K28WB, which has 3 x FAN-0126L4 fans. They draw around 6w each and are PWM

I have the IPMI set to Optimal, but its still too loud sometimes. Sometimes I can't even hear it outside my closet, but then it will ramp up quite a bit and be too loud

I tried pushing raw commands through with IPMI tool, but it looks like that isn't supported on this X9DRW-CTF31 board

What is the best, cheapest, simplest option moving forward?

I am thinking of either sticking resistors on the fan cables, or getting a Lamptron CP436 controller (Supports 36w per channel) which is around $30

Getting resistors would be easier, but I'm unsure how PWM fans react to this, will the motherboard just ramp them up further? The fan controller would work, but then I would lose the tach reading, and it won't be able to increase the speed itself if it really is too warm

I could replace the fans with Noctua's or something, but I feel like that won't give enough airflow without switching to active heatsinks

Thoughts?
 

VirtualBacon

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Aug 21, 2017
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I have 2 x E5-2680 V2's

Weirdly when I watch the tempratures in IPMI, everything looks perfect, and then they just randomly ramp up to 5500RPM for no reason (That I can see anyway)

I'm thinking the solution is to just get a fan controller
 

VirtualBacon

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Aug 21, 2017
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Yep passive heatsinks with the shroud

Another issue with switching to slower fans would be that my AIC's require a bit of airflow. If I could just get them to max out at 4K RPM I would be very happy!
 

i386

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2016
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That's expected behaviour.

Get active 2u heatsinks for the CPUs. These are loud at max rpm, but usually they dont Spin faster than 3500rpm.
 

PigLover

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Jan 26, 2011
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One caution on using resistors on SM fans: don't just use the ones you find sold for "desktop" fans. They are not rated high enough to handle the high-current fans SM uses. If you use resistors you need to fab them yourself and ensure the resistor is built to handle the expected current (you can get specs for the exact fans pretty easily using google).

I helped someone clean the soot out of his case a couple of years ago after using a set of Nocua "low noise" connectors in a SM case. Luckily the cases are all metal :)
 

VirtualBacon

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Aug 21, 2017
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That's expected behaviour.

Get active 2u heatsinks for the CPUs. These are loud at max rpm, but usually they dont Spin faster than 3500rpm.
I have thought about that, but that seems even more expensive than just getting a fan controller. Even at 2500RPM the CPU temperature is fine

One caution on using resistors on SM fans: don't just use the ones you find sold for "desktop" fans. They are not rated high enough to handle the high-current fans SM uses. If you use resistors you need to fab them yourself and ensure the resistor is built to handle the expected current (you can get specs for the exact fans pretty easily using google).

I helped someone clean the soot out of his case a couple of years ago after using a set of Nocua "low noise" connectors in a SM case. Luckily the cases are all metal :)
I remember making that mistake before! I will probably get a lamptron fan controller, the one I am looking at specifies up to 35w per channel, which is more than enough
 

Aestr

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Oct 22, 2014
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You can also look at getting a PWM controller to avoid any of the concerns about overheating a resistor.
 

EffrafaxOfWug

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Feb 12, 2015
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Weirdly when I watch the tempratures in IPMI, everything looks perfect, and then they just randomly ramp up to 5500RPM for no reason (That I can see anyway)
Check the sensors logs and/or IPMI sensor status for fan rpms as well as temperatures. It's quite possible something is causing an assert which will cause all of the fans to ramp up to 100% until the assert clears. If any of the fan rpms drop above/below the higher/lower thresholds set in IPMI, you'll get an assert. Typically you can tweak the thresholds via raw IPMI commands.

Regarding Noctua's, I had a Supermicro motherboard that I fitted out with Noctua's for system fans. Occasionally they would run so slow as to report 0rpm - which made all the fans spin up, cleared the assert... and then spin-down and 0rpm again, creating a "surging" effect. In the end I just used non-Noctua fans which didn't exhibit the problem.
 

VirtualBacon

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Check the sensors logs and/or IPMI sensor status for fan rpms as well as temperatures. It's quite possible something is causing an assert which will cause all of the fans to ramp up to 100% until the assert clears. If any of the fan rpms drop above/below the higher/lower thresholds set in IPMI, you'll get an assert. Typically you can tweak the thresholds via raw IPMI commands.

Regarding Noctua's, I had a Supermicro motherboard that I fitted out with Noctua's for system fans. Occasionally they would run so slow as to report 0rpm - which made all the fans spin up, cleared the assert... and then spin-down and 0rpm again, creating a "surging" effect. In the end I just used non-Noctua fans which didn't exhibit the problem.
I have dug through all the information in IPMI, and all the charts in LibreNMS and there is just nothing to correlate fan speed to
 

EffrafaxOfWug

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Feb 12, 2015
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Sorry, missed you were using an X9 board - don't have one myself so not sure if the raw commands work on those (although PigLover's indispensable guide suggests they might).

Have you got CLI access to ipmitool or similar on this box? ipmitool's really useful since it'll show you what the thresholds are set to as well.

Does the X9 web GUI not have either a set of sensor readings or a log like the below? Attached is what my SM server event log showed when it had the Noctua's attached exhibiting the fan behaviour.
 

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VirtualBacon

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Aug 21, 2017
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It looks like some X9 boards support it, and some don't. I have ESXi on the system so I can't run ipmitool directly, but I can connect to it remotely. All commands work fine, except for the raw ones

Perhaps I should try update the IPMI firmware

I just checked the event log, the only things listed are me entering the credentials wrong a few times, other than that its completely blank
 

EffrafaxOfWug

Radioactive Member
Feb 12, 2015
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Is booting it up with a linux USB doable? And does it exhibit the same behaviour under another OS?

P.S. I think the IPMI requires a reset before it'll pick up any values you do manage to set via the raws - I took to issuing an `ipmitool mc reset warm` whenever I'd changed any to get them to "apply", rebooting should hopefully also work. Again, not sure if the X9's will behave the same way.

P.P.S. If you're able to install third-party binaries on your ESX boxes there are a few people who've made ipmitool binaries that should be able to be run from the console.
 

VirtualBacon

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Not really, at least not for the next week or so. But it does do the exact same thing when just sitting at the BIOS/UEFI Shell prompt when under zero load

It won't even accept the commands, I get the following

Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0x70 rsp=0xcc): Invalid data field in request

As you can see, normal requests work fine

 

nthu9280

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Feb 3, 2016
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I don't think 0x30 0x70 0x66 works on X9 boards.

Here are some of my notes for X9. I know the basic "0x30 0x45 0x01 <0x??>" works but I have not yet tested some of the ones linked (SM FAQ as well as the other one).

Code:
Fan Speed Control:

How to change the FAN settings of X9 motherboard using IPMI RAW commands:

Using IPMItool or IPMICFG you can use the below command:
Ipmicfg -raw 0x30 0x45 0x01 0x0#
Where # 0, 1, 2, or 4. This will set the fan mode to 0 – standard, 1 – Full, 2 – Optimal, 4 - Heavy IO.

To read out the current setting:
"Ipmicfg -raw 0x30 0x45 0x00" The output will be 00, 01 or 02, referring to standard, full and optimal respectively.

  # set fan speed control to Full
  `ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 0x01 0x01`
 
  # set fan speed control to Optimal
  `ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 0x01 0x02`

https://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=15634
Fan Speed CLI ATEN X9
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x0 0x0
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x1 0x0
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x2 0x0
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x3 0x0

One is for Write and one is for Read.
// for full speed
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x10 0xff
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x11 0xff

//for half speed
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x10 0x7f
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x91 0x5A 0x3 0x11 0x7f


https://asgardahost.org/useful-raw-commands-for-supermicro-ipmi-modules/
Some raw commands for CPU FAN control ( X9 ATEN/AMI Supermicro ):

Get the current status mode of IPMI module
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x0c 0
0x00 = Dedicated
0x01 = Onboard / Shared
0x02 = Failover

Change mode for X9 ATEN and AMI Supermicro Motherboards:
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x0c 1 0 #dedicated
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x0c 1 1 #onboard/shared
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x0c 1 2 #failover

Change mode for older AMI Supermicro Motherboards
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x0c 1 1 0 #dedicated
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x0c 1 1 1 #onboard/shared
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x0c 1 0 #failover

Some raw commands for CPU FAN control ( X9 ATEN/AMI Supermicro ):

ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 0 - get current FAN mode status (standard/full/optimal -> [0/1/2])
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 1 0 - set standard mode 2800-3300 rpm
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 1 1 - set max performance mode 6600-7200 rpm
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 1 3 - set minimal mode 1800 rpm
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 1 4 - set intermediate mode alittle bit slowly then max performance one, 6500-7000 rpm
 

Timothy Gurske

New Member
Sep 15, 2018
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I just went through this. I finally got a Noctua fan controller with a little dial on it and just set them to a low speed. Then I found out why SM had them running so fast - the ram runs very hot. I ended up having to add a fan on top of the ram to keep it cool.
 
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