LSI 3108 high chip temp. Should I be concerned?

[Fritz]

System is a Quanta D51B-2U. 3108 is a mezz card. idle temp is 86c. Air temp is about 60f back there right now. I would like to add a 40cm fan to the heatsink but there are zero fan headers on this board other than for the fan wall and they are propriety and all used. I'd rather not jury rig a solution but will if I have to. The heatsink is tiny and appears to be propriety.

Given that it was engineered they way it is, should I even be concerned at all? I suspect it could rise to over 100c in the summer with a heavy load.

Any ideas?

TIA

 

[i386]

Where do you see this temp?
broadcom software/hba/raid tools? Or a infrared thermometer pointing at the chip?

The raid/controller ics/"asic" (it's usually an arm or powerpc cpu...) on their own are designed for a wide range of temperatures. For example the SAS3008 ic should be able to handle temperatures up to 100°c (can't find the pdf right now, but here is link to serverfault with a question about older hbas: LSI MegaRAID Expected Chip Temperature?)

Offtopic:
It's funny to find a broadcom link that says "buy a pcie slot fan" when you search for lsi temperature:

Controller is overheating

<p>I am getting over-temp warnings and seeing drives dropping from the Virtual drive.</p> <p> </p>

www.broadcom.com

 

[ericloewe]

LSI HBAs do need some airflow over the heatsink, and overheating is known to cause the controllers to error out or outright crash.

My rule of thumb on this is that the heatsink shouldn't be too hot to touch.

 

[Fritz]

I'm seeing the temp in MSM.

I have one of those slot coolers but they so wimpy you can't feel the air flow with it running. Besides, there's nowhere to plug one in. I honestly don't see why they used such a small thin useless heatsink.

Also forgot to mention I replaced the thermal grease. The old stuff was dried out, hard as a brick, but it made no difference.

 

[jei]

Just in case I usually put 40mm~ fan over every heatsink. Just need to find a suitable screw(s) for the sink fins from a hw store.

 

[Fritz]

Just in case I usually put 40mm~ fan over every heatsink. Just need to find a suitable screw(s) for the sink fins from a hw store.

View attachment 26632

Yea, that's my plan if I can find a way to power it.

 

[CyklonDX]

you could potentially power it through the usb, or some power cables. or you could just use the card on 3 pin (2pin) header it should have enough to power some small fan.

 

[Fritz]

Temp is up to 88c now.

There are zero available power headers in this box.

I'm thinking a USB powered fan would be far to weak to be of any use.

 

[Markess]

Temp is up to 88c now.

There are zero available power headers in this box.

I'm thinking a USB powered fan would be far to weak to be of any use.

No internal USB headers either? Noctua makes 40mm 5V fans. Would need to modify the fans connector to connect to a USB header though.

 

[Fritz]

Last night I pulled the server out of the rack so I could get a better look at the MB. I found a 6 pin header marked "PCIe". I had an old set of modular PSU cables, found the one correct one and plugged it in. Checked with a meter and yup, getting 12v on the proper pins.

Next up is helluva problem I might not be able to solve. The controller hangs upside down and I think the weight of the fan and /or the tywraps used to hold it on is causing the heatsink to separate slightly from the chip. Temps went up into the 90s instead of going down. Gonna play with it some more today and see if I can overcome this. Push come to shove I can mount a 40mm Supermicro chassis fan close to it blowing out the rear of the chassis, maybe that will help. At this point I believe the heatsink is just way too small to properly cool the chip but it's proprietary so I doubt I can find a suitable replacement.

 

[oneplane]

If you can't mount it on the card, but can mount one 'near' the card, a bigger fan that displaces more air over a larger area can also be enough. As for power and speed control (and feedback), you can also get one of those more expensive USB Fan hubs that you can control and read from the OS. It's a bit weird to have in a server, but on the other hand, servers are just computers.

 

[Fritz]

Thanks. Just removed the fan and redid the thermal grease. Gonna fire it up and see how much air the fan wall pushes out the rear and over the heatsink. If it isn't much I'll mount a fan to the rear window.

UPDATE -

I mounted a Supermicro 40mm fan next to the card on the PSU box. There's a couple of screw holes in it. Made a bracket to hold the fan and bolted it down. Temp dropped to 61c. I'm done with it. This is a common problem, google is loaded with info on it including people who have suffered a complete shutdown of the card due to overheating. You'd think that with commercial grade stuff this wouldn't happen and if it did it would be corrected.

I read several posts from people who have contacted LSI and they responded by parroting what the documentation says which is it's not supposed to get this hot. Well duh.