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Brocade ICX Series (cheap & powerful 10gbE/40gbE switching)

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Vesalius

Active Member
Nov 25, 2019
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There's 301 pages of glorious info to pick through in this thread.
The 7150-48zp is a newer and different beast with little info on it in this thread because only recently could they be found used here or there for less than 1-2k.
 

tozmo

Active Member
Feb 1, 2017
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The 7150-48zp is a newer and different beast with little info on it in this thread because only recently could they be found used here or there for less than 1-2k.
not to brag, but I got mine for free off eBay because the 2.5 side doesn’t work and the seller didn’t want it back (and refunded me whole). I’m slowly working toward the fan mod like the 6610 with the 2x120 on plexiglass. Photos when I’m done
 
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Vesalius

Active Member
Nov 25, 2019
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not to brag, but I got mine for free off eBay because the 2.5 side doesn’t work and the seller didn’t want it back (and refunded me whole). I’m slowly working toward the fan mod like the 6610 with the 2x120 on plexiglass. Photos when I’m done
A free icx7150-24p ain’t bad at all even if it is louder than the original.
 

nlj

Member
Sep 8, 2021
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Hi all, I'm new to STH Forums but have been lurking this thread for quite some time! I picked up a ICX 7250-24 recently, and am looking forward to using it in my homelab!

Like so many homelabbers, I find the stock Foxconn PIA040H12P fan to be much too loud for where my lab is located. So I've been on a venture to find a fan that keeps the 7250 cool while also being nice and quiet.

@rootwyrm I tried your suggestion of the Delta EFB0412VHD-F00 but the temp just keeps creeping up. After an hour of running idle, the switch is at 93 deg C and continues to climb. This seems a little toasty to me since there's only about 10 deg C headroom until thermal shutdown. I also want to avoid oscillating between fan speed 1 and 2.

I took a look and found a few other fans that seem to move a bit more air, and was wondering what your thoughts might be on them:

Mfr/model​
Size​
Air flow​
Static Pressure​
Noise​
Fan speed​
Price​
Delta FFB0412VHN-F0040mm x 28mm D15.8 cfm0.509 in H2O45 dBA9500 rpm$14.31
Sanyo Denki 109P0412G301340mm x 28mm D14.8 cfm0.719 in H2O42 dBA11500 rpm$10.51
Sanyo Denki 109P0412B301340mm x 28mm D13.4 cfm0.574 in H2O40 dBA10300 rpm$10.24
[COMPARE] Delta EFB0412VHD-F0040mm x 20mm D10.1 cfm0.416 in H2O32.5 dBA9000 rpm$12.57

It seems like the 109P0412G3013 might be the most promising, as it has the highest static pressure of the bunch and moves a bit more air per minute, but I am curious to hear what you think.

Thanks so much!
 
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csnaze

New Member
Jul 18, 2021
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I have the same issue. I'm running firmware version 08.0.30tT313. If it's a software bug, it is not patched in later versions.

It may be of interest to you that I have operated my switch for a day with the fan completely unplugged. It is sandwiched between two (relatively low powered) machines in my rack. The highest temperature I have noticed is 66C on Sensor A. It's little warm, but about 10 degrees below the shutdown level.
I have yet to install any 10Gig modules. While I anticipate they could raise the temperature a non insignificant amount, I have some hopes that this switch can be ran indefinitely with no fan.

A possible alternative is to splice a 100 Ohm resistor into the fan cable. At ~4.5V the fan is still louder than I prefer (completely silent), but it is a big improvement over stock. I don't have any heat shrink handy or I would perform this mod and call it a day.
I also have this issue, but after the resistor trick, my 6450-48 is a lot quieter. Is it a defect in the design that these PWM circuits fail so commonly?
 

mrzarquon

New Member
Aug 24, 2021
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Been lurking a while, wanted to thank @fohdeesha for this thread (and docs page) as it introduced me to Brocade hardware and let me dump my Unifi stuff entirely. I picked up two ICX-7150 12's and a 7150-24P for my setup.

I wanted to share some of my findings:

7150-24p Fan Mod:
It appears to be very happy with the fans replaced with Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM (while I could run it in fanless mode, I leave the fans on and still keep my POE draw below the fanless threshold). These are 4 wire fans that have board connectors that just work. I doubt they'll work in the 7250's, but if you end up with a 7150-24p that you want to keep quiet but want more airflow than fanless, these seem to be a good solution (they don't stall at low voltage either).

Multi Subnet/Domain DHCP (since that appears to be the next step after "i got vlan routing and a transit network working"):
For anyone doing multiple vlans/subnets who want dhcp dns working with different domains (ie, subnet A with *.mgmt.foo.lan, subnet B with *.bfs.foo.lan) but don't want to go so far as to roll your own, you can resort to using Pi-Hole. It is dnsmasq with some special settings and helpers, and most importantly, it still supports additional conf-dir directives. This lets you drop in additional settings ontop of the existing pi-hole tunings, as files in a configuration directory. When you do this it is best to also use the command sudo pihole-FTL dnsmasq-test to ensure you don't have conflicting entries / didn't mess up formatting - it attempts to load all your configuration fragments and will report errors if it finds any - saves you the risk of reloading the service and it crashing at start.

In my setup that looks like:
- PiHole (at 10.10.10.7) installed and running on the mgmt.foo.lan / 10.10.10.0/24 / vlan 10, with DHCP enabled (nothing fancy here), ICX providing routing at 10.10.10.1
- ICX doing DHCP relay for bfs.foo.lan / 10.10.20.0/24 / vlan 20, sending to 10.10.10.7:

Code:
interface ve 20
 ip address 10.10.20.1 255.255.255.0
 ip helper-address 1 10.10.10.7
- I've added this file to my Pi-Hole: /etc/dnsmasq.d/09-git-configs.conf
Code:
# this is a folder checked out of git for version control
# the .../conf,*.conf means it will only load files that end in .conf
# yes this is technically a security issue that i have my dns/dhcp
# configuration pointed to load files from a folder owned by a 
# generic user
# this also means if pi-hole *does* blow away /etc/dnsmasq.q/*
# restoring configurations after an update is just adding this file

conf-dir=/home/pi/dnsmasq-options/conf,*.conf
This lets me have a per subnet / per file configuration:
So this is a heavily commented file I use (for my future self) dnsmasq-options/conf/01-bfs-dhcp.conf
Code:
# I want my local static dns entries to be in git also
addn-hosts=/home/pi/dnsmasq-options/hosts/

# I want to configure DHCP settings for a specific subnet / range
# I can set a tag once (set:bfs) and then add settings to it by using
# it in the next line with tag:bfs, this works for all dhcp-* settings
# https://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/docs/dnsmasq-man.html

dhcp-range=set:bfs,10.10.20.100,10.10.20.199,255.255.255.0,12h
dhcp-option=tag:bfs,option:router,10.10.20.1

# this tells dnsmasq that it will be getting DHCP relay's from 10.10.10.1
# for the 10.10.20.0/24 subnet
shared-network=10.10.10.1,10.10.20.0

# this is the important bit for dual subnet, pi-hole will just set mgm.foo.lan
# but because this is more specific (with 10.10.20.0/24) it will be allowed
# letting us assign dns names via dhcp hosts for the 10.10.20.0 subnet
domain=bfs.foo.lan,10.10.20.0/24
One recent TIL: you can add static dhcp entries outside of your DHCP reservation pool. Something I never thought much about in the last 20 years since most interfaces to create a static entry grab the devices existing reservation to work with (which is from the pool). I've used that to throw all my dumb IOT things into the 200-249 range (force of habit has anything with a manually assigned IP < .100).
 

RoachedCoach

Member
Feb 4, 2020
42
49
18
Hi all, I'm new to STH Forums but have been lurking this thread for quite some time! I picked up a ICX 7250-24 recently, and am looking forward to using it in my homelab!

Like so many homelabbers, I find the stock Foxconn PIA040H12P fan to be much too loud for where my lab is located. So I've been on a venture to find a fan that keeps the 7250 cool while also being nice and quiet.

@rootwyrm I tried your suggestion of the Delta EFB0412VHD-F00 but the temp just keeps creeping up. After an hour of running idle, the switch is at 93 deg C and continues to climb. This seems a little toasty to me since there's only about 10 deg C headroom until thermal shutdown. I also want to avoid oscillating between fan speed 1 and 2.

I took a look and found a few other fans that seem to move a bit more air, and was wondering what your thoughts might be on them:

Mfr/model​
Size​
Air flow​
Static Pressure​
Noise​
Fan speed​
Price​
Delta FFB0412VHN-F0040mm x 28mm D15.8 cfm0.509 in H2O45 dBA9500 rpm$14.31
Sanyo Denki 109P0412G301340mm x 28mm D14.8 cfm0.719 in H2O42 dBA11500 rpm$10.51
Sanyo Denki 109P0412B301340mm x 28mm D13.4 cfm0.574 in H2O40 dBA10300 rpm$10.24
[COMPARE] Delta EFB0412VHD-F0040mm x 20mm D10.1 cfm0.416 in H2O32.5 dBA9000 rpm$12.57

It seems like the 109P0412G3013 might be the most promising, as it has the highest static pressure of the bunch and moves a bit more air per minute, but I am curious to hear what you think.

Thanks so much!
This is what I did. The secret sauce is slapping a fan on the ASIC and changing out the fans.

 

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nlj

Member
Sep 8, 2021
8
26
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Thank you - I read about your solution and it seems novel, but I would like to stick with soft-modding the switch if at all possible. I don’t mind swapping out a fan but I would like to avoid screwing a fan into the ASIC heatsink if I can!

I went ahead and ordered the 3 fans I mentioned in my post - I will give each a try and update this thread with my findings!
 
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deeceesth

New Member
Jul 30, 2021
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I just got a second ICX7250 and it came with an old bootloader (10.1.06T215) and was running 8030t. I can't get it to boot anything newer than 8030. I tried stepping through each version back from 8090 and it just spits out "wrong image format for bootm command" after flashing and rebooting.

Is there a separate bootloader update process? the latest guide update says 8090 should be updateable from any version but I can't get anything to boot.
 

up3up4

Member
Jun 10, 2018
89
32
18
I just got a second ICX7250 and it came with an old bootloader (10.1.06T215) and was running 8030t. I can't get it to boot anything newer than 8030. I tried stepping through each version back from 8090 and it just spits out "wrong image format for bootm command" after flashing and rebooting.

Is there a separate bootloader update process? the latest guide update says 8090 should be updateable from any version but I can't get anything to boot.
#by usb
device# copy disk0 flash spz10114.bin bootrom

#by tftp
device# copy tftp flash 10.176.220.51 spz10114.bin bootrom
 

fohdeesha

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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fohdeesha.com
I just got a second ICX7250 and it came with an old bootloader (10.1.06T215) and was running 8030t. I can't get it to boot anything newer than 8030. I tried stepping through each version back from 8090 and it just spits out "wrong image format for bootm command" after flashing and rebooting.

Is there a separate bootloader update process? the latest guide update says 8090 should be updateable from any version but I can't get anything to boot.
yeah sorry about that, another user PMd me with the same issue, looks like I didn't test old enough bootloaders. but yeah, turns out 8030 and earlier bootloaders can't flash the 8090m, the easy fix is just flash a newer bootloader first, you can do it from the existing bootloader. Will be adding it to the guide soon but if you find yourself with that error, in the bootloader just:

Code:
setenv ipaddr 192.168.1.50
setenv netmask 255.255.255.0

#tell the switch the IP of your tftp server:
setenv serverip 192.168.1.8
setenv uboot ICX7xxx/spz10118.bin
update_uboot
reset
#smash b to get back into new bootloader
then you can follow the guide
 
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Nnyan

Active Member
Mar 5, 2012
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Sacramento CA
I'm sure you've figured out I've spent (and am still spending) a lot of time with the IOS CLI. ;)
I don't mind going to the CLI when I need to but junos just feels like unneeded pain. I'm by far not an expert but I've always managed to get a switch up and running pretty quickly, the EX3300? not so much.
 

fohdeesha

Kaini Industries
Nov 20, 2016
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I don't mind going to the CLI when I need to but junos just feels like unneeded pain. I'm by far not an expert but I've always managed to get a switch up and running pretty quickly, the EX3300? not so much.
JunOS is...verbose. Which is amazing in a production environment where I need to create nested lists that feed into BGP filters etc, but at home, yeah you're probably gunna feel like you're wasting time if you don't already have a bunch of junOS experience. Wanna trade for an ICX6450? lmao