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

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K D

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Dec 24, 2016
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Do the fans spin down and get much quieter after booting? That should be happening
No. They keep spinning at full tilt. One 10g port and a couple of gig ports connected. No clue what firmware is on the switch. Just connected it to ensure its not DOA. Will reset and update the firmware to the latest version tomorrow and see if it makes a difference.
 

fohdeesha

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oof, no wonder, they should spin WAY down. Follow the guide in my OP to update ALL the firmware (including bootloader etc) and see if it's resolved.

Out of curiosity, can you paste the output of "show chassis" ? Do you have both PSU's powered? try to power them both before running the "show chassis" command.

I recall behavior where if you mix a version A PSU with a version C psu, the fans never spin down - https://i.imgur.com/UkDsbiT.png

I doubt this is your issue as I've never seen a rev C power supply in the wild, most likely just old firmware
 

K D

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Plugged in the second power supply and the fan speed quieted down to a very acceptable level.

Code:
The stack unit 1 chassis info:

Power supply 1 (AC - Regular) present, status ok
        Model Number:   23-0000144-02
        Serial Number:  015
        Firmware Ver:    A
Power supply 1 Fan Air Flow Direction:  Front to Back
Power supply 2 (AC - Regular) present, status ok
        Model Number:   23-0000144-02
        Serial Number:  0AE
        Firmware Ver:    A
Power supply 2 Fan Air Flow Direction:  Front to Back

Fan 1 ok, speed (auto): [[1]]<->2
Fan 2 not present

Fan controlled temperature: 53.0 deg-C

Fan speed switching temperature thresholds:
                Speed 1: NM<----->80       deg-C
                Speed 2:       75<-----> 85 deg-C (shutdown)

Fan 1 Air Flow Direction:  Front to Back
MAC 1 Temperature Readings:
        Current temperature : 39.5 deg-C
MAC 2 Temperature Readings:
        Current temperature : 53.0 deg-C
CPU Temperature Readings:
        Current temperature : 51.0 deg-C
sensor A Temperature Readings:
        Current temperature : 33.5 deg-C
sensor B Temperature Readings:
        Current temperature : 41.0 deg-C
sensor C Temperature Readings:
        Current temperature : 37.5 deg-C
stacking card Temperature Readings:
        Current temperature : 47.0 deg-C
        Warning level.......: 82.0 deg-C
        Shutdown level......: 85.0 deg-C
 

fohdeesha

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hmm, that shouldn't be the case, I would update when you get a chance. On the latest FW I can definitely only plug one PSU in and they spin down after boot. Glad to hear it's not stuck there though!
 

K D

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Went ahead and updated the firmware to the latest version per your guide. Still the same behavior (Full speed fans with 1 PSU plugged in). Could it be because the switch has only one fan other than the PSUs?

Thank you for the excellent recommendation on these switches and the guides.
 

fohdeesha

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Hmmm, no all the switches I've ever come across only have one fan tray. It could be because you have 2x A revision PSU's, I know their fan code is a bit different (hence the bug I linked above).

If you haven't already after updating, completely unplug the thing so it turns off with no power and wait a few seconds, then plug it back in with 1 PSU. See if it spins down eventually (might take 5min or so). I know previously I've had one refuse to spin down after mixing and matching power supplies until I cold booted it to reset the i2c control bus or whatever the hell was going on - the watchdog IC in these things doesn't "restart" like the switch does, it gets powered on once at first boot and stays on
 

fohdeesha

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You can swap the fans for Sunon Maglevs with much lower noise specs, AFAIK. Plenty of good deals in AliExpress for those.
He got it to quiet down, that was just the "full blast" mode before they go into speed control. On the icx6610 the chassis fans are near silent, what you hear is the power supply fans, those need to be able to move 40+cfm at full tilt or you'll cook your power supply, and there is no physical way to make it any quieter as at that amount of air moving from a 40mm fan is going to make noise no matter what. I've been through all method of fan swapping in the icx6610 (so has kapone and a few others if you check some of the previous 6610 threads), there's really nothing you can do without making it worse - it already runs the fans as slow as it can get away with, swapping in lower rpm/cfm models just makes it have to run them faster to maintain the same temp so you're back where you started

It's really not loud once it fully boots, definitely better than the lb4m and lb6m
 
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fsck

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ever consider hacking in a blower? Those are flat and can push a decent amount of air.
 

fohdeesha

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Into the power supplies? You'd have to cut the whole back plate of it off and have a blower fan sticking out the back, and it'd have to match the stock fan rpm +/- 20% or it will refuse to bring that power supply up due to a fan failure

Have you guys actually heard these things? They're really not loud, just ask @K D and @mangodoc - especially when you consider it's a 500gbps data center router - they definitely already pulled a miracle making it this quiet
 
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K D

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Once the fan speed control kicks in, it's bearable noise. Can't really make it out over the other boxes.
 

fohdeesha

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That said, the 6450 is a different beast when it comes to fan modification, as far as I can tell it doesn't have a hardware monitoring/watchdog IC whatsoever so you could totally remove the fan and it would just complain in syslog.

I did run an icx6450 totally out of the chassis with no fan overnight and it never got close to warning temps, so going completely fanless could be something to try (for the nonpoe models) I know they have some heat to dissipate at full load, but that's 160gbps or so of l3 traffic on these and I'd be surprised if the average home user went over a 100th of that on average - going fanless could work

That said, the 6450 is virtually silent to begin with, so I dunno - to each their own!

Edit: gonna disconnect the fan on one of my bench 6450's tomorrow and graph temps overnight while running some iperf though it to see how it does
 
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fsck

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well, I meant internally. I'm a function over form guy.

sadly, my pair of 6610s are just departing for Canada.
 

anomaly

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Into the power supplies? You'd have to cut the whole back plate of it off and have a blower fan sticking out the back, and it'd have to match the stock fan rpm +/- 20% or it will refuse to bring that power supply up due to a fan failure

Have you guys actually heard these things? They're really not loud, just ask @K D and @mangodoc - especially when you consider it's a 500gbps data center router - they definitely already pulled a miracle making it this quiet
I can chime in later about CFM equivalent fans, but depending on actual heat produced you might be just fine. Also, PSUs have over temp protection usually.

You can fake RPMs/the tachometer signal (also for PWM). I will fire you a message later, but I was working on making an inline miniature board for faking RPM speeds when doing after market fan mods. With common sense, it's perfectly safe.
 

fohdeesha

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well, I meant internally. I'm a function over form guy.

sadly, my pair of 6610s are just departing for Canada.
Well, the only fans that really make any sound in the 6610 are the psu fans, so it'd be those you'd be replacing - don't think there's enough free room inside the switch or psu to fit a blower replacement that would flow through the psu so it'd have to be hanging out the back hehe
 

anomaly

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The only solution for PSU fan issues is to relocate the PSUs out of the picture altogether. I have made my own filtered 48/50V 12/13.5V PSUs in 1U format. MeanWell makes decent 1U units, and the medical line is $$ but about 90-91% efficient at those voltages.

By moving the PSU out though you need to account for any monitoring data lines they might have... if it isn't a simple DC input swap, and you aren't an electronics engineer or have the knowhow and equipment, you will end up with a non functional device.

If someone wants to donor a system for testing mods that might be more aggressive, I'm sure fohdeesha or I might be willing to experiment and share whatever comes out of it.