Changing chassi fans - SC846TQ-R900 - Noctua NF-R8-redux-1800

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maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
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Does anyone have a take on this idea?

The load in my chassi isnt very high.. currently loaded with 10 drives.

NF-R8 redux-1800 PWM

gonna give the psu as go aswell

- trying to do something about the sound.. its a bit too high for WAF
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Rated at nearly 50% the CFM -- but I'm not sure the difference at idle if your system doesn't heat up and 'use' the actual higher available air movement.

Depending on motherboard (if supermicro) you'll have to re-program it to 'be ok' with that super low rpm. At the low RPM it may not move enough air to keep up with mid-plane fans... do some testing as it may 'slow' things down vs. no fan in rear at all.
 

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
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System is located in the basement, with around 20 degrees C temp all year round.. so that helps aswell.

Im running an x9scl-f board, with a 1265L.

I was somewhat expecting to run them full throttle all the time, the noise of those compared to the ones currently in the chassi is quite tolerable..
 

britinpdx

Active Member
Feb 8, 2013
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Portland OR
Does anyone have a take on this idea?

The load in my chassi isnt very high.. currently loaded with 10 drives.
I was in a similar situation with an older SC846TQ chassis that I wanted to run with an X9SCM/E3-1230 and maybe 8~12 disks. The chassis was outfitted with 3pin fans (so no pwm control), and ridiculously loud power supply fans. I pretty much ended up gutting the chassis and rebuilding it with more up to date SM components (this is the great thing about the SM systems, they are incredibly modular).

I swapped out the power distributor (PDB-PT846-2824), replaced the 3 pin fan cables with 4 pin pwm cables (CBL-0216L ) as a starting point. I wanted to get the noise under control as much as I could and decided to go with active rather than passive cooling. As the chassis is 4U, that gave me quite a lot of freedom to pick a CPU cooler. I ended up using a Dynatron K17 which is a 3U unit with a 92mm fan, but there are a ton of options here. (I've also used the SM SNK-P0046A4 in 2U chassis for the X9SCx series of motherboards and they also work quite well in terms of noise and cooling ability)

In order to quiet down my chassis I first looked at the "whisper quiet 4U workstations" to see how they were configured ( they only have to support 8 drives so the airflow requirements should be somewhat similar). The quiet workstation chassis have the -SQ (super quiet?) suffix, and implement power supplies that also have the -SQ suffix. I went with the "PWS-920P-SQ" power supply. (N.B the redundant power supplies and power distributors in the various SM chassis are mostly interchangeable, but some of the larger rated power supplies have larger output connectors that require a different power distributor. The PWS-1K28P-SQ is one of the power supplies that has the "wide" connector, one reason to stick with the PWS-920P-SQ)

In terms of the mid plane fans, the supermicro fan matrix is a great resource to see the specs of the fans. The 4U workstations use the "FAN-0074L4" which is a 0.58A 5000rpm fan (it is the only supermicro fan that I have come across that has a green housing). The typical 846 fans are the "FAN-0094L4" and they are 1.1A 6300rpm. The green FAN-0074L4 fans were a drop in for my chassis.

At the end of the day the active CPU cooler, lower rpm mid plane fans (FAN0074L4) and PWS-920p-SQ power supply quieted down my chassis no end, for what I consider to be a light to moderate load.

I've gone through all sorts of mods on my SM systems and have come to very much respect the designs and components that the SM engineers have chosen. Given the modularity of the chassis and components, my first line go-to items are always SM parts rather than "off the shelf" generic parts.
 

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
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Yikes.. the PWS-920P-SQ is expensive..

I have been wondering if there was any options that required less power aswell - power is expensive in Denmark.. so it actually all adds up :/
 

Fritz

Well-Known Member
Apr 6, 2015
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I would to point out that a PWS-1K28P-SQ can be modified with a Dremel tool to fit in any PDU. I have 4 such units running flawlessly. None are pulling anywhere near 1280 watts and never will.
 

PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
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The pws-721p-1r is almost as quiet and they are relatively cheap on ebay.

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk
 

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
576
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@mattr - are you positive about that? - the pressure seems decent, and the airflow is lower, but not that bad..?
supermicro fan spec.jpg


noctua fan spec.jpg
 

mattr

Member
Aug 1, 2013
120
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@mattr - are you positive about that? - the pressure seems decent, and the airflow is lower, but not that bad..?
View attachment 2822


View attachment 2823
I have one in a 4-bay DAS enclosure. I RMA'd the first one because I thought it was defective. The second one was the same. I even hooked it up to my fan controller in my workstation to make sure. According to the specs it was supposed to be about 1/2 as loud as the stock fan in the enclosure and move about twice as much air. It's actually much louder and doesn't move anywhere near as much air. It runs constantly whereas the stock fan would only kick on every few minutes.

Do you have passive or active CPU coolers? Keep in mind you need to move a ton of air inside a 4u case.
 

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
576
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I have one in a 4-bay DAS enclosure. I RMA'd the first one because I thought it was defective. The second one was the same. I even hooked it up to my fan controller in my workstation to make sure. According to the specs it was supposed to be about 1/2 as loud as the stock fan in the enclosure and move about twice as much air. It's actually much louder and doesn't move anywhere near as much air. It runs constantly whereas the stock fan would only kick on every few minutes.

Do you have passive or active CPU coolers? Keep in mind you need to move a ton of air inside a 4u case.
Yeah. Using a 1u passive heatsink for the 1265L.

Do you happen to have any other fans in memory that might do the job better?
 

mattr

Member
Aug 1, 2013
120
11
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Yeah. Using a 1u passive heatsink for the 1265L.

Do you happen to have any other fans in memory that might do the job better?
Not that push the proper amount of air. Your best bet would be to switch to active CPU coolers which would allow you to lessen the overall airflow inside the case. You could also try a fan controller method and slow down the fans you currently have and just keep a close eye on your temperature. Though I think it might be bad for some fans to be hooked up to a controller? Maybe not I'm sure someone else could chime in on that.
 

bwfan

New Member
Feb 10, 2018
19
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The pws-721p-1r is almost as quiet and they are relatively cheap on ebay.

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk
Piglover do you have any idea how these compare to the pws-902-1R in terms of noise?

Thanks

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
 

bwfan

New Member
Feb 10, 2018
19
1
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I was in a similar situation with an older SC846TQ chassis that I wanted to run with an X9SCM/E3-1230 and maybe 8~12 disks. The chassis was outfitted with 3pin fans (so no pwm control), and ridiculously loud power supply fans. I pretty much ended up gutting the chassis and rebuilding it with more up to date SM components (this is the great thing about the SM systems, they are incredibly modular).

I swapped out the power distributor (PDB-PT846-2824), replaced the 3 pin fan cables with 4 pin pwm cables (CBL-0216L ) as a starting point. I wanted to get the noise under control as much as I could and decided to go with active rather than passive cooling. As the chassis is 4U, that gave me quite a lot of freedom to pick a CPU cooler. I ended up using a Dynatron K17 which is a 3U unit with a 92mm fan, but there are a ton of options here. (I've also used the SM SNK-P0046A4 in 2U chassis for the X9SCx series of motherboards and they also work quite well in terms of noise and cooling ability)

In order to quiet down my chassis I first looked at the "whisper quiet 4U workstations" to see how they were configured ( they only have to support 8 drives so the airflow requirements should be somewhat similar). The quiet workstation chassis have the -SQ (super quiet?) suffix, and implement power supplies that also have the -SQ suffix. I went with the "PWS-920P-SQ" power supply. (N.B the redundant power supplies and power distributors in the various SM chassis are mostly interchangeable, but some of the larger rated power supplies have larger output connectors that require a different power distributor. The PWS-1K28P-SQ is one of the power supplies that has the "wide" connector, one reason to stick with the PWS-920P-SQ)

In terms of the mid plane fans, the supermicro fan matrix is a great resource to see the specs of the fans. The 4U workstations use the "FAN-0074L4" which is a 0.58A 5000rpm fan (it is the only supermicro fan that I have come across that has a green housing). The typical 846 fans are the "FAN-0094L4" and they are 1.1A 6300rpm. The green FAN-0074L4 fans were a drop in for my chassis.

At the end of the day the active CPU cooler, lower rpm mid plane fans (FAN0074L4) and PWS-920p-SQ power supply quieted down my chassis no end, for what I consider to be a light to moderate load.

I've gone through all sorts of mods on my SM systems and have come to very much respect the designs and components that the SM engineers have chosen. Given the modularity of the chassis and components, my first line go-to items are always SM parts rather than "off the shelf" generic parts.
Britinpdx,

I've recently purchased a SC 846TQ chassis. I'd like to quiet down the chassis by using stock SM parts doing so. My plan will be to house 24 x WD RED 5400 rpm drives and it's purpose to serve as a media file server. It will have a single active cooled Opteron CPU (or single Xeon 1.6 GHz depending on parts I use in it) and running an Adaptec 52445 RAID card.

It was a good deal on eBay. So my question to you is would be better off with the 0074L4 or 104L4 fans?

I want to keep the drives as cool as possible and noise to a minimum. It will be in a rack in my basement so some noise is ok (30 dba or so max).

Thanks

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk
 

maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
576
100
43
0074L4 should be the one thats the most quiet from my memory.

I'v changed the fanwall + back fans to noctuas though.. which seems to be able to do a very good job.
 

bwfan

New Member
Feb 10, 2018
19
1
1
53
0074L4 should be the one thats the most quiet from my memory.

I'v changed the fanwall + back fans to noctuas though.. which seems to be able to do a very good job.
@maze What model of Noctua fans, the ones you've listed in this thread?

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maze

Active Member
Apr 27, 2013
576
100
43
Hey

I went with the 3krpm noctua industrial fans for the fanwall, and then two "normal" 80mm noctua fans for the back ones - thoese I would prolly change to something with a higher output seen in retrospective. They dont move enough air, and a little more would be nice.