Dell C6100 XS23-TY3 2U 4-Node (8 CPU) Cloud Server

[OrangesOfCourse]

Hey everyone,

I am having an issue with the fans running at full power at all times. I currently have a PIC16 board with 0104 PIC firmware and 4 pin fans. I contacted the ebay seller and he sent me a PIC18 board. The problem is that the fan plugs don't fit the new board. Do I have to get new fans or can I modify my current ones to work with the new board?

Current fans:
PIC16 Fan Pins:
PIC18 Fan Pins:

Would I have to buy these fans? Ebay T1044 Fan

Any ideas?

 

[britinpdx]

I'm going to say that you could possibly modify your existing fans. The link that you posted to ebay is the fan with the 7pin connector.

Here's the pinout of the 7 pin fan female connector that mates to the 7 pin male connector on the pic18



I think that the pinout (left to right) is ...
pin 1 red +12v psu#2
pin 2 black GND psu #2
pin 3 black GND psu #1
pin 4 red +12v psu#1
pin 5 yellow sense (RPM)
pin 6 blue control (PWM)
pin 7 n/c

I know for sure that pin 1 and pin 4 are commoned about 2" from the fan, as are pins 2 and pin 3. I think that this way the fans have the ability to get a redundant feed from both power supplies.

Your 5 pin fan looks to be ...
pin 1 black
pin 2 red
pin 3 green
pin 4 blue
pin 5 n/c

If you overlay both connectors from the n/c pin I'm pretty sure the pinout / color coding is the same (green is typically the other color used on 4 pin PWM fans to denote the sense line)

By design ( and for very good reasons ) the connectors are keyed, and there's no way for your 5 pin female fan connector to physically fit the 7 pin male connector on the controller. In order to get your 5 pin cable to fit you would either have to (1) build a mating cable or (2) physically remove one of the keys (the one near the black cable) with an exacto knife or similar.

Once you have removed a key you have compromised the inherent safety and design of the connectors, so I cannot in good faith recommend that you try this.

I have no idea how the pic16 and pic18 controller boards are wired, and there is the possibility that if your C6100 has a single power supply the power/ground for the single power supply gets routed to pins 1 and 2 of the 7 pin connector, in which case removing the key would not work as you would need to have ground/power on pins 3 and 4.

The safe route is to purchase the 7 pin fans.

However, I'm going to go on to say that the stock fans are too loud for my preference, and I've replaced the std fans with Evercool fans (as recommended by PigLover in the "Taming the C6100" thread). There are others that have recommended different fans, and I'm about to experiment with various San Ace fans. I have not yet found a source for the 7 pin female connector so that I can build my own custom cables.
The closest that I've found is a 6 pin pre wired connector here on ebay . I've purchased these (color coding per pin location is wrong but that's an easy fix) and I'm about to experiment, and I'll leave it to your imagination as to how I'm going to get a 6 pin female fan connector to mate with a 7 pin male connector on the fan controller.

 

[PRIMEZ]

Is there enough space in the node for an extra SSD? If so, is it possible to draw the power from the 8-pins USB port?

 

[PigLover]

Is there enough space in the node for an extra SSD? If so, is it possible to draw the power from the 8-pins USB port?

A normal 2.5" SSD would be very tight. I use mSATA SSDs with an adapter to draw power from the PCIe slot and it works great, but you burn the PCIe slot to do it.

 

[Dr_Drache]

A normal 2.5" SSD would be very tight. I use mSATA SSDs with an adapter to draw power from the PCIe slot and it works great, but you burn the PCIe slot to do it.

Any Information on this adaptor? would really like to see another solution before i re-invent the wheel.

 

[OrangesOfCourse]

...

Thank you so much for that info. It's been really helpful. I'm gonna see if I can trade my 5 pin fans for the 7 pin fans but I myself have been thinking of changing the fans for the San Ace fans. I just bought the 6 pin connectors (since it'll take them forever to arrive) and will be buying the San Ace fans soon (This one) unless someone can recommend a better fan.

Do the power and ground wires have to be joined near the fan or does it not matter?

Thanks again for the great information!

 

[s0lid]

For the 5 pin connector the pinout is: GND-12V-Sense-PWM-N/C

 

[PigLover]

Any Information on this adaptor? would really like to see another solution before i re-invent the wheel.

See post 451 & 452 of this thread, 2 pages back.

 

[OrangesOfCourse]

So I wanted to give some information to everyone. I've been trying to change the FCB from PIC16 to PIC18 cause of an issue i am having with the PIC16 board. There are a few different connectors between the board. It seems you will have to change the power distribution board (both of them) in order to get the new FCB. I'm not yet sure if there are any other changes... will keep you updated

The system fan connectors are different:
PIC16: 5pin connectors
PIC18: 7pin connectors

The system fan board connectors are different:
PIC16: 6pin connectors
PIC18: 7pin connectors

The system fan board power connectors are different:
PIC16: 8pin connector
PIC18: 10pin connector

 

[Dr_Drache]

See post 451 & 452 of this thread, 2 pages back.

Somehow I miss understood you, i thought it was just power, not a card like that, maybe i can hack something togeather,

 

[seang86s]

Is there enough space in the node for an extra SSD? If so, is it possible to draw the power from the 8-pins USB port?

I'm using a 1.8 inch SSD in each node, powered by the USB port. I have it sandwiched between the motherboard and the infiniband mezzanine card, secured to the top of the USB housing at the back of the motherboard with strategically placed double face tape.

If you go this route, note that the 1.8 inch SSDs have a smaller power connector, and most run off of 3.3 volts. The USB port provides 5 volts. You can find SATA & power adapter cables that also step down the 5 volts to 3.3 volts on eBay or Amazon. Here's one: Amazon.com: Micro SATA to SATA data + Molex 4-pin power 40inch Adapter Cable, for 1.8inch SSD drives: Computers & Accessories

 

[PigLover]

Somehow I miss understood you, i thought it was just power, not a card like that, maybe i can hack something togeather,

Read the text of poSt 452. There is an option that just uses the PCIe for power.

I think if I were going to do it again I would use something like this for http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...eASIN=B008I7MZ14&linkCode=as2&tag=servecom-20. These just use the PCIe slot to power the mSATA card. Then you use a short SATA cable to wire it over to an on-board SATA port. You'll avoid any driver issues as every OS in the world understands Intel on-board SATA. You won't get SATA-III speeds but in fact the Koutech card is "SATA-III in name only" anyway.

 

[dba]

Can you post some photos? There are quite a few people with 12-bay c6100s that could use an extra disk per motherboard.

I'm using a 1.8 inch SSD in each node, powered by the USB port. I have it sandwiched between the motherboard and the infiniband mezzanine card, secured to the top of the USB housing at the back of the motherboard with strategically placed double face tape.

If you go this route, note that the 1.8 inch SSDs have a smaller power connector, and most run off of 3.3 volts. The USB port provides 5 volts. You can find SATA & power adapter cables that also step down the 5 volts to 3.3 volts on eBay or Amazon. Here's one: Amazon.com: Micro SATA to SATA data + Molex 4-pin power 40inch Adapter Cable, for 1.8inch SSD drives: Computers & Accessories

 

[Jaknell1011]

I wired all of the hard-drive slots to a single sled.

I am trying to do exactly this. What parts and cables did you need to pull this off?

I am looking at a LSI 1015 card. Does this card handle 12 drives?

 

[sag]

I think the 1015 supports 8 ports but you can do 8 ports off that and do 4 ports off the sleds built in connectors.

 

[PigLover]

I am trying to do exactly this. What parts and cables did you need to pull this off?

I am looking at a LSI 1015 card. Does this card handle 12 drives?

8 ports from the M1015, 4 more from the on-board SATA. Just need 8087 forward breakout cables long enough to connect to the M1015 and route along the edge of the sled, through the midplane and plug into the SATA backplane.

 

[gtallan]

Regarding fans, I'm also finding that the stock ones are unusably loud for home use.

I know for sure that pin 1 and pin 4 are commoned about 2" from the fan, as are pins 2 and pin 3. I think that this way the fans have the ability to get a redundant feed from both power supplies.

I still find this puzzling though... if the wires are commoned within the cable then they surely could have been commoned just as effectively within the fan control module, leaving us with standard 4-pin fan connectors! Oh well, I suppose this maybe gave Dell some additional options to configure things differently...?

However, I'm going to go on to say that the stock fans are too loud for my preference, and I've replaced the std fans with Evercool fans (as recommended by PigLover in the "Taming the C6100" thread). There are others that have recommended different fans, and I'm about to experiment with various San Ace fans. I have not yet found a source for the 7 pin female connector so that I can build my own custom cables.
The closest that I've found is a 6 pin pre wired connector here on ebay . I've purchased these (color coding per pin location is wrong but that's an easy fix) and I'm about to experiment, and I'll leave it to your imagination as to how I'm going to get a 6 pin female fan connector to mate with a 7 pin male connector on the fan controller.

I've ordered some of the Supermicro/San Ace fans, hopefully they will adapt reasonably well.

Bit disappointed with the fan/noise control though, since I have only 2 nodes occupied in my chassis. With L5520 CPUs I hoped the fans would stay at more of an idle, but if they kick up to 6000 rpm or higher then I can hear them on the next floor of the house.

One of the nodes is running FreeBSD (well, NAS4Free), and did benefit from some extra rc.config settings to enable C3 states (performance_cx_lowest="C3"), but even running a zfs scrub manages to kick the fan speed up...

Graham

 

[gtallan]

So I wanted to give some information to everyone. I've been trying to change the FCB from PIC16 to PIC18 cause of an issue i am having with the PIC16 board. There are a few different connectors between the board. It seems you will have to change the power distribution board (both of them) in order to get the new FCB. I'm not yet sure if there are any other changes... will keep you updated

For your PIC16 issue, did the fans really run at full power all the time? I just checked my C6100 and it does have the PIC16 FCB, but doesn't run full speed all the time - just seems to ramp the fans up too eagerly and never (or rarely) bring them down again. But the details of how this is meant to work is unclear to me - I have the power management on my nodes set to OS control, which could possibly be defeating the expected BMC-FMC interactions...

I'm going to try replacing the fans with the Supermicro/San Ace model talked about but I begin to wonder if there's simply an issue with the PIC16 that changing the fans won't fix. Yet Dell made a lot of these systems using that board so it must work! We have 25+ more C6100s at work, and (from a random sample) they all use that PIC16 FCB too...

Hmm, well the Supermicro fan spec says 45dBA, compared to 65dBA on the Delta one installed now, so even if it still runs at high speed, that's a pretty big change in sound level - might be acceptable anyway. Changing the FCB sounds like a big pain!

 

[OrangesOfCourse]

For your PIC16 issue, did the fans really run at full power all the time? I just checked my C6100 and it does have the PIC16 FCB, but doesn't run full speed all the time - just seems to ramp the fans up too eagerly and never (or rarely) bring them down again. But the details of how this is meant to work is unclear to me - I have the power management on my nodes set to OS control, which could possibly be defeating the expected BMC-FMC interactions...

I'm going to try replacing the fans with the Supermicro/San Ace model talked about but I begin to wonder if there's simply an issue with the PIC16 that changing the fans won't fix. Yet Dell made a lot of these systems using that board so it must work! We have 25+ more C6100s at work, and (from a random sample) they all use that PIC16 FCB too...

Hmm, well the Supermicro fan spec says 45dBA, compared to 65dBA on the Delta one installed now, so even if it still runs at high speed, that's a pretty big change in sound level - might be acceptable anyway. Changing the FCB sounds like a big pain!

My problem was that it wouldn't ever slow the fans down. It would start at a high speed and stay there. Very loud. :| I tried all the different power management settings to no avail. Another problem was that it was not displaying anything for fan rpm under the server health section of IPMI. I talked to my ebay seller (pdneiman - Amazing guy! Loads of help) and he sent me a new enclosure (no nodes or power supply) with the PIC18 board in it. That has solved all my problems. Now the fans go to full power at boot and then cycle down to about 3600rpm. I still have the old enclosure (need to ship soon) and can document the changes between the two if you like. The only obvious differences are the PDBs and FCB.

I'm also looking at the San Ace fans but for now the sound level is acceptable to me. Might do it in the near future anyways to cut down on the sound some more.

 

[amlife]

So I wanted to give some information to everyone. I've been trying to change the FCB from PIC16 to PIC18 cause of an issue i am having with the PIC16 board. There are a few different connectors between the board. It seems you will have to change the power distribution board (both of them) in order to get the new FCB. I'm not yet sure if there are any other changes... will keep you updated

The system fan connectors are different:
PIC16: 5pin connectors
PIC18: 7pin connectors

The system fan board connectors are different:
PIC16: 6pin connectors
PIC18: 7pin connectors

The system fan board power connectors are different:
PIC16: 8pin connector
PIC18: 10pin connector

So did you manage to solve the problem with the cables? where you able to buy them?

I'm planning to buy one FBC PCI18 from ebay but I have to get 3 different cable types to connect them. Please let me know when you can.

Thank you.

Adam