Fan direction/flow and similar for SM 5018d-FN4T

[cardiackid]

(meant to post this in the DIY forum - had the wrong window up)

Hey all - figured I should finally register for the site after using a lot of the articles and posts for reference material. I'm brand new to a lot the topics covered here (all of this is a hobby - day job is entirely unrelated), so this will probably be my first n00b question out of several over the next few months.

I recently built a 5018d-FN4T equivalent (X10SDV-8C-TLN4F rev 2.0 board and 505-203b chassis) and I want to ensure I'm doing things correctly regarding airflow. I've searched around the associated manuals and I've yet to find anything definitive regarding cooling. I'm currently using two of the FAN-0100L4 fans in the side by side mount under the MCP-310-50501-0B air shroud.

Is my fan header understanding correct as explained below?
1) FAN1 header (despite being offset from the CPU/heatsink on the board) is the one that my primary CPU fan should be connected to, correct?
2) FAN2 header is the other header I should be using for the second fan under the shroud (would direct airflow over the RAM slots if air shroud wasn't used).
3) FAN3 header - not used, but would cover PCIe expansion card zone?
4) FAN4 header - not used, no idea what it would cover.

My second question is whether or not to push air into the air shroud and through the CPU heatsink or whether to pull air through the heatsink and shroud and exhaust it out the back. I've come across several different diagrams and photos where the fans are blowing toward the heatsink and in others the fans are pulling away/exhausting, without anything in the manual that says what the preferred method is. I originally had both fans blowing through the shroud on to the heatsink and the system temp in IPMI was roughly 50*C at idle, which looks to be well within averages.

Thanks in advance for your help,
- CK

 

[Jeggs101]

Yes on fans.

Airflow will prob be OK either way but better with airflow over the heatsink. How are you mounting it in the rack? You may want to take hot and cold aisle orientation into consideration to decide.

 

[i386]

Fan 1-6 are for zone 1, controlled by cpu temerature.
Fan A-C are for zone 2, controlled by system temperature.
Zone 1 is where you should connect all the fans for cpu cooling (or if you use a supermicro chassis all the fans that push air through the shroud). Zone 2 is for the cooling of your add on cards (nics, hba/raid controller, accelerators/gpus)

 

[cardiackid]

This is just a home lab box to run a bunch of VMs on and go crazy trying things out, so it's mounted in a small, 6U switch-depth rack in a closet/storage room with ambient temps around 70*F or less. The only other items in the rack are another 5018a-FTN4 (C2758 and 505-203b) used as a pfsense, etc. box and a cisco sg300 28 port PoE switch. pfsense box is up top, with switch under that and the box in question (5018d-FN4T) on the bottom.

When you say "airflow over the heatsink," do you mean removing the shroud?

 

[Jeggs101]

You need the shroud.

 

[pricklypunter]

@cardiackid Cool Air input (front) --> Fans --> Shroud/ CPU/ RAM --> Exhausted Hot Air (rear) would be the norm, but the fan orientation will also depend on which side you make front of rack (cool side) and which side you make rear of rack (hot side). The chassis you are using is reversed in comparison to the more common way of doing things, this being to allow I/O to be located towards the front of the chassis for easier access. Whichever way round you mount the chassis in the rack, you will want to pull cool air in, blow it through your shroud, heatsink's and RAM and allow the hot air to exhuast to the rear of your rack. Make sense?

 

[cardiackid]

Absolutely - you guys broke it down "color by numbers" style for me, haha. Thanks again for all of the help.