Thanks to @Rand__ for his help purchasing a solid Supermicro SC216 (2U) with a super quiet PWS-920P-SQ. I didn't have so much space for another 3U or 4U case in my IKEA home rack. Therefore I was looking for a 2U unit only, fully aware of the problems coming with it in a home office environment. Temps vs noise. This is my D2D-workstation with some storage and lot's of VM's. I have some Asus Z10PA-D8 and put one of them in the Supermicro SC216.
In a normal/standard configuration, I run these boards with an Intel E5-2673v3 cooled by a noisy Intel fan. But the case fans of the Supermicro SC216 are even worse noise-wise. So attacked the standard noise level by exchanging the standard SAN ACE 80 (9G0812P1G09) with 3x ARCTIC F8 PWM PST CO - 80mm and Noctua NF-A8 PWM Chromax Black. Both fans extremely decreased the overall noise level, but temps were quiet not there where I wanted them. I had some strange behavior with the temps of the drives in the bays in front of the drivers, which made everything even more 'challenging'. I played much more with the mainboards itself and found out that I can play with the fan speed of each cpu/case fan separately. As the other periphery in the case, like HBA LSI 2308, Sandisk ioMemory X350 3.2TB, Sun Dual QSFP 40Gb/s InfiniBand, produces a lot of heat, I switched back to the standard SUN ACE 80 case fans. But, at a 15% rate of their standard rpm, which is .... exactly 945 rpm +/- 5%. This is quite enough to suck enough air to cool the HDD's adequately and to provide enough airflow for the other periphery, supported by small 12V Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX. So noise level was kind of ok. But the CPU fan killed the overall good experience. It was just still toooooo loud to 'sleep' just 1.5-2m away from it.
Old Intel Server Fan
So I made some research which 2U server CPU cooler would work. As all active CPU coolers I know are all equipped with high rpm fans, server hardware would not help. So back to the retail section. Only low profile coolers will be in question. The other problem is, that 70mm high coolers won't fit anymore. Ok, you can still close the lid, but the fan or the fins of the cooler will touch it and you will definitely 'transport' some vibrations. A CPU cooler with max 69mm will fit perfectly. So as an example, a very good cooler like the Noctua NH- L12s might fail.
I bought the Noctua HN-L9x65 as it was rated for retail CPUs like i7 6950X Extreme or 5960X Extreme, bot very comparable TDP-wise.
Result? I can sleep again. The noise difference is huge. On a standard-setting, this cooler not just lowers the CPU temperature by 20%+, the noise reduction is just outstanding. While the old Inter server cooler cooled the CPU down to 44-47C in idle at 32C room temperature. Comparing the delta, it's ok but very noisy. The standard installation suggests to install the fan pushing the air through the cooler. Oh oh, with so less space left between the case and the fan, that's terrible. And so was the result. The fan literally dies due to starving from air and pushing the air through the cooler fins additionally to the airflow from the case fans, has a negative effect. So switching from pushing the air to pulling the air made the trick.
That's the result with 32C room temperature:
That's a 20% decrease in CPU temperature at standard-setting of fan rpm set by the BIOS. As you can set the fan rpm in the BIOS separately for each fan, I played a little bit and set it to 80% at a steady rpm rate. The noise level is still acceptable, as you can barely hear the fan with a closed case. The case fans at 15% fan speed are still a little bit noisier. But it's fine. Putting the air condition on and setting the room temperature to 25C and a 80% fan speed brings the CPU temperature down to this:
Still you can't hear anything with closed case and it's kind of awesome. A 2U server rack properly cooled in a warm environment and still almost totally quiet like a normal workstation. Sure, not as noiseless as a desktop can be, but that's a different story.
I can sleep right next to my server rack and do not need to care about temperatures. I'm not sure someone considered these CPU coolers in a 2U server environment, but it's worth a try.
Regards
Mike
In a normal/standard configuration, I run these boards with an Intel E5-2673v3 cooled by a noisy Intel fan. But the case fans of the Supermicro SC216 are even worse noise-wise. So attacked the standard noise level by exchanging the standard SAN ACE 80 (9G0812P1G09) with 3x ARCTIC F8 PWM PST CO - 80mm and Noctua NF-A8 PWM Chromax Black. Both fans extremely decreased the overall noise level, but temps were quiet not there where I wanted them. I had some strange behavior with the temps of the drives in the bays in front of the drivers, which made everything even more 'challenging'. I played much more with the mainboards itself and found out that I can play with the fan speed of each cpu/case fan separately. As the other periphery in the case, like HBA LSI 2308, Sandisk ioMemory X350 3.2TB, Sun Dual QSFP 40Gb/s InfiniBand, produces a lot of heat, I switched back to the standard SUN ACE 80 case fans. But, at a 15% rate of their standard rpm, which is .... exactly 945 rpm +/- 5%. This is quite enough to suck enough air to cool the HDD's adequately and to provide enough airflow for the other periphery, supported by small 12V Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX. So noise level was kind of ok. But the CPU fan killed the overall good experience. It was just still toooooo loud to 'sleep' just 1.5-2m away from it.
Old Intel Server Fan
So I made some research which 2U server CPU cooler would work. As all active CPU coolers I know are all equipped with high rpm fans, server hardware would not help. So back to the retail section. Only low profile coolers will be in question. The other problem is, that 70mm high coolers won't fit anymore. Ok, you can still close the lid, but the fan or the fins of the cooler will touch it and you will definitely 'transport' some vibrations. A CPU cooler with max 69mm will fit perfectly. So as an example, a very good cooler like the Noctua NH- L12s might fail.
I bought the Noctua HN-L9x65 as it was rated for retail CPUs like i7 6950X Extreme or 5960X Extreme, bot very comparable TDP-wise.
Result? I can sleep again. The noise difference is huge. On a standard-setting, this cooler not just lowers the CPU temperature by 20%+, the noise reduction is just outstanding. While the old Inter server cooler cooled the CPU down to 44-47C in idle at 32C room temperature. Comparing the delta, it's ok but very noisy. The standard installation suggests to install the fan pushing the air through the cooler. Oh oh, with so less space left between the case and the fan, that's terrible. And so was the result. The fan literally dies due to starving from air and pushing the air through the cooler fins additionally to the airflow from the case fans, has a negative effect. So switching from pushing the air to pulling the air made the trick.
That's the result with 32C room temperature:
That's a 20% decrease in CPU temperature at standard-setting of fan rpm set by the BIOS. As you can set the fan rpm in the BIOS separately for each fan, I played a little bit and set it to 80% at a steady rpm rate. The noise level is still acceptable, as you can barely hear the fan with a closed case. The case fans at 15% fan speed are still a little bit noisier. But it's fine. Putting the air condition on and setting the room temperature to 25C and a 80% fan speed brings the CPU temperature down to this:
Still you can't hear anything with closed case and it's kind of awesome. A 2U server rack properly cooled in a warm environment and still almost totally quiet like a normal workstation. Sure, not as noiseless as a desktop can be, but that's a different story.
I can sleep right next to my server rack and do not need to care about temperatures. I'm not sure someone considered these CPU coolers in a 2U server environment, but it's worth a try.
Regards
Mike
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