EXPIRED Mellanox InfiniBand SX6018 - Switch - EMC only - $300 OBO

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mpogr

Active Member
Jul 14, 2016
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Congrats! Looks like you're about to roll up your sleeves when you get them :)

BTW, these 6012 switches are small and neat, but, if you're not going to put them away behind hermetically closed doors, you're going to suffer from some serious noise. They have 4 heavy-duty 40mm fans spinning at max speed. I have the switch in my study with a bunch of additional equipment, so I acquired replacement fans to reduce the noise. Beware that the fan pinout is non-standard, so you'll need to do some soldering to make it work.
Luckily, when the switch is idle, it's quite cool to be run without any fans with its top cover removed, so, at least, you can figure out the pinout using a voltmeter without any risk of frying the thing...
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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ouch, thanks for the heads up. which replacement fans did you get?
 

mpogr

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Jul 14, 2016
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FYI, these are my temp readings right now with 9 ports active:
Temperature summary
Module Component Temperature [°C] Status
MGMT BOARD_MONITOR 56.00 OK
MGMT CPU_BOARD_MONITOR 58.00 OK
MGMT CPU_BOARD_MONITOR2 87.00 OK
MGMT QSFP_TEMP1 48.00 OK
MGMT QSFP_TEMP2 58.00 OK
MGMT QSFP_TEMP3 54.50 OK
MGMT SX 80.00 OK

The ambient must be around 24 C at the moment.

With replacement fans, you'll lose speed monitoring capability, which will result in email alerts sent once every hour. I just created a rule filtering those out, so they don't pollute my mailbox. You do want to receive all other alerts, e.g. related to CPU load, temperature etc.
 
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Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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hm is that an active component of the fan? If it's just PWM it shouldnt be gone if you source proper replacements?
Ah yours are 3 pin fans.
 

mpogr

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Jul 14, 2016
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Yep, unfortunately, I couldn't find any low speed PWM fans, only 3 pin...
 

mpogr

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Jul 14, 2016
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They look interesting, I certainly haven't seen anything like those when I was looking for fans about 1/2 year ago. You'd need to do soldering anyway, because the ones inside the switch have the standard 4 pin connectors and not the small one like these.
Also, the fact they're used is a bit concerning. Fans tend to develop additional noise over time. The question is, do you want to give them a shot...
 

mpogr

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Jul 14, 2016
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Going back to the original subject, I really like the fact that the seller clearly declares that the switch is EMC and doesn't have MLNX-OS. Unfortunately, some other sellers fail to do this causing major headache to unaware buyers...
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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They look interesting, I certainly haven't seen anything like those when I was looking for fans about 1/2 year ago. You'd need to do soldering anyway, because the ones inside the switch have the standard 4 pin connectors and not the small one like these.
Also, the fact they're used is a bit concerning. Fans tend to develop additional noise over time. The question is, do you want to give them a shot...
I actually found some which where described as new and ordered them. Will need to look into the pinout then whenever the switches arrive.

And yes, re mentioning EMC i assume he had enough cases opened against him - they offer 45 days return policy and are not selling 'As is' as many others.
 

Aluminum

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Sep 7, 2012
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My SX6012 (original mellanox) powers my 4 pin noctua fans just fine. Still been meaning to build a shroud/air duct to use larger (and much quieter fans), I don't use it rackmount or all that often.
 

mpogr

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Jul 14, 2016
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My SX6012 (original mellanox) powers my 4 pin noctua fans just fine. Still been meaning to build a shroud/air duct to use larger (and much quieter fans), I don't use it rackmount or all that often.
That's interesting, because, when I was experimenting, I had a larger PWM fan that I tried plugging into the board and it wouldn't spin. Then I noticed that the coloured wires order of the native fans didn't match the schematics available on the Internet and, indeed, it was different, which I verified using a voltmeter. Maybe they have different fans with different pinouts in different production batches of these switches...
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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So can we have pics of both working setups/pinouts?
Just for documentation o/c, not b/c I am to lazy to measure/test myself:p
 

mpogr

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Jul 14, 2016
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That won't be easy, as my switch is working 24/7. I should have done it when I was modding it...
 

Rand__

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Mar 6, 2014
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