Qotom Denverton fanless system with 4 SFP+

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blunden

Well-Known Member
Nov 29, 2019
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I don't have an actual rack, so I have the desktop version, but I'm wondering if it's worth pulling it apart and slapping some arctic silver "ceramique" in there (which is the only paste I have on hand right now, but surely it's better than the factory Qotom stuff?)
I would check if you actually need it first. I run mine as a router and currently see no need for any modifications. I suppose mine is idling most of the time though. :)
 

BigWill

New Member
May 16, 2016
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I just got the 1U model with the 4x 10-GbE SFP+ ports. I installed Opnsense and everything has been working perfectly up to the point I was setting up LACP to my Brocade ICX6610. 3 of the 4 ports work great, but there is one port on the Qotom side that I have tried in 3 or 4 different ports on the Brocade side, but it keeps blocking it.

The only difference I have seen is that the DAC is not being recognized on the Qotom side. I am getting "media: Ethernet autoselect (Unknown <rxpause,txpause>", but on the other 3 ports, I have "media: Ethernet autoselect (10Gbase-Twinax <full-duplex,rxpause,txpause>)".

I even tried 3 different cables on that same port. Kinda thinking I have a bad SFP+ port on the Qotom side. Has anyone ran into this before?
 

blunden

Well-Known Member
Nov 29, 2019
842
278
63
I just got the 1U model with the 4x 10-GbE SFP+ ports. I installed Opnsense and everything has been working perfectly up to the point I was setting up LACP to my Brocade ICX6610. 3 of the 4 ports work great, but there is one port on the Qotom side that I have tried in 3 or 4 different ports on the Brocade side, but it keeps blocking it.

The only difference I have seen is that the DAC is not being recognized on the Qotom side. I am getting "media: Ethernet autoselect (Unknown <rxpause,txpause>", but on the other 3 ports, I have "media: Ethernet autoselect (10Gbase-Twinax <full-duplex,rxpause,txpause>)".

I even tried 3 different cables on that same port. Kinda thinking I have a bad SFP+ port on the Qotom side. Has anyone ran into this before?
Some people mentioned having issues with one of the SFP+ ports (I think it was port 4) earlier in the thread. Might be worth reading through it. :)
 

BigWill

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May 16, 2016
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Some people mentioned having issues with one of the SFP+ ports (I think it was port 4) earlier in the thread. Might be worth reading through it. :)
Thanks. I tried to search this thread and even skimmed through it, but sounds like I just need to make it some bedtime reading.
 

blunden

Well-Known Member
Nov 29, 2019
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Thanks. I tried to search this thread and even skimmed through it, but sounds like I just need to make it some bedtime reading.
I remember commenting that I only really need at most 3 of the SFP+ ports so if you look through my old posts you might find it that way. Might be faster than reading all 37 pages. :)
 

BigWill

New Member
May 16, 2016
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I remember commenting that I only really need at most 3 of the SFP+ ports so if you look through my old posts you might find it that way. Might be faster than reading all 37 pages. :)
So, I looked through most of it and see what you mean. I had also already emailed Qotom and they told me to solder a couple of open points on the board. It looks to be for port 1 only though in the following pic. Going to try it and I will report back.
 

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Tismo

New Member
Dec 19, 2022
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IMG_4040.png
So, I looked through most of it and see what you mean. I had also already emailed Qotom and they told me to solder a couple of open points on the board. It looks to be for port 1 only though in the following pic. Going to try it and I will report back.
I asked Grok and found posts in this thread about it in under a minute lol. Never reading all 200+ pages threads again.
 
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BigWill

New Member
May 16, 2016
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So, I looked through most of it and see what you mean. I had also already emailed Qotom and they told me to solder a couple of open points on the board. It looks to be for port 1 only though in the following pic. Going to try it and I will report back.
I am happy to report that THIS FIXED IT!
Kinda sucks I have to solder a brand new unit, but it did work and now all 4 ports are seeing the SFPs and LACP is happy!
 

Tismo

New Member
Dec 19, 2022
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I am happy to report that THIS FIXED IT!
Kinda sucks I have to solder a brand new unit, but it did work and now all 4 ports are seeing the SFPs and LACP is happy!
That's awesome. Did you happen to take a picture of the points you soldered before you closed it. in case I need to do the same. it's Ok if you didn't
 

ZPrime

Member
Jun 1, 2016
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Cleveland, OH
I applied LTT PTM7950 on the CPU in my 1U Rack Qotom. It's a 10-15 minute process that involves removing 4 screws and putting them back without over-tightening the thermal solution. Should be easy enough to do, though IMO it's not worth it. PTM7950 did shave off 3-4 degrees when running a synthetic load (AIDA64), but under normal usage it didn't make a noticeable difference.


A high-volume low-pressure solution would require a decent sized "exhaust" hole and a fan larger than 40mm. On the other hand, a low-volume high-pressure solution (like this one) could work with a small "exhaust" through the SFP ports, but the noise might be more than you want from a desktop device.
I didn't think to try to grab before and after temps, d'oh... I scraped off the kinda dry silver factory stuff and used this old gigantic tube of Arctic Silver "Ceramique" I have had sitting around forever. On the desktop version of the case you have to remove the whole board from the case in order to get to the CPU surface, so it was a little more involved...

I appreciate the pointer on the fan. This unit is actually sitting on a wire shelf directly below a Cisco 3850 12X48U, which is not at all quiet. The whole setup is in my crawlspace and I'm not normally within earshot of it all except if I'm working on something that requires local console access. (If I try really hard I can sometimes make out the fans over the general background of the house, but not usually.) I'm going to give that fan you linked a try and see how it does. My main concern is cooling the pair of NVMe and the RAM I have in the system, which the Noctua seems to do OK, but I'm also hoping to get enough residual airflow out the SFP cages to potentially not need a separate fan on a SFP+ ONT/ONU (which tend to run really hot). As long as the fan isn't super high-pitched and whiny, I probably will never hear it over the noise of the Cisco.

Does the motherboard on this have a plug for 40mm noctua fan anywhere?
You need a little adapter cable to go from the "Picoblade" connector that is on the board to a "standard" desktop-style 4-pin PWM header. This is the exact one I bought from eBay, but I have zero relationship with the seller beyond being a buyer. Feels more than a little overpriced for what it is, but I had a hard time finding any alternatives... FWIW I have not been able to find any way to monitor or control the fan, either. It seems to be temperature controlled but I didn't see RPM shown anywhere in the bios/UEFI.

Apparently the 1U version of the system has a second header on the CPU-side of the board; that header is not populated on my desktop-case version at least.
 
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Arjestin

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Feb 26, 2024
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I am happy to report that THIS FIXED IT!
Kinda sucks I have to solder a brand new unit, but it did work and now all 4 ports are seeing the SFPs and LACP is happy!
The photo you shared shows 4 open points on the PCB. Did you solder each vertical pair of points or made a connection between horizontal points? It would help a lot if you could upload the same photo with lines drawn to show how these 4 points should be connected.
 
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sic0048

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Dec 24, 2018
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I have to assume it is vertical. Every other similar connection on that board is vertical.
 

conred33

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Aug 8, 2024
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Can someone tell me if I am completely missing Wake-on-LAN (WOL) settings on the Q20332G9-S10? I've looked six ways til Sunday through the BIOS and I'm either blind or... Thanks in advance.
 

lastditch

New Member
Jan 16, 2025
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I didn't think to try to grab before and after temps, d'oh... I scraped off the kinda dry silver factory stuff and used this old gigantic tube of Arctic Silver "Ceramique" I have had sitting around forever. On the desktop version of the case you have to remove the whole board from the case in order to get to the CPU surface, so it was a little more involved...

I appreciate the pointer on the fan. This unit is actually sitting on a wire shelf directly below a Cisco 3850 12X48U, which is not at all quiet. The whole setup is in my crawlspace and I'm not normally within earshot of it all except if I'm working on something that requires local console access. (If I try really hard I can sometimes make out the fans over the general background of the house, but not usually.) I'm going to give that fan you linked a try and see how it does. My main concern is cooling the pair of NVMe and the RAM I have in the system, which the Noctua seems to do OK, but I'm also hoping to get enough residual airflow out the SFP cages to potentially not need a separate fan on a SFP+ ONT/ONU (which tend to run really hot). As long as the fan isn't super high-pitched and whiny, I probably will never hear it over the noise of the Cisco.


You need a little adapter cable to go from the "Picoblade" connector that is on the board to a "standard" desktop-style 4-pin PWM header. This is the exact one I bought from eBay, but I have zero relationship with the seller beyond being a buyer. Feels more than a little overpriced for what it is, but I had a hard time finding any alternatives... FWIW I have not been able to find any way to monitor or control the fan, either. It seems to be temperature controlled but I didn't see RPM shown anywhere in the bios/UEFI.

Apparently the 1U version of the system has a second header on the CPU-side of the board; that header is not populated on my desktop-case version at least.
I actually bought a 40mm noctura usb fan and mounted it pushing air across the board. It did work by lower the temps by about 5c and removed the constant ramping up and down of the internal fan. The downside is that the fan moves so fast that it generates a resonance that is worse than the fan noise.
 

lastditch

New Member
Jan 16, 2025
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Put a 40x40x10 5V fan on top of a couple of _very_ low profile nvme ssd heat sinks, complete with my super custom coated paper clip retainer :cool: . 5v power can be had from the other "sata power" 4 pin header, or from one of the 10pin! usb headers. Still experimenting around with it. There is room for another 40x40x10 fan outboard fresh air side of the power supply, and of course, 12v available directly from the power supply.

Think the ultimate solution would be to mount sata drive on 1" or taller standoffs (if you are using one), then cut a huge 80x80 hole in the bottom of the middle of the case there. There has to be clearance on the bottom of the case for the other fan, so nothing lost (except any chance of returning it) putting another hole on that side. Mount 80mm fan 10mm or 20mm thick and run it slowly for minimal noise. Should get airflow out both ends of the case and in the same direction as the existing fan. Going to see how I get along with just the nvme cooling setup first before adding any more fans. Have a couple intel optane P1600X in there and those doogers used to run hot nvme-pci 48C case open, 59C case closed. The fan I mounted on the nvmes works much better than I expected, nvme-pci 39C with case open with fan control turned all the way down. CPUs with case open 48C-44. All of these temps are in cool 21C room, very lightly loaded.

The unoccupied 4 pin sata power connector is a "Mini Micro Jst 2.0 Ph 4 Pin Connector" pitch 2mm/0.078 and... I have wayyy toooo many I ordered off amazon. No idea what size really the usb connectors are, no standard 9 pin header will work of course, and a 10 pin I ordered was way too large. Motherboard front panel jumpers will work, but only across the rows, pitch is wrong. Planning to control fan speed with this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P2BLG2L?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1 Right now I'm using a usb version of the same controller.

How are you supplying power?
 

lastditch

New Member
Jan 16, 2025
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Mine might be for sale soon :)

I bought a couple of am4 boards from the great deals subforum..
Gonna migrate to a virtualised pfsense on a 5700x platform, virtually identical to the MS-01 in performance but with noctua fans and ECC ram
I'm gonna be stuck on my 1gbit line for a while



In that case this should be perfect then :)



I use the 20 cm usb noctua fan, that cools 2 of these fanless boxes no prob, with this the Qotom never goes past 30c even under load

Where are you mounting this?