Supermicro 835 Mods

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gb00s

Well-Known Member
Jul 25, 2018
1,175
586
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Poland
I just got an old CSE-835 and I already fell in love with it as I can use 3.5" and my 2.5" together.

It's just the fan noise from the 'fan-bar' which bothers me already. Ok, I can set the fan speed in the bios, but that's just a statical solution. Therefore I'm already working on a 3D printed 'fan-bar' with 2x 120mm Noctua fans. I know I can fit in 3x 120mm fans just side-by-side and tie them together and add something on top to fully separate it from the 'rest. But then I have no room to pass cable.

Just one question is how I can get rid of the 'fan-bar' without destroying it? I see 2 studs on both sides either connected to the PSU/power distributor and the server case. Any ideas on that?

Any tip is much appreciated. Thank you in advance.

CSE835_Studs_top1.png

CSE835_Studs_top3.png

CSE835_Studs_top2.png
 

gb00s

Well-Known Member
Jul 25, 2018
1,175
586
113
Poland
Continued to make some progress now in terms of noise-canceling vs holding temps tight to a comfortable level. I did not drill the rivets but just cut the fan wall out with a dremel.

SC835_FanWallCut_exp.jpg

So the 3x noisy Sunon SunAce 80 are out. While I'm waiting for my 3d fan-board for the two 120mm Noctuas to be installed instead, I just tested the 'whole' setup with foam. Tested foam earlier last year, but made the mistake to use way too soft foam which then let the project fail.

SC835_FansWithFoam_exp.jpg

In order to get this working temp- and noise-wise, I had to block the part behind the backplane from the rest of the area connected to the front. Otherwise, the fans would not suck the air through the 8x HDD bays, but from somewhere else. Fans are constantly running around 900-1300rpm without any noticeable noise. The most noticeable fans are the fans in the back (2x 80mm). They have to run 85%. Otherwise, I don't get enough 'heated up' air out of the case.

SM_Caddy1_exp.jpg

But the most progress wasn't made with the fan setup, but with the HDD caddies. I noticed around 6-11C higher HDD temps in the bay with the caddies on the right. The hotter the HDDs, the hotter the air sucked in from the fans, the hotter everything else inside the server. It also seems with the caddies on the right the temps are closer to the temp indolence where it's harder to keep them at bay temp-wise. It seems these are MCP-220-00075-0B (Gen 5.5) or 01-SC93301-XX00C104. I tested the same setup with the caddies on the left. These have an equivalent design like the usual 2.5' caddies. They came with the SC833 I posted here with some shipping damage. The problem is, I can not find them anywhere. The only indication I have is the 01-81302-XX00C004 marked inside of the caddies. Others have the same layout as 01-SC93301-XX00C003 or MCP-220-00075-0B again. Super confusing. No matter what, they are difficult to find.

Even in the danger to get trolled here from any side, does somebody know where to get these?

Thanks.

Mike