Taming the C6100

[legen]

Please take pictures of the procedure if you are able too. Even though PigLover and others have make great guides in this thread, the more documentation is better.

My moddingskills is limited to swapping out fans and connectors, and I havnt bought any replacement parts yet.

Its somewhat expensive to get the supermicro fans here in Europe, i was lucky and found this seller for them in germany, Supermicro Hot Swap Gehäuselüfter Fan 0074 FÜR SC743 | eBay

However it looks like he only has two left for the time being. I used them to do the fan-mod in my C6100 but i think my closet where it is running is to small so not sure where to put it now...

 

[Mrlie]

I dont mind buying hardware in the US, with higher availability on certain items, and also somewhat lower cost than in Europe. Any item I buy abroad, I will have to pay 25% VAT for anyways, new or used.

To have items shipped from US to Norway, I use JetCarrier.com, to ship any items I buy by ship or by plane. They ship from US to Norway, Sweden and Denmark. Light items like fans are cheap to send by plane, and if the item are in New Jersey by friday, I can pick it up at the postoffice in Norway on tuesday. Not in a hurry to get the C6100 I just bought, so it will be shipped by boat and that will be about 18-20 days from when JetCarrier ships the container.

 

[briancl]

You could try this fan connector (4-pin PWN can to Dell 5 pin fan connector, 8") from Frozen CPU. I have not tried it but it may save a fair bit of playing around.

I just cut off the cable from the original fans and then soldered them on to the Supermicro (San Ace 80) fans.

RB

What pinout did you follow? It's not clear to me, and the cable colors are different. The San Ace 80 fan is Red, Black, Yellow, Brown, and the C6100 fan is Black, Red, Green, Blue

 

[RimBlock]

I will have to take a look again but from memory, three of the colours were the same for me on both fans.

I will take a look tonight if I get a chance for you.

RB

 

[briancl]

So I think I figured out the pinout from looking at data sheets. However, it turns out the fans that came with my C6100 are quieter than the 9GV0812P1H031 San Ace 80 fan's I bought. According to the datasheet the original fan is 65 db and the San Ace 80 is 63 db, but the San Ace 80 has a very high pitched noise, which makes it much less pleasing overall. I'm going to stick with the originals. Looking back through the thread, it seems that the 6 pin fan is more common with most of the C6100's, and that fan is 71 db.

 

[s0lid]

Well since my c6100 will be 2 noder and the water blocks are nowhere near completed...

Just ought to cut some metal out of the way and these boxes should nice and quiet

 

[Sertis]

Has anyone tried slowing down the stock fans instead of replacing? Either using the pic method mentioned earlier, a standalone PWM fan speed controller, or something like a 555 timer to generate a 50% duty cycle with an AND gate to PWM line? It could be cheaper, and you can tweak the speeds afterwards.

 

[MiniKnight]

Sertis do it! Want to see it so I can do.

 

[PigLover]

Has anyone tried slowing down the stock fans instead of replacing? Either using the pic method mentioned earlier, a standalone PWM fan speed controller, or something like a 555 timer to generate a 50% duty cycle with an AND gate to PWM line? It could be cheaper, and you can tweak the speeds afterwards.

I tried doing a resistor mod to slow the baseline speed of the fan. Problem is that you end up fighting with the FCB as it tries to speed things back up.

If you do put your own fan control on them then you pretty much have to take over completely and not let the FCB have any control at all. This might no be a problem, but the FCB intelligence is actually pretty good at keeping the fan speed in a reasonable rage.

BTW - as an update - I originally didn't plan to run any hard disks in the C6100. The Evercool fans are having trouble keeping it cool enough now that I've filled it with 11 7200RPM 2TB Hitachi's and added the 10Gbe mezz cards. A few warmer days haven't helped (its running in unconditioned space). Thinking I need to change out to the SuperMicro fans or even (ugh) back to stock if I want to keep it cool enough.

 

[PigLover]

Well since my c6100 will be 2 noder and the water blocks are nowhere near completed...

Just ought to cut some metal out of the way and these boxes should nice and quiet

Where do you get source air for those fans? If you put the lid on they will just be pulling against the metal and not really moving any air. Guess it will be OK if you leave the lid off, but if you do that you aren't going to get any pull through the drive trays and any drives up there will get really hot really fast.

 

[s0lid]

Where do you get source air for those fans? If you put the lid on they will just be pulling against the metal and not really moving any air. Guess it will be OK if you leave the lid off, but if you do that you aren't going to get any pull through the drive trays and any drives up there will get really hot really fast.

Check post #96 on this thread. "What hdds and sas backplane" ?
And yeah i could leave the lid off, racked install anyways.

 

[Patrick]

BTW - as an update - I originally didn't plan to run any hard disks in the C6100. The Evercool fans are having trouble keeping it cool enough now that I've filled it with 11 7200RPM 2TB Hitachi's and added the 10Gbe mezz cards. A few warmer days haven't helped (its running in unconditioned space). Thinking I need to change out to the SuperMicro fans or even (ugh) back to stock if I want to keep it cool enough.

Bummer! I still haven't had time to change mine.

Here's a crazy question... I wonder if we can edit the FCB firmware. Seems like we can flash it.

 

[Sertis]

I'm still considering the 6100 based on whether I can properly tame it both in noise and power. I did a bit of poking, there's a pretty nice writeup on the timing of the signals for PWM controlled fans here (http://www.latticesemi.com/documents/rd1060.pdf?jsessionid=f030687e56fbfff1d9c575c7de654e69d1b6) it looks like it would be possible to generate a fixed control signal using a couple dollars in parts from Radio shack and just pick a fixed speed that works (as long as the base clock isn't crazy fast, the document didn't mention what's typically used). Power would be a bit high though since it wouldn't be temperature sensitive and it would need to be set at the upper bound. I guess buying new fans would be cheaper (in power) and more reliable than going fixed speed or making something to modify the pulse width of the sense signal. I was planning to front fill the case with 5k drives though, it's unfortunate that the Evercools aren't working for your configuration.

I'm curious, what is the power utilization after you changed the fans with one node active and 3 nodes either powered off or unplugged? I'd like to leave only one node running 24/7 to act as a home server then crank up the other three only when i'm running projects. My current setup (Norco, i5-3570, ESXi, 10x 5k3000 drives) idles at 95W with spindown) and i'm hoping I won't surpass that too much. Power's pretty expensive in California once you go over the baseline ($.31-$.35 per kWh!) so i'm trying to come up with a budget my wife will agree with I know a lot of power supplies drop off in efficiency at low load, and this comes with a pretty big PS.

I tried doing a resistor mod to slow the baseline speed of the fan. Problem is that you end up fighting with the FCB as it tries to speed things back up.

If you do put your own fan control on them then you pretty much have to take over completely and not let the FCB have any control at all. This might no be a problem, but the FCB intelligence is actually pretty good at keeping the fan speed in a reasonable rage.

BTW - as an update - I originally didn't plan to run any hard disks in the C6100. The Evercool fans are having trouble keeping it cool enough now that I've filled it with 11 7200RPM 2TB Hitachi's and added the 10Gbe mezz cards. A few warmer days haven't helped (its running in unconditioned space). Thinking I need to change out to the SuperMicro fans or even (ugh) back to stock if I want to keep it cool enough.

 

[PigLover]

Bummer! I still haven't had time to change mine.

Here's a crazy question... I wonder if we can edit the FCB firmware. Seems like we can flash it.

Yeah, it is a bummer. They might still be OK w/out the drives in the cage. Its not that the drives get all that hot - more like they just block up the intake and lower the pressure inside the chassis. Plus the 10Ge mezz cards end up with their hottest part face down right of over the 5520 IO chip on the motherboard - and the 5520 is well known as a hot chip (intel considers it "normal" to run at 70C and "safe" up to 105C !!!). The exhaust air right now is so hot that it is softening the insulation on the network cables at the back.

Got lots of irons in the fire right now and limited time due to travel and an upcoming wedding (my son). I'm thinking the drives will end up in the DL180 which will become my backup fileserver and virtualization host. I might downsize the C6100 two two nodes and build an internal airflow shroud to manage the airflow. I've also purchased new guts for my main fileserver (more later).

But, sadly, the Evercool fans don't seem to generate enough airflow/static pressure to manage the C6100.

 

[briancl]

I went with San Ace 9GV0812P1M031 Sanyo Denki Distributor | Mouser. I initially tried the 9GV0812P1H031 but these were too loud for me. The M031 seems to do the job just fine. I have all 12 drive slots populated and 2 nodes running 24x7 (other 2 nodes are empty). Ambient is 24C and the warmest temp I see is usually around 58C with the fans spinning at 5100RPM of their 6000RPM max. They idle at 4800RPM and temps in the low 50's.

Even at 5100rpm, the fans are completely inaudible through my wiring closet door. There is an external exhaust fan in the closet that is fairly loud, and thats all you can hear. With the H031 fans and stock fans, the C6100 was much louder and definitely audible over my loud exhaust fan. The H031 and stock fans did a better job of cooling with noticeably lower temps (~5C across the board), but I'm comfortable with upper 50's.

 

[Rain]

Yeah, it is a bummer. They might still be OK w/out the drives in the cage. Its not that the drives get all that hot - more like they just block up the intake and lower the pressure inside the chassis. Plus the 10Ge mezz cards end up with their hottest part face down right of over the 5520 IO chip on the motherboard - and the 5520 is well known as a hot chip (intel considers it "normal" to run at 70C and "safe" up to 105C !!!). The exhaust air right now is so hot that it is softening the insulation on the network cables at the back.

Got lots of irons in the fire right now and limited time due to travel and an upcoming wedding (my son). I'm thinking the drives will end up in the DL180 which will become my backup fileserver and virtualization host. I might downsize the C6100 two two nodes and build an internal airflow shroud to manage the airflow. I've also purchased new guts for my main fileserver (more later).

But, sadly, the Evercool fans don't seem to generate enough airflow/static pressure to manage the C6100.

Judging by what you've seen, with less drives (2 per node, one in the top slot & the other in the bottom; leaving the middle open for airflow) and running the server in an air-conditioned space (~74F or less year-round), do you think the Evercool fans would be enough?

I plan on putting putting a c6100 in my basement utility closet (might actually hang it from the ceiling!) to try to get the noise out of the rest of the house. Using a dB meter and a vacuum cleaner, I know that the stock fans are going to be way too loud. Way too much noise would leak out of the room. But with the Evercool fans (and a not-super-heavy workload), I think it could work; assuming it stays cool enough.

 

[PigLover]

I went with San Ace 9GV0812P1M031 Sanyo Denki Distributor | Mouser. I initially tried the 9GV0812P1H031 but these were too loud for me. The M031 seems to do the job just fine. I have all 12 drive slots populated and 2 nodes running 24x7 (other 2 nodes are empty). Ambient is 24C and the warmest temp I see is usually around 58C with the fans spinning at 5100RPM of their 6000RPM max. They idle at 4800RPM and temps in the low 50's.

Even at 5100rpm, the fans are completely inaudible through my wiring closet door. There is an external exhaust fan in the closet that is fairly loud, and thats all you can hear. With the H031 fans and stock fans, the C6100 was much louder and definitely audible over my loud exhaust fan. The H031 and stock fans did a better job of cooling with noticeably lower temps (~5C across the board), but I'm comfortable with upper 50's.

Good info. Thank you. I'll take a look at these fans.

However, I do wonder if the key is here: other 2 nodes are empty. I'm going to give it a shot running two nodes only before I go messing with the fans. Seems like that could be enough to settle it down.

 

[Smalldog]

Well since my c6100 will be 2 noder and the water blocks are nowhere near completed...

Just ought to cut some metal out of the way and these boxes should nice and quiet

Any idea what the part number is for those empty sleds on the 2 node model?

 

[Rain]

Does the PWM cable actually need to be occupied? Would the FCB get angry if you just threw 3-pin fans in and let them run at their max RPM the whole time? Evercool's 80x38mm non-PWM fan has much better specs their equivalent PWM fan. More than double the CFM, more pressure, and less noise! Problem is that it is a 3-pin connector and would require voltage control to spin it down.

Link to product page: EVERCOOL EC-8038 Series FAN-EC8038H12BA Case Fan - Newegg.com

 

[Sertis]

I don't know about the 6100, but on my T3500, it won't turn on if the fans don't spin. When i moved the T3500 motherboard into a tower chassis, I had to feed the sense pin by splicing the signal in from one of the case's 4 pin fans. I think at a minimum, it will generate an alert if only one of the fans is out.

Does the PWM cable actually need to be occupied? Would the FCB get angry if you just threw 3-pin fans in and let them run at their max RPM the whole time? Evercool's 80x38mm non-PWM fan has much better specs their equivalent PWM fan. More than double the CFM, more pressure, and less noise! Problem is that it is a 3-pin connector and would require voltage control to spin it down.

Link to product page: EVERCOOL EC-8038 Series FAN-EC8038H12BA Case Fan - Newegg.com