Supermicro SC825 too loud

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luckylinux

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 19, 2012
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I own a Supermicro CSE-825TQ-R740LPB I'm currently using for my NAS & Virtualbox host.
Even with the BIOS tuning (through IPMI) to "Fan speed: Optimal" (the "not the loudest fan setting", although still far from calling it "quiet") the FAN are screaming in my living room.
Unfortunately I don't have any other place to put this: currently it's in a custom build pseudo 19'' Rack that can hold its weight ;).

I've though about some possibilities:
a) Change the fans: I've though about using some Artic Cooling F8 PWM (very cheap and quiet), only problems being: no holes in the metal support inside the case to screw the fan on and the plastic hot-swap adapter only accepts wider fans (38mm I suppose) which I may only get through eBay or something like that. The 25mm deep Arctic Cooling I have unfortunately gets stuck. Not sure if I could just cut the hot-swap adapter with a dremel or something ...

b) Get some 4-pin (or even 3-pin maybe, but I'd rather not) adapters to convert 12V to 7V or 5V (I'll have to mod the fan hot-swap support, but it may be feasible). However Supermicro fans draw quite a lot of current (like 0.8A if I recall correctly)

c) Install some sound dampening material: expensive route (and maybe it won't work) although it can be useful because I have some other computers in the same "rack" I'd rather not hear. While it may be feasible, the complexity of access to hot-swap HDD bays in front of the chassis would be greatly reduced (but hopefully HDDs don't fail every day, hopefully).

Any suggestions to lover system noise? At idle it's quite loud, but when loaded just a little bit it's unbearable. Unfortunately buying a NORCO case in my country would've been even more expensive, when considering VAT + duties + customs, therefore I couldn't really take that.
 
Unfortunately, you bought an enterprise rack case, which was designed to be well ventilated with the included fans. They keep everything inside cool by moving a lot of air. You would have to retrofit larger and/or slower fans or buy quieter fans. The power supplies also have smaller and louder fans which you would also have to swap out. Unless you need the box front and center, I would relocate it to somehwere further away.
 
I have a SC846 case. I drilled holes to accommodate for some 80MM Noctua fans without damaging the original fan holes for when I do get a house with a space to put it in. I also removed the rundundant fan and rigged a desktop ATX PSU in it for now. It's really quiet and the mod was fairly cheap to do. Considering I only paid 300 bucks for the case I wasn't worried about spending the extra cash.
 
mwroobel said:
Unfortunately, you bought an enterprise rack case, which was designed to be well ventilated with the included fans. They keep everything inside cool by moving a lot of air. You would have to retrofit larger and/or slower fans or buy quieter fans. The power supplies also have smaller and louder fans which you would also have to swap out. Unless you need the box front and center, I would relocate it to somehwere further away.
Click to expand...

Yeah, my fault. Unfortunately I can't relocate further away either ...
The PSU should be relatively quiet at low load (80+ Platinum) so I don't think they're the (main) problem. Again, NORCO would've allowed me to swap fans, but the lower build quality and being more expensive made my choice to the Supermicro.

Any tips on DIY sound dampening material?

spankit said:
I have a SC846 case. I drilled holes to accommodate for some 80MM Noctua fans without damaging the original fan holes for when I do get a house with a space to put it in. I also removed the rundundant fan and rigged a desktop ATX PSU in it for now. It's really quiet and the mod was fairly cheap to do. Considering I only paid 300 bucks for the case I wasn't worried about spending the extra cash.
Click to expand...
My case is new so I'm in a whole other situation. I may do the same to my SC847 JBOD enclosure though (which I also got for relatively cheap).
 
There is a solution it's kind of expensive but the outcome looks great in a living room. Try an APC Netshelter.

It's about 2 grand however I can attest that you won't hear a thing. I've installed them in locations that have limited or no telcos.
 
kac77 said:
There is a solution it's kind of expensive but the outcome looks great in a living room. Try an APC Netshelter.

It's about 2 grand however I can attest that you won't hear a thing. I've installed them in locations that have limited or no telcos.
Click to expand...

Kind of? 1500$ (in U.S.) is almost the cost of the server itself ...
The Netshelter NetShelter WX 13U (~ 600$ through a local retailer) might be a good alternative. Still it's not like I'd have much free room to put another rack in here ...
 
thatoneuser said:
Check out BobbyTables' setup from the 10TB thread. He's got a PWM fan controller rolling to control the fan speeds of the case fans.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1040130430&postcount=2101

There's a write up at overclocker that shows you how to build one http://www.overclockers.com/pwm-fan-controller
Click to expand...
I'm an electrical engineer, so building one of those controllers shouldn't really be the problem (just a little bit of time).

However I was wondering how well the setup would've worked at very low PWM duty cycle (that's what it should be in order to keep silent). I'm not really sure about this.
 
You may want to try the following. I tried it with a 847 and it seems to be fine:

There are several types of hot swap fans, your 825 uses newer type that has the finger hold on the side to pull the fan out. See how the old ones had a tab on top and the newer ones have a curved side to put your finger in it. Since the older model does not have the curve on the side, you can put any thickness of fan in it.
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I tried fitting the old fan frame into a 847 chassis and it does fit fine. With your 825, there is only one row of fans so it should not have any problem sliding the fan in. With a 847, there are two rows of fans so the older type does not fit in the rear row.
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All you need is the fan frame to put in, check out the ebay listing here for 4x FAN-0070. Use the frame to replace with your slower/quieter fans and slide into the chassis. You may need to make sure the fan connectors fit in the hot swap slot, though. If it doesn't just cut off the connector guides to fit in.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-4-SANYO-DENKI-SAN-ACE-80-9G0812G103-12V-1-1A-80X38MM-SUPERMICRO-FAN-0070-/321156740065?pt=US_Server_Fans_Cooling_Systems&hash=item4ac66ef3e1
 
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Thank you, thatoneuser.
Unfortunately that listing only ships to U.S.

Otherwise it's quite expensive (20$ / each) in Europe ...
Too bad because it could work very well :(

EDIT: Maybe I should get myself a 3D printer ... :)
 
Sorry to resurrect this very hold thread :(
I finally decided myself that after hearing for 3 straight days the stock fans running on "Optimal" mode (4700rpms instead of 8500 rpms) I was going nuts.

I should be getting the fan enclosures next week (a few days left).
I was thinking of replacing the stock fans (6500 rpm / 53 dBa / 84.3 CFM) with either:
- Arctic Cooling F8 PWM (2000 rpm / 21 dBa / 31 CFM) - very cheap (I already have some at hand)
- Noctua NF-A8 (2000 rpm / 16.1 dBa / 29.5 CFM) - very expensive (have to order)

Since my last post the system has been upgraded to a dual socket E5-2620 with 6 x WD SE 4TB Hard Drives. Since the stock fans in "Optimal" mode (so called) run at about 4500-4700 rpm and make a hell lot of noise. I'm not sure if 90 CFM overall will be enough to cool the beast down. I'm particularly worried about CPU, RAM, HDDs, ...

Do you think cooling will be sufficient or it will definitively overheat? Basically I'm killing like 60% of the existing cooling so I'd say this is quite major. I know normally these servers are oversized in terms of cooling but still ...
If that's the case I'm also open to other suggestions for relatively quiet 80mm fans. I'd say below 3000 rpms is a must in order to be able to sleep ;).

The BGears B-Blaster (3500 rpms / 39 dBa / 62 CFM) may also be a good alternative although definitively more noisy than the two mentioned above (about 4 times) and yet much quieter than the stock fan (about 3 x quieter at full load).

Thank you very much again for your help.

EDIT: not sure if it would help but I also plan on using fan gaskets / silicone washers in order to reduce the vibrations induced on the fan enclosure. Anything that helps reduce noise is welcome IMO ;)
 
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I just noticed that at idle CPU temps using the stock cooler in "optimal" fan speed mode results in 55°C-57°C. That's without even installing the 2nd CPU. I'm not sure if it's due to FreeBSD lacking in power management in the way I configured it (or I didn't configure it) but these seems very high to me at idle ...

I think I may need to remove the heatsink and possibly replace the thermal paste.
I was thinking of Arctic MX4 which is known to have good performances. I happen to have some in stock so I think it's worth a try.

Otherwise could you suggest some 2u cooler? Noctua NH-L12 seems good but the way the fan is mounted would disrupt the airflow ... Other alternatives?
 
bmh.01 said:
You want a CPU cooler that flows front to back, especially in a 2u case.

http://www.xcase.co.uk/component-parts/2u-coolers.html

Selection there that will ship to europe. Although as already said having several of 2U chassis myself I don't think you'll get it living room quiet, hence why mine live in the garage.
Click to expand...
Yep made a big mistake when I bought that server. I only though about quality & reliability, not so much about noise (and cost). I just wonder if there's something that can still be done about it ...

I don't have a garage so that's not really an option either. I wish I had it though ;)

As posted before I'm considering replacing stock fans with much quieter ones, but this will obviously degrade cooling performance.
What I'm concerned with are the high idle CPU temps of 55°C - 57°C with the stock cooler running like mad! I was expecting 30°C-40°C since ambient is around 20°C-23°C.
Do you think it's just a matter of bad termal paste?
 
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