Fan Control Help


Mopar_Mudder

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I have a BIOSTAR TA785G3HD mother board, running 9 Drive plus a parity drive. 3 Cooler Master 4-in-3  with fans and one case fan.

I am on version 5.0-rc8a and also running UnMenu

 

I am looking for a way to make it cheaper to run the server, right now the fans are on all the time.

 

I see their are a couple of scripts for running the fans, can anyone tell me which is the latest, greatest, best and easiest?

 

Also will my mother board work with the scripts to run the fan? It has two SYS_FAN slots on board.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I use the fan speed script and I can stop my fan while my system is idle. In order to do this you need two things:

[*]Motherboard with a fan controller that unraid can communicate with

[*]A fan that is capable of being commanded to zero speed.

#1 is easier than #2.

 

If you can accomplish #1 with your current hardware then be prepared to replace all your fans. I'd recommend starting with getting rid of all your fans and replacing the rear fan on your case first with a PWM fan that can be commanded to zero speed. I know that this Delta fan can. I tried a Cooler Master fan first and it would not. The only way I found to this out was by trial and error. You'll want to install the fan to exhaust the air from your case and block off all the openings on your case so that the only way air flows into your case is through the front vent and across your HDDs.

 

Take a look at the following threads for advice on how to set everything up.

Temperature based fan speed control?

X7SPA-HF based small (perfect) server build

 

I've seen that there is a plugin now for fan speed control but I have not used it so I cannot comment on how well it works. I used the methods outlined above and my systems works exactly as you describe.

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Not that what I have written here will be of any use to your immediate problem, but perhaps it gives you some further ideas to consider too.

 

I am trying to determine which of the approaches I describe below will also work in my case...but as you read it, bear in mind I have the Lian Li D8000 beast of a case with potential for more than 10 fans (combination of 120mm and 140mm) AND it will be running more than one virtual server.

 

The X10SL7-F motherboard has 5 fan headers, of which all are PWM capable.

My options are:

a) Daisy chaining the fans from the motherboard fan headers but knowing full well that only one PWM fan per header should be used to register the pulse. Problem here is not knowing how many fans can be chained together per header. I'm still figuring out how to get extra power to the long chains as I suspect each motherboard fan header would generally only power 2 linked fans before running into problems.

 

b) Utilise all motherboard fan headers for CPU & a single PWM fan to each of the remaining 4 headers, and use a Fan Controller to 'manually' adjust (by voltage) the remaining number of (daisy chained non-PWM) fans required to keep the temps down. The fan controller would also have temperature sensors and each channel would have to be measured to ensure not to exceed it's limit.

 

c) Same as b) but only connect the CPU fan and one or two PWM fans with the motherboard's fan headers. 

 

d) Same as b) but only have the CPU fan on a motherboard fan header while daisy chaining all other fans (which would be non-PWM) to the Fan Controller.

 

b), c) and d) are all relatively similar with the only difference being whether to use the motherboard fan headers. The question I am yet to answer comes down to understanding the advantages of controlling the PWM fans through the BIOS/software over hardware controlling fans using temperature sensors. This is why I am strongly considering b) or c).

 

As I said, just throwing some other ideas out there which I don't know whether they'll solve your problem or not.

 

cheers,

gwl

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@gwl - I think this cable will solve your problems: Rosewill 12-Inch PWM Splitter (RCW-FPS-401)

 

I have this in my case right now. Also, I would not recommend including your CPU fan in any of your case cooling ideas. Leave it connected to the primary CPU fan header and leave it alone. You'll need to get control of the case fan header and then use the cable I linked above to control up to three case fans. If you pick the right fans (like the Delta fan I linked in my previous post) and place them in the proper location they should be more than sufficient to cool your HDDs.

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Just going to think out loud here as to how I want this to work.

 

I have three 4 in 3 cages, each one of them has a fan on the front that blows into the case.

I have one fan on top of the case that sucks heat out, all other vents are blocked.

 

What I would like:

 

1) If any drive in its respective cage turns on the fan on that cage turns on. So 1-4 would turn the top fan on, 5-8 turns the middle fan on and 9-12 turns the bottom fan on.

 

2) When any drive turns on or temp in the case hits a certain point the case fan on top turns on.

 

3) I suppose a safety that if a drive gets over a certain temp the fan comes on. But I don't see how they could get hot when they aren't spinning, and if they are spinning the fan would be on any way.

 

Guess I am not really even worried about speed of the fan just a simple on off will do, sound doesn't matter.

 

Any sort of simple controller board that can be plugged in to turn fans on and off? Also that Un Raid can talk to.

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What you are suggesting is possible however you would need three separate fan controllers. Most motherboards have either a one (for the CPU fan) or two (CPU fan + case fan). So you're going to need some sort of controller card. I've never messed with one so I won't be able to give you a lot of advice on that path.

 

What I can tell you is what my experience has been. I have an Antec 300 case and I always have at least five drives in my server (parity + 3 data + 2.5" app drive). In a few cases I've also had two additional drives in there that I was preclearing. My fan script monitors all the drives and my fan stays off until the a drive temp goes above 35°C. Once the temp is above 35°C then my single 120mm fan begins to ramp up speed at every degree until it reaches full speed at 42°C. My goal was to maintain temp stability and not have huge swings in drive temp or cycling temps. I did have to tune my fan script settings a bit in the beginning to get the optimum setup but everything has been pretty stable for several years now. With my single fan I've run a parity check while preclearing 2 additional drives and the drive temps never exceeded 36°C. My server is located in my basement so the ambient temp is probably somewhere around 20-21°C which does make everything a bit easier. My point here is that I'm using my single 120mm fan and it can easily cool all of my drives without breaking a sweat. It's probably only turning at ~15% speed and keeping all my drives at a very comfortable temp.

 

So my advice to you would be to get a Delta fan (they're beasts and the one I have can be commanded to zero speed) and use your motherboard controller to play around with your case cooling. You'll get a better handle on your thermal needs and also familiarize yourself with the fan speed script. Then you'll be able to decide for yourself what is the best way forward. If a single fan works then you're good to go. If you need multiple fans then figure out what else you'll need to make that happen.

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