Fan control scripts

[Russell Coight]

Motherboard: Supermicro A1SAi-2750F
Case: Fractal Node 304

Just wondering what the difference is between this script and this one? The 2nd one is for dual zone Supermicro motherboards whereas my motherboard is single zone, does this mean I can't use it?

I have a fan attached to the heatsink (it's passive) at the moment, my fan mode is set to HeavyIO and during hard drive burn in the hard drive temps sat around 28-30C, CPU was around 26-28C. It's cold at the moment here though. If I set the fan to normal mode the CPU temp would hit 40C+ before the fans would speed up, even then then they only sped up to 600-700RPM.

I like the idea of setting and forgetting, just not sure if I need a fan script or not? I guess in winter it's no big deal but summer is a different story. It would mean I'd have to buy 3 PWM fans which is fine. My motherboard has 3 fan headers, I'd buy 2x92mm Noctua fans with a splitter for the front intake fans and a 1x140mm Noctua for the rear exhaust.

 

[MrToddsFriends]

I like the idea of setting and forgetting, just not sure if I need a fan script or not?

Using a fan script seems to be the more professional approach to me but isn't always needed, especially if your "server room" never gets hotter than expected. In my home office (which is the server room in my case) it almost never gets hotter than 27°C (east side of the building, NAS is not exposed to direct sunlight). Scrubs and long SMART tests are executed at night-time. My setup might not be optimal but it works for me and is relatively silent.

Motherboard: Supermicro A1SAi-2750F
Case: Fractal Node 304
HDDs: 4 x WD Red 3TB

Front intake fans: 2 x Noctua AF-A9 PWM, FAN1, FAN3 motherboard headers, almost always 400 rpm with fan speed mode standard
Rear exhaust fan: Noctua NF-A14 FLX, Node 304 fan controller (low setting)
CPU fan: Noctua NF-A6x25 FLX, FAN2 motherboard header, 1600 rpm fixed with Noctua U.L.N.A.

HDDs temps were not exceeding 41°C throughout the last three summers, highest values occurring during scrubs and SMART long tests. System, Peripheral and DIMM temps are slightly lower than HDD temps most of the time. CPU temp is approximately the same as room temp except under heavy load, but almost always lower than System, Peripheral and DIMM temps.

In expectation of an exceptional heat wave I would change the Node 304 fan controller setting first.

 

[Russell Coight]

Thanks, you have almost the same setup as me.

I've got all case fans (Fractal fans included with the case) connected to the Node 304 controller set to medium speed and the CPU fan connected to one of the motherboard headers, FAN1 I think it is. I don't have a 'server room' or a cupboard so my NAS will just be sitting on my desk so the room doesn't get hot. I might see how it goes this summer, although while I'm building/testing, it would be nice to have it just done so I don't have to worry about it.

 

[Stux]

Thanks, you have almost the same setup as me.

I've got all case fans (Fractal fans included with the case) connected to the Node 304 controller set to medium speed and the CPU fan connected to one of the motherboard headers, FAN1 I think it is. I don't have a 'server room' or a cupboard so my NAS will just be sitting on my desk so the room doesn't get hot. I might see how it goes this summer, although while I'm building/testing, it would be nice to have it just done so I don't have to worry about it.

The key is that the BMC fan controller doesn't pay attention to HD temps. It *only* monitors the CPU temps.

So, if you want your fans to spinup in reaction to rising HD temps, then you need to use a custom fan control script.

My hybrid cpu/hd fan controller needs two fan zones to function, and uses a very course set of fan speeds (3 or 4), which is perfectly sufficient if you don't care about hearing fan speed oscilating when under partial loads. Other scripts use a PID control loop to more finely vary the fan speed to maintain an optimimum setting. The difference is in the complexity of the control algorithm.

If I had a single fan zone in a node 304 case, then I would modify the hybrid fan controller script to function with one fan zone, where the fan duty would be set to either the desired CPU fan level, or the desired HD fan level, depending on which was greater.

The scripts fan level check would then also need to be modified such that it would check the final fan level, rather than both the CPU and HD fan levels...

Basically, all fans in the system would rev up if either the CPU or HDs started heating.

And the reason the scripts need to monitor the CPU temps is that in order to customize the fan duty in relation to HD temps, you then need to take responsibility for CPU temps too.

 

[Stux]

A simpler option may be some of the older generation scripts which vary the fan mode, instead of fan duty. These scripts change from optimal<->standard<->max based on HD temp. The benefit is when in a standard mode, the BMC still varies the fan duty to control CPU temps, but optimal has about a 25% duty floor, and standard is 50% (i think) and max is 100%

 

[Russell Coight]

A simpler option may be some of the older generation scripts which vary the fan mode, instead of fan duty. These scripts change from optimal<->standard<->max based on HD temp. The benefit is when in a standard mode, the BMC still varies the fan duty to control CPU temps, but optimal has about a 25% duty floor, and standard is 50% (i think) and max is 100%

Thanks, I like simple, I'll take a look at the older scripts. I think for my setup they should be fine.