Qnap TS251+ fan 100%

[Alex Quiniou]

Hi

I have made a fresh install of Truenas 12.0 u3 on my Qnap TS251+ (8G) and the fan are spinning always at 100%.

TS-251+ | Hardware Specs

QNAP designs and delivers high-quality network attached storage (NAS) and professional network video recorder (NVR) solutions to users from home, SOHO to small, medium businesses.

www.qnap.com

The cpu is Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU J1900 @ 1.99GHz
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/u...-processor-j1900-2m-cache-up-to-2-42-ghz.html

My cpu oscillates between 39 ° and 43 ° which is very good. My CPU usage is very low (0-20%).

When QnapOS was still in place it changed the speed of the fan dynamically.
The option in the bios to manage the power for the fan curve is checked too.

Is there something I can do ?

---
I had posted this on Jira and William Grzybowski recommended to post on the forum to get help

I have search for solution here :

• https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/high-fan-speed.22223/
• https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/fan-speed-problem.50075/
• https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/control-of-fan-speeds-from-freenas.16486/
• https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/setting-fan-speed-on-hb-1235.68308/
• https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/fan-speed-issue.43328/
• https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/cpu-fan-speed-stuck.50958/

And it seems that fan cannot be changed even if the bios can do it : https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/control-of-fan-speeds-from-freenas.16486/post-84841

But if you have any info please share

 

[ThreeDee]

any firmware/BIOS updates for your setup?

 

[Alex Quiniou]

Qnap provide only update for their QTS OS and some softs

TS-251+ - Download Center

Select your product to download operating system, utility, applications, document and check compatibility.

www.qnap.com

it's seems like it's not the case

I'm not the first on who asked for bios update

Qnap TS-251+ BIOS update - QNAP NAS Community Forum

 

[HarryMuscle]

Some/many/most QNAP units use custom firmware on the chip that monitors and adjusts fan speeds. Unfortunately for those units there is no driver for FreeBSD, hence no ability to change fan speeds by the OS. However, if you decide to switch to TrueNAS Scale which is Linux based you could use this driver to control your fans (not sure if it's possible via the GUI but it's definitely possible via a script like fancontrol (from the lm-sensors package)): https://github.com/Stonyx/QNAP-EC.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[Schultz]

Hello, I had the same problem as your have and managed to solve it by inserting “in series” with the fan a small module from aliexpress. The module controls the fan speed by reading the cpu heatsink temperature with small temperature sensor that was mounted exactly on top of the cpu between the heatsink fins using a small rolled piece of paper towel that was inserted just on top of the sensor(between the fins) to keep it as close as possible to the bottom of the heatsink. On the input of the module I have soldered the connector from a broken 4 pin fan, this way I could read the fan rpm(to see if speed increases together with cpu temperature) that was useful when deciding on how to set the fan speed for different temperature thresholds on the module.
In the end it came out nice because I never heard the fan noise again and the nas runs cool.
I took this router because I don’t know how to do it in the software.

Here you have the link for the small module.

2.2US $ 14% OFF|DC 12V 4 Wire PWM Fan Temperature Control Speed Controller Governor Regulator for PC Computer CPU Fan Cooler Alarm Module Board|Motor Controller| - AliExpress

Smarter Shopping, Better Living! Aliexpress.com

a.aliexpress.com

Attached is a picture with what I have done inside my ts251+. Sorry but this is the only picture that I can find.
Hope it helps.

 

[ragametal]

Some/many/most QNAP units use custom firmware on the chip that monitors and adjusts fan speeds. Unfortunately for those units there is no driver for FreeBSD, hence no ability to change fan speeds by the OS. However, if you decide to switch to TrueNAS Scale which is Linux based you could use this driver to control your fans (not sure if it's possible via the GUI but it's definitely possible via a script like fancontrol (from the lm-sensors package)): https://github.com/Stonyx/QNAP-EC.

Thanks,
Harry

I'm sorry to resurrect this post but I'm dealing with a similar situation. Were you able to install this driver module into TrueNAS Scale? if so, could you please explain how to do it.?

Most of my experience is with TrueNAS core but I'm fairly familiar with Ubuntu which is debian based. My installation is in a QNAP TS-253D. In the BIOS of that system i can set the fan to either "Auto" or "Manual". In "manual" the fan runs at 100% all the time (and is extremely noisy), and in "Auto" it runs so slow that the drives temps go above 50C (but it is silent).

Because of this i would like to give this driver a try.

 

[HarryMuscle]

I'm sorry to resurrect this post but I'm dealing with a similar situation. Were you able to install this driver module into TrueNAS Scale? if so, could you please explain how to do it.?

Most of my experience is with TrueNAS core but I'm fairly familiar with Ubuntu which is debian based. My installation is in a QNAP TS-253D. In the BIOS of that system i can set the fan to either "Auto" or "Manual". In "manual" the fan runs at 100% all the time (and is extremely noisy), and in "Auto" it runs so slow that the drives temps go above 50C (but it is silent).

Because of this i would like to give this driver a try.

The build instructions are on the GitHub page for the driver. You'd have to enable apt first to be able to install the needed tools to compile the driver which I wouldn't recommend on a production machine though. Instead I would recommend spinning up a virtual machine with the same version of TrueNAS Scale that you're running, enabling apt in the VM, and then following the build instructions for building a Debian package. Then you just transfer the driver package file that was built to the production machine and install that using a temporarily enabled apt (I think apt can install local files, otherwise one of the other installation tools that deals with local packages would need to be enabled temporarily instead). Unfortunately in Linux there's no such thing as a generic driver that works with all kernels. It needs to be built specifically for each version and configuration of the kernel, so unless someone decides to take on the task of building this driver for each version of TrueNAS Scale, the approach above is the only way to get it installed on your system.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[ragametal]

The build instructions are on the GitHub page for the driver. You'd have to enable apt first to be able to install the needed tools to compile the driver which I wouldn't recommend on a production machine though. Instead I would recommend spinning up a virtual machine with the same version of TrueNAS Scale that you're running, enabling apt in the VM, and then following the build instructions for building a Debian package. Then you just transfer the driver package file that was built to the production machine and install that using a temporarily enabled apt (I think apt can install local files, otherwise one of the other installation tools that deals with local packages would need to be enabled temporarily instead). Unfortunately in Linux there's no such thing as a generic driver that works with all kernels. It needs to be built specifically for each version and configuration of the kernel, so unless someone decides to take on the task of building this driver for each version of TrueNAS Scale, the approach above is the only way to get it installed on your system.

Thanks,
Harry

Thanks for the response but I'm not sure how comfortable i feel about modifying the base OS for truenas. This system will be the remote target for the replication tasts of our main TrueNAs server (production system), meaning that i will have very limited access to it if anything needs to be modified after a truenas update.

I was honestly hoping that the driver could just be installed inside a container, a VM or loaded as a tunable but it doesn't seem likely.

Different question, have you tried to use this driver in TrueNAS core (FreeBSD)?

 

[HarryMuscle]

Thanks for the response but I'm not sure how comfortable i feel about modifying the base OS for truenas. This system will be the remote target for the replication tasts of our main TrueNAs server (production system), meaning that i will have very limited access to it if anything needs to be modified after a truenas update.

I was honestly hoping that the driver could just be installed inside a container, a VM or loaded as a tunable but it doesn't seem likely.

Different question, have you tried to use this driver in TrueNAS core (FreeBSD)?

Unfortunately what you were hoping for doesn't exist currently. It would require iXsystems to integrate the driver into its kernel. You could create a feature request for that though.

As for using it on Core, not possible. Core runs FreeBSD which has a completely different driver interface and this is a Linux driver. It would have to be completely rewritten to work with FreeBSD.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[ragametal]

Unfortunately what you were hoping for doesn't exist currently. It would require iXsystems to integrate the driver into its kernel. You could create a feature request for that though.

As for using it on Core, not possible. Core runs FreeBSD which has a completely different driver interface and this is a Linux driver. It would have to be completely rewritten to work with FreeBSD.

Thanks,
Harry

it was worth a shot. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

 

[Morris]

Have you tried replacing the fans with Notua fans? While they will go full speed you probably will not hear them and if you do just the sound of the air moving.

 

[ragametal]

Have you tried replacing the fans with Notua fans? While they will go full speed you probably will not hear them and if you do just the sound of the air moving.

I honestly haven't. I just bought a noctua PWM fan controller and in the hopes i can manually adjust the speed to something that is not too noisy and provides enough airflow to keep the temps at acceptable levels.

I'm also experimenting with spinning down the drives since this system is for remote backups that will be inactive most of the day.

 

[Morris]

I honestly haven't. I just bought a noctua PWM fan controller and in the hopes i can manually adjust the speed to something that is not too noisy and provides enough airflow to keep the temps at acceptable levels.

I'm also experimenting with spinning down the drives since this system is for remote backups that will be inactive most of the day.

I spin my drives down. Some are very vocal about not doing this as they fear this will harm the drives. I feel there fears are based on very old information as modern drives are designed to spin down to save energy and it's a considerable amount of electricity in a disk array.

 

[ragametal]

I spin my drives down. Some are very vocal about not doing this as they fear this will harm the drives. I feel there fears are based on very old information as modern drives are designed to spin down to save energy and it's a considerable amount of electricity in a disk array.

Interesting, i finally found somebody with first hand experience spinning down the disks. i was able to do it but i lost the ability to monitor the disk' temperature when they are in standby. has this been your experience as well?

Also, do you know what the "Force HDD Standby" feature does? I saw a youtube video Spinning Down Disks | Managing TrueNAS Core where they said that this is "normally to force it into standby mode if its running software checks like a scrub or doing a snapshot". The implication here is that those extremely important tasks could be interrupted by the "Force HDD Standby" feature.

Do you know if this is true?

 

[Morris]

I don't know. For APM I use Level 127 - Maximum power usage with Standby

I use my motherboard SATA controller and for some reason TrueNAS has never shown drive temperatures, even before I set them to spin down. I'm confident there cool as I used to run Windows with the same hardware and I could monitor the temperature. My case has good airflow.

 

[ragametal]

I don't know. For APM I use Level 127 - Maximum power usage with Standby

I use my motherboard SATA controller and for some reason TrueNAS has never shown drive temperatures, even before I set them to spin down. I'm confident there cool as I used to run Windows with the same hardware and I could monitor the temperature. My case has good airflow.

Understood. Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Morris]

I forgot to mention, scheduled tasks wake the disks and they will spin down if idle after the task is complete.