Used Supermicro servers - need help deciding

[jyavenard]

So, I ordered the rack mounted machine now. When its here I'm gonna find out about the noise level and then decide where to put it =)

According to the product page of the case (836TQ-R800B) the built-in fans are 80mm
So they shouldnt be too loud. But I can always get some quieter ones

That's a funny thing to say...

Typically, a 80mm fans will be much noisier than a 120mm one.
this case has 3xFAN-0126L4 80 mm fans: 53.5dB max EACH AND 2XFAN-0125L4: 47dB max each.

Those fans *are* loud, very loud, and there are 5 in those cases !

With a SM motherboard, and with the fans mode set to "default", the 7k rpm fans will still run at a minimum of 3800rpm and they are still producing serious noise. Sure, it's not as loud as pre-POST, but it's still damn loud.

You have no options but to change the fans if you want to make it quieter. But then you start making compromising on cooling, because those supermicro fans are very good at what they are designed do.

The least loud fans that is a direct replacement for the one in your case are the FAN-0044L4 ; SM can be easily replaced with generic fans as they are mounted in a little chassis allowing hot-swapping.

Personally, I bought myself 3 of thos 0044L4 fans, which gave me a chassis where I could use off-the-shelves fans like the much quieter noctua 80mm. However, you then have to configure the SM BMC to run at full speeds, otherwise you very quickly start to get hard disk speed over 50 degres (with the BMC on "default", the noctua fans run at only 300rpm)

 

[jgreco]

It is worth noting that the chassis in question is designed to cool almost 300 watts of hot dual E5 Xeon in addition to 36 drives and prolly some RAID cards and other stuff.

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

Erm, where do you get the 36 drives from? It's a 16 drive Chassis

Gesendet von meinem C6903 mit Tapatalk

 

[Rand]

What exactly is FreeNAS supposed to say to the BMC? "Hi, I think my user may be an idiot and so I am going to override the cooling mode he configured"? This has ALL KINDS of stupid and fail written all over it.
If you want your fans throttled, WHY DON'T YOU JUST SET IT UP THAT WAY?

Lol, yes that's what it needs to say:)
So i suppose there *is* an issue with my board since i have configured it to reduce the fan speed but its not changing. But this is another mobo and too off-topic here. But if only the mobo/BMC is to blame then i have to take another look at that - i always thought it was a FreeNas issue. Thx:)

 

[jgreco]

Make sure all your fans are plugged in and reporting reasonable speeds. You can usually check this in the BIOS, or by querying the BMC through IPMI (Server Health->Sensor Readings, fan speeds and temperatures should report green, the fans will rev if not). Then set your preference for fan speeds in the BIOS. Also, make sure you have the latest BIOS. The early X9S BIOS versions had a tendency to run the fans at full while POST'ing and under other non-critical conditions.

 

[Rand]

Sorry for the confusion, I am not using the original board any more, thats why I said off-topic, I am running an Intel server board (without ipmi since i have an KVM-IP switch). Thanks though, i am sure its helpful for the OP:)

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

So, my rig arrived yesterday. Well as a server it is obviously damn loud. It's running now 1.5 meters next to me, copying about 800GB of data from the old drive to the new one. I still need to play around with the fan settings in BIOS. but I'm pretty sure I won't be able to keep it in my sleeping room running 24/7 in any way :P

 

[jgreco]

Make sure to update to the latest BIOS, as some of the older Supermicro BIOSes seemed to like to rev fans more than the current ones.

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

Hm, I'll have a look at that

 

[Starpulkka]

Hm, I'll have a look at that

Bought same server, have you have get ipmi working. Because seems that i dont have ipmi on motherboard. Yeah first thought was when i plugged cables on psu hmm. i might just barely able to bear that huge noise what those 2 small fans make. Then i pressed on switch... hoolee shjit hold it down it's gonna take off. Its even superlouder than many of youtube videos. Checked logs and i saw 1bit errors on memory from 2009 year. This is my first rack server that i have in home. Sofar ok case for 200euros.

 

[Lordadmiral Drake]

The X7DBE board requires an extra card to use ipmi

 

[Starpulkka]

The X7DBE board requires an extra card to use ipmi

Yes manual did have picture of that, but supermicro internetsite told ipmi onboard, oh well just had to ask to be sure =)
Put 6hdds on it and so far everything has worked as expected. Going to build dustfilter this weekend.

Edit: Ah yes SIMLP is somekindof supermicro stuff where you can put ipmi card and jgreco says its costs extra, ok didnt know that but now i do =) .Still dont find on google what exactly SIMLP is, but google links on supermicrosite where those cards are.

Server draws 245-260 watts power in powersavers disabled modes (and both redundand psu are plugged in) (psu's idle in 42w). As my powerhungry amd 4100FX draws 150-160watts power (psu idle 24w) (no software support for amd's powersaving yet). Both have 6 hdds plugged. (ok its not a fair comparison server vs. home pc ,but this is my home and both machines are here to stay) So if i keep both servers on 24/7 amd costs 220e and xeon costs 361e an year, both processors have same average cpu mark scores (ok amd have higher score and have aes) but im not going to keep my machines 24/7 on. Might be thats why serverhouses want sell those xeons and get newer effecient ones, they would save lots of money in just a few years. Edit2: double checked wattages and i did have monitor plugged in super, updated correct watts and costs

 

[jgreco]

The Supermicro web page calls it optional, which is manufacturer talk for "something that costs extra".