Any way to make IBM Bladecenter H 2880W fans quieter?

generalt

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Quote from: MarkAz on December 11, 2015, 02:24:48 AM

Quote from: hawkfish007 on December 11, 2015, 12:02:21 AM

Can you post a picture of how did you connect fan wires to the Jabber board?

There's no secret sauce to it - the fans are 12v so I just made a PCIe adapter to connect it. Just positive to positive, negative to negative - the only trick is whether or not the fan will be full speed without a PWM signal (most work like this), or use a 3 pin fan.

My first rev I hard-wired it, but I had a fan die on one of them and it was a huge PIA, so I switched to making an adapter - and finally added the thermal PWM board.

I'd be interested in a couple of these when the kit is ready.

philipma1957

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'The right to privacy matters'

I did get very good results with the sound proofing here are results with the avalon 6's and the s-7

and sound meter readings

on the den/home theater couch with garage door open--- 39.7db

about 46.8 a few feet from garage door

at the garage door 52.4

in the garage 59.7 pointed towards the intake spot

the outflow spot = 60.9

lastly right at the intake of the 2880 watt psu 71.8 notice sound proofing i will post the sound proofing technique later today.

MarkAz

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Quote from: J4bberwock on December 12, 2015, 06:06:11 PM

I did it for one customer, and never got a complaint since he got it in april.

Anyway, for those interested, Molex part numbers to connect a 4 wires PWM fan in place of the fan pack are as follow:
Microfit 3.0 receptacle (4 contacts): 0430250400
Microfit 3.0 Female crimp terminals: 0430300001 (or 0430300007 if you don't want to order a full reel)

I'll try to get back the pinout from a disassembled fan pack I have laying somewhere or from the pictures I sent to my customer.

Cool - I ordered those up from Digikey... You wouldn't happen to know the part number for a male KK 100 connection, something that a 4-pin PWM fan could connect to? Like these:

philipma1957

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'The right to privacy matters'

I am working on a idea to lower sound will post back. and will show on the large review thread here

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1284563.0;all

J4bberwock

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Quote from: MarkAz on December 11, 2015, 01:24:29 PM

Quote from: J4bberwock on December 11, 2015, 03:14:37 AM

To save some time and work, you can use the original connectors 4 pins microfit, I'll dig the reference. I still have a handful of connectors and crimp pins laying somewhere.
The original fans are 4 pins, and temperature controlled.

Yeah, I had considered that but wasn't sure how it would handle the different fan charactistics (ie; 1 fan instead of 3, 5000rpm instead of 12000rpm, etc). If you could post a link to the datasheet on it, that would be great and I'd give it a shot, converting over those connectors on the board would be trivial, as I pull them out anyway.

I did it for one customer, and never got a complaint since he got it in april.

Anyway, for those interested, Molex part numbers to connect a 4 wires PWM fan in place of the fan pack are as follow:
Microfit 3.0 receptacle (4 contacts): 0430250400
Microfit 3.0 Female crimp terminals: 0430300001 (or 0430300007 if you don't want to order a full reel)

I'll try to get back the pinout from a disassembled fan pack I have laying somewhere or from the pictures I sent to my customer.

methodlimp

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Quote from: Prelude on December 10, 2015, 12:14:55 AM

If that PSU was having issues, it's a lemon. I think Phil was running on 120V back then too. 240V is easier on the PSUs, I hope you'll be using 240V with 6 S7s?

EVGA says you can pull 1300W DC from them, IE ~1450W at the wall for 10 years. That's good enough for me! Worse case they replace the PSU for free.

I've got them running on 208v actually. I've got a 100amp subpanel just for mining.

MarkAz

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Quote from: J4bberwock on December 11, 2015, 03:14:37 AM

To save some time and work, you can use the original connectors 4 pins microfit, I'll dig the reference. I still have a handful of connectors and crimp pins laying somewhere.
The original fans are 4 pins, and temperature controlled.

Yeah, I had considered that but wasn't sure how it would handle the different fan charactistics (ie; 1 fan instead of 3, 5000rpm instead of 12000rpm, etc). If you could post a link to the datasheet on it, that would be great and I'd give it a shot, converting over those connectors on the board would be trivial, as I pull them out anyway.

J4bberwock

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Quote from: MarkAz on December 11, 2015, 02:24:48 AM

Quote from: hawkfish007 on December 11, 2015, 12:02:21 AM

Can you post a picture of how did you connect fan wires to the Jabber board?

There's no secret sauce to it - the fans are 12v so I just made a PCIe adapter to connect it. Just positive to positive, negative to negative - the only trick is whether or not the fan will be full speed without a PWM signal (most work like this), or use a 3 pin fan.

My first rev I hard-wired it, but I had a fan die on one of them and it was a huge PIA, so I switched to making an adapter - and finally added the thermal PWM board.

To save some time and work, you can use the original connectors 4 pins microfit, I'll dig the reference. I still have a handful of connectors and crimp pins laying somewhere.
The original fans are 4 pins, and temperature controlled.

MarkAz

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Activity: 687

Merit: 511

Quote from: hawkfish007 on December 11, 2015, 12:02:21 AM

Can you post a picture of how did you connect fan wires to the Jabber board?

There's no secret sauce to it - the fans are 12v so I just made a PCIe adapter to connect it. Just positive to positive, negative to negative - the only trick is whether or not the fan will be full speed without a PWM signal (most work like this), or use a 3 pin fan.

My first rev I hard-wired it, but I had a fan die on one of them and it was a huge PIA, so I switched to making an adapter - and finally added the thermal PWM board.

yun9999

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Yes definitely interested in this MOD! Please post more info!

hawkfish007

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Quote from: MarkAz on December 10, 2015, 10:31:28 PM

I'm pretty close to my solution for making a quieter version of the 2880w... It works really well so far, here's a picture of my almost-complete version:

http://www.analogx.com/images/2880w/DSCF3428s.jpg

I replace the front fans with a 120mm server-class fan blowing directly down - I block the front of the device to force all the airflow out the back. Above the hottest part of the PSU I have a thermal PWM fan controller, so it varies the speed of the fan based on the units temperature, and seems to do a pretty good job. How loud it is depends on a couple factors, such as ambient temps and which 120mm fan you use - but it is MUCH quieter than the stock option, much closer to a slightly above-normal ATX PSU (because the fan is a much higher airflow and SP fan than a normal ATX PSU would use).

I've changed the latest design to use primarily zip-ties to hold everything together - works super well, is inexpensive, and non-conductive.

Can you post a picture of how did you connect fan wires to the Jabber board?

Thanks.

MarkAz

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Activity: 687

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I'm pretty close to my solution for making a quieter version of the 2880w... It works really well so far, here's a picture of my almost-complete version:

I replace the front fans with a 120mm server-class fan blowing directly down - I block the front of the device to force all the airflow out the back. Above the hottest part of the PSU I have a thermal PWM fan controller, so it varies the speed of the fan based on the units temperature, and seems to do a pretty good job. How loud it is depends on a couple factors, such as ambient temps and which 120mm fan you use - but it is MUCH quieter than the stock option, much closer to a slightly above-normal ATX PSU (because the fan is a much higher airflow and SP fan than a normal ATX PSU would use).

I've changed the latest design to use primarily zip-ties to hold everything together - works super well, is inexpensive, and non-conductive.

NotFuzzyWarm

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Quote from: Biodom on December 10, 2015, 08:31:04 PM

Quote from: Prelude on December 10, 2015, 12:14:55 AM

If that PSU was having issues, it's a lemon. I think Phil was running on 120V back then too. 240V is easier on the PSUs, I hope you'll be using 240V with 6 S7s?

EVGA says you can pull 1300W DC from them, IE ~1450W at the wall for 10 years. That's good enough for me! Worse case they replace the PSU for free.

That's good to know as i was getting nervous after reading what Phil had to say. Looking at graphs, efficiency is decreasing at least 5% at or above 90% load.
Yes, I was running at 110/120V, but I send them all out to hosting with sidehack-posted review in Hosting service thread.
I like his arrangements and service.

Aside from the decreasing efficiency which for ATX supplies actually largely is from the fans running near/at full speed and taking more power to do it, with ANYTHING dealing with power be it plug/circuit ratings and including PSU ratings always follow the 80% rule. For the feeders it keeps plugs/cords/wiring behind walls at safe temps when under a constant near-max load - which miners present - for the PSU's you need that margin to handle the random (hopefully) short-term events all powerlines have.

For example of pushing ratings just talk to Bitmain and their experience with early s2 PSU's.... But as long as you have spares to cover ya while EVGA ships a replacement then your call. Und ja, as has been often said, any PSU is much happier on a 208-240v line because of the lower currents on the AC-line side of the power conversion.

Biodom

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Quote from: Prelude on December 10, 2015, 12:14:55 AM

If that PSU was having issues, it's a lemon. I think Phil was running on 120V back then too. 240V is easier on the PSUs, I hope you'll be using 240V with 6 S7s?

EVGA says you can pull 1300W DC from them, IE ~1450W at the wall for 10 years. That's good enough for me! Worse case they replace the PSU for free.

That's good to know as i was getting nervous after reading what Phil had to say. Looking at graphs, efficiency is decreasing at least 5% at or above 90% load.
Yes, I was running at 110/120V, but I sent them all out to hosting with sidehack- posted my review in Hosting service thread.
TL;DR: I like his arrangements and service.

NotFuzzyWarm

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Evil beware: We have waffles!

Quote from: adaseb on December 10, 2015, 12:19:53 AM

You sure you guys can't put a resistor between some of the pins to regulate the fan speed?

If the resistor is put in the +12v line feeding the fan, sure it will work as a brute-force way to do it. Question is it a 3 or 4 wire fan? With either 3 or 4 wire it will be reporting it's speed, 4-wire gives it built-in PWM control.

With 4-wire most often no signal = fan ON (for safety and convenient way to let fan go full speed if wire 4 is open) and +5v = Fan min speed. Play with the signal duty cycle to set the speed between it's min and max speed.. Dunna know if the PSU's fan circuit does anything re: monitoring the speed except for maybe checking for a stalled fan.

notlist3d

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Quote from: methodlimp on December 10, 2015, 03:14:23 PM

That's what I'm looking for too. Maybe I'll end up using the 2000W PSU and be very careful about picking quiet fans? Not sure.

I'd still love to hear how to add the two fans to the top of the 2880w PSU I have right now. That might solve the problem entirely.

Keep in mind it's still a server PSU so it will not be quiet. But yes it's more quiet then that beast of 2880w server PSU.

Most server environments noise is not a big deal... so most server PSU's quiet was not a concern specifically on higher wattage ones.

methodlimp

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That's what I'm looking for too. Maybe I'll end up using the 2000W PSU and be very careful about picking quiet fans? Not sure.

I'd still love to hear how to add the two fans to the top of the 2880w PSU I have right now. That might solve the problem entirely.

Prelude

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Let me know when you do, I might be interested in them.

VirosaGITS

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Quote from: Prelude on December 10, 2015, 12:59:19 AM

I love those PSUs, I'm 20 of them. There's 2 models, RA and NA. NA sounds like a cat in a bag being kicked down the street, RA is much less whiny. Inaudible at 50% load or less, while NA is still loud at 20%.

I use 2 RAs with load sharing mode enabled in my house to power a 5 cube Titan space heater.

Yeah, i'd like some nice enclosure but indeed at 50% load, they are quiet enough.

I went crazy and put ton of electric tape around the ground and 12V, just in case my cat decide to go there. And then i added a milk crate over it. It makes me a bit fidgety, i'd rather have ATX. But hey for now they work. Later on i might sell them in Canada.

Prelude

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I love those PSUs, I'm 20 of them. There's 2 models, RA and NA. NA sounds like a cat in a bag being kicked down the street, RA is much less whiny. Inaudible at 50% load or less, while NA is still loud at 20%.

I use 2 RAs with load sharing mode enabled in my house to power a 5 cube Titan space heater.

Topic: Any way to make IBM Bladecenter H 2880W fans quieter? (Read 3967 times)