freenas-supero
Contributor
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2014
- Messages
- 128
Hello all,
The problem:
In the last few months my Freenas server has required some parts be replaced because of noise and old age. Unfortunately, even after replacing the power supplies and most fans, it is now making a constant annoying medium/high pitched whine. See attached recording and please wear headphones as it is difficult to capture with a cell phone. The whine is not the classic "coil whine" which I am well aware of. This whine "oscillates" as it is not a perfectly "flat" tone line tinnitus or a coil whine so I believe it is of mechanical origin.
Just to clear the obvious, I confirmed that its really this server and not something else in my rack, and also confirmed that other people can hear it which they can very clearly.
I proceeded by elimination until I narrowed down the cause to what I believe to be the mid-wall intake fans. Unfortunately it is impossible to know if this whine was present before I replaced the old PSU and fans because the PWS-800-1R were so loud they noise-drowned everything else.....
In the last few months, I:
Naturally I tried to manually change the fan speeds using web IPMI (ver. 3.52), but I cannot see an option to do so. Using IPMIView under "IPMI device > Fan Speed Mode", I tried changing the setting but the fans are not changing speed (do I need a reboot?).
Next I tried changing the speeds via ipmitool, but got various errors like:
After researching a bit, I think these X9 boards (Nuvoton NCT6776F) do not take granular ipmitool commands.... Only fan mode can be set with something like:
Which similarly to changing the fan mode via IPMIView does nothing....
The mid-wall fans are running at 2400RPM (max 6300RPM). System temps are ALL "acceptable" (ambient temp is 79F/26C)
I wrote to Supermicro but unfortunately since the motherboard and chassis are old and not under warranty, they have been of very little help... I also would like to keep original Supermicro parts if possible and avoid "ghetto style" modifications
My questions:
The problem:
In the last few months my Freenas server has required some parts be replaced because of noise and old age. Unfortunately, even after replacing the power supplies and most fans, it is now making a constant annoying medium/high pitched whine. See attached recording and please wear headphones as it is difficult to capture with a cell phone. The whine is not the classic "coil whine" which I am well aware of. This whine "oscillates" as it is not a perfectly "flat" tone line tinnitus or a coil whine so I believe it is of mechanical origin.
Just to clear the obvious, I confirmed that its really this server and not something else in my rack, and also confirmed that other people can hear it which they can very clearly.
I proceeded by elimination until I narrowed down the cause to what I believe to be the mid-wall intake fans. Unfortunately it is impossible to know if this whine was present before I replaced the old PSU and fans because the PWS-800-1R were so loud they noise-drowned everything else.....
In the last few months, I:
- replaced the two PWS-801-1R with 2x PWS-920P-SQ's
- replaced the intake fans with brand new FAN-0094L4 (the exhaust fans were always unplugged)
- replaced the Noctua Nh-D9L CPU cooler fan
- unplugged each of the power supplies one by one to confirm they are not responsible.
- removed the 3 mid-wall fans to confirm the CPU cooler fan is not responsible. The server is dead quiet which pretty much eliminates coil whine (electronic origin) and PSU fan whine...
Naturally I tried to manually change the fan speeds using web IPMI (ver. 3.52), but I cannot see an option to do so. Using IPMIView under "IPMI device > Fan Speed Mode", I tried changing the setting but the fans are not changing speed (do I need a reboot?).
Next I tried changing the speeds via ipmitool, but got various errors like:
Code:
Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0x91 rsp=0x82): Unknown (0x82)
After researching a bit, I think these X9 boards (Nuvoton NCT6776F) do not take granular ipmitool commands.... Only fan mode can be set with something like:
Code:
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 0x01 0x01
Which similarly to changing the fan mode via IPMIView does nothing....
The mid-wall fans are running at 2400RPM (max 6300RPM). System temps are ALL "acceptable" (ambient temp is 79F/26C)
Code:
=== CPU (4) === CPU 0: 38C CPU 1: 26C CPU 2: 28C CPU 3: 29C === DRIVES === da0: 31C [2.00TB] ML0221F306AUSD Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 (Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632) da1: 34C [2.00TB] S1E1RH1L Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (AF) (ST2000DM001-1CH164) da2: 31C [2.00TB] 5YD9RJXW Seagate Barracuda Green (AF) (ST2000DL003-9VT166) da3: 32C [2.00TB] ML0220F31B18RD Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 (Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632) da4: 31C [2.00TB] ML4220F318UPDK Hitachi Deskstar 5K3000 (Hitachi HDS5C3020ALA632) da5: 37C [3.00TB] PK2234P8JYHX5Y HGST Deskstar NAS (HGST HDN724030ALE640) da6: 35C [3.00TB] PK1234P8K1GMLP HGST Deskstar NAS (HGST HDN724030ALE640) da7: 32C [3.00TB] WD-WCC7K3KL0CV0 Western Digital Red (WDC WD30EFRX-68N32N0)
I wrote to Supermicro but unfortunately since the motherboard and chassis are old and not under warranty, they have been of very little help... I also would like to keep original Supermicro parts if possible and avoid "ghetto style" modifications
My questions:
- Is it possible to manually change the fan speeds on these X9SCL-F boards?
- Has anyone had problems like this before?
- Chassis: Supermicro SC-836 (3U 16 bays)
- Motherboard: Supermicro X9SCL-F (IPMI 3.52 BIOS 2.3a)
- CPU: Intel Xeon E2-1220v2
- RAM: 32GB ECC (4x 8GB Kingston)
- PSU: 2x redundant PWS-920P-SQ
- PDU: PDB-PT825-N24
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