Looking for suggestions to monitor temperature of my Dell PERC H200

[Mannekino]

I'm using a Dell PERC H200 HBA for my FreeNAS server. Today I added a Corsair Commander Pro to my system which also comes with a couple of temperature sensors. I want to properly monitor the temperature of my HBA. I've ordered a Noctua 40 mm PWM fan to mount on the heatsink and also some replacement thermal paste. I would like to monitor the temperature difference before and after mounting the new fan and replacing the thermal paste.

At the risk of this being an incredible stupid idea, I am thinking about doing the following. Below is a picture of an old Dell PERC H200 of mine that is defective. Would it be possible to put the tip of the sensor between the heatsink and the edge of the chip? Is this is good idea? It's the only location I can think of to get a consistent measure before and after. The sensor is very thin. Or perhaps I can somehow glue it on that little edge where the heatink doesn't touch the chip as an alternative?

Right now for testing purposes I've put a sensor between the fans of the heatsink and the readout is 44 °C.

 

[HoneyBadger]

You'd have a problem getting a "before" temperature reading with that, I imagine, since there's really no good way to wedge the probe in there - but that's probably the best spot short of an actual on-die temperature report (which the SAS2008 doesn't have)

The other side of the coin is that if you're checking the temperature of the heatsink, and it goes up after the repaste, that might actually be a good thing since it indictates you had poor thermal contact between the heatspreader and heatsink before.

Remember that these cards were intended to sit in servers with high-speed fans and lots of linear feet per minute of airflow ... in traditional desktop cases they do get toasty. Make sure that the fan you're going to use has monitoring controls and is set up to alert you on a failure.

 

[Mannekino]

I've ordered another Dell PERC H200 today because I want to have a spare. It's actually fairly easy to lift the heatsink just a little bit on the edge. I was thinking of using this spare HBA to experiment with. So what I want to do is the following:

1. When I get my spare HBA lift the heatsink slightly and stick the tip of the sensor in there.
2. Swap out my current HBA with the spare and keep it running for day or so and get temperature measurements.
3. Take out the spare again and replace the thermal paste and add the Noctua 40 mm PWN fan and hook it up to my Corsair Commander Pro
4. Put the spare back in and run it for another day and take more measurements to see if there is any improvement.
5. If it doesn't work out I just put back my primary HBA and everything should be fine.

What do you think of this?

 

[sretalla]

Testing is always good.

I don't see any reason why you wouldn't just stick the sensor to the heatsink. If you do a good job and use a very thinly applied coating of thermal paste, the temperature of the chip die and the heatsink will be the same after a few minutes anyway.

 

[Mannekino]

Yeah I was breaking my head on how I could make the sensor stick/attach on the heatsink itself. But I realized I could probably use some thermal adhesive for that. Maybe that is a better idea. And put the sensor as close to the center of the heatsink in between the fins.

 

[Mannekino]

So I finished the "thermal redesign" of my server. I decided to use the Corsair Commander Pro for all the fans except the CPU fan which is still connected to the motherboard. I got rid of the annoying PCI exhaust fan with the Zalman voltage regulator. Here is the old situation.

And here is the new situation.

I bought a Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM for the Dell PERC H200 and I screwed it directly on the heatsink. To do this I used a set of pliers to slightly bend the two outer fins towards each other. The end result is a pretty tight fit, more than enough to hold the fan in place without any vibrations.

I also replaced the thermal paste. What I noticed about the old paste that it was very dry, it almost fell off in small chunks and it wasn't applied very well. I cleaned the surfaces and used some Arctic Silver 5. For some reason it looks like I used too much thermal paste in the picture below but that's not the case. It was a small drop and I spread it manually before applying the heatsink because there isn't much pressure from the heatsink I feel like. With CPUs I usually put a drop center and then let the heatsink spread it out.

Final result of the controller.

Again I stuck the temperature sensor between the fins but I think I'm getting a flawed reading now because the fan is blowing air over the sensor. So the final thing I want to do is stick some thermal adhesive tape to the side of the heatsink and then stick the sensor to the tape (see below). That way the sensor is not in the airflow of the fan and I can use that to get a reliable reading.

Here is the current readout of the Corsair Commander Pro from the FreeNAS CLI.

Code:

./OpenCorsairLink.elf --device 0 --fan channel=0
Dev=0, CorsairLink Device Found: Commander PRO!

Vendor: Corsair
Product: Commander PRO
Firmware: V0.7.199
Temperature 0: 34.00 C
Temperature 1:  0.00 C
Temperature 2:  0.00 C
Temperature 3:  0.00 C
Output 12v: 12.02 V
Output 5v:  4.95 V
Output 3.3v:  3.35 V
FAN PWM 1: 60 %
FAN 1: 930
FAN PWM 2: 60 %
FAN 2: 914
FAN PWM 3: 50 %
FAN 3: 2777
FAN PWM 4: 60 %
FAN 4: 928
FAN PWM 5: 50 %
FAN 5: 0
FAN PWM 6: 30 %
FAN 6: 0

Thanks to @sretalla for helping me with getting the Commander Pro going in FreeNAS.

 

[Mannekino]

Alright I've applied the thermal adhesive tape and put the sensor on it. Some interesting information after a test.

This is the reading about an hour after I've applied the sensor on the tape it was 32 °C. Between the fins it was about 34 °C.

Code:

Dev=0, CorsairLink Device Found: Commander PRO!

Vendor: Corsair
Product: Commander PRO
Firmware: V0.7.199
Temperature 0: 32.00 C
Temperature 1:  0.00 C
Temperature 2:  0.00 C
Temperature 3:  0.00 C
Output 12v: 12.02 V
Output 5v:  4.95 V
Output 3.3v:  3.35 V
FAN PWM 1: 50 %
FAN 1: 779
FAN PWM 2: 50 %
FAN 2: 766
FAN PWM 3: 50 %
FAN 3: 2810
FAN PWM 4: 50 %
FAN 4: 771
FAN PWM 5: 50 %
FAN 5: 0
FAN PWM 6: 30 %
FAN 6: 0

I decided to test how effective the fan is by reducing the PWM speed to 10%. After just 7 minutes the temperature rose to 53 °C.

Code:

Dev=0, CorsairLink Device Found: Commander PRO!

Vendor: Corsair
Product: Commander PRO
Firmware: V0.7.199
Temperature 0: 53.00 C
Temperature 1:  0.00 C
Temperature 2:  0.00 C
Temperature 3:  0.00 C
Output 12v: 12.02 V
Output 5v:  4.95 V
Output 3.3v:  3.35 V
FAN PWM 1: 50 %
FAN 1: 779
FAN PWM 2: 50 %
FAN 2: 766
FAN PWM 3: 10 %
FAN 3: 465
FAN PWM 4: 50 %
FAN 4: 772
FAN PWM 5: 50 %
FAN 5: 0
FAN PWM 6: 30 %
FAN 6: 0

So yeah, this card gets pretty hot if you don't have some kind of airflow over it. Pretty happy with my final solution.