Mac Pro (2008) - Fan's Stay At Full Speed

techscholar

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First time post - please be gentle ;)

I am trying to build a Mac Pro 2008 FreeNAS system but I have come across a show stopper issue for me. During the FreeNAS start up process the fan's in this system get to what seems "full speed" (very loud) and they do not change.

I did find some software (mbpfan - https://github.com/dgraziotin/mbpfan) that could potential solve my issue but I do not have the knowledge and experience to test it. This utility doesn't have a pre-built version for FreeBSD so I tried to run up a Virtual Machine with FreeBSD 11.2, but I get an error when I try to build the tool. Hit the limit of my current skills.

Before I continue down this path any further I was wondering if anyone has built a FreeNAS system with this type of hardware and whether they have come across this issue? If so, how did they deal with the fans running at 100% - software tool/sound proof enclosure/sledge hammer:p?

Any information feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.
 

seanm

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This is likely more a FreeBSD issue than FreeNAS issue. FreeBSD probably doesn't have drivers for that hardware's fan system.
 

techscholar

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I had a quick look through the FreeBSD forums before posting here. I thought I'd at least check if anyone else has used this hardware with FreeNAS, before I invest too much more time on it. Thanks anyway.
 

sretalla

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jlj945

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Was this ever resolved? I have the exact same Mac Pro, and would really love to use it for FreeNAS. However if those jetplane fans kick on at full blast, I can't do it. This thread doesn't make any mention of the fans, and it also the same Mac Pro.
 

golek

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Dealing with this same issue at the moment. @techscholar did you get mbpfan to work?
I will try something out tomorrow on a MP 2009-2010. I don’t expect this issue to be resolved. There is an app, Macs Fan Control I think, to manually control the fans in exotic setups, MacOS or Windows. In this app you set up thresholds using the sensors readings (cpu die, north bridge, PCIe, PSU and so on) to decide at what temp specific fans start spinning and at what temp they are maxed, bypassing the OS.
The dev knows pretty well the challenge. He could probably give a hint at what’s possible in truenas environment.
 

golek

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I installed TrueNas Scale on an ssd in a USB enclosure on the old PC, using EFI (important, bios of MP can be messed up by legacy boot).
I moved the installed ssd to the MP for first boot and it came up. Logged in the web interface, it shows everything in order: 12 cores 24 threads Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5675 @ 3.07GHz, 47.0GiB total available (ECC), Ethernet GB link up, I can see the GPU X5600XT as an isolated device but it is needed for the host and cannot be selected.
Importantly, the fans are at low spin after going up at boot.
So maybe that is more of a 2008 MP issue. Mine is a 2009 that was flashed as 2010, and some years ago I changed the processors from a 2x4@2.66Ghz to 2x6@3.1GHz.
I do not know how to do a stress test within TrueNas to see if fans behave correctly ad temps stay reasonable. Any way to do that?
 

sretalla

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I do not know how to do a stress test within TrueNas to see if fans behave correctly ad temps stay reasonable. Any way to do that?
In core, create a new jail and pkg install stress in that jail, then run stress
 

golek

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In core, create a new jail and pkg install stress in that jail, then run stress
I did.
Pushing all CPUs at 100% the cpu temp goes to 80c with minimal fan noise.
They start kicking up very gently up to 90c.
It then did go up to 94c on first run but fans did kick in and bringing back to 90c.
Next runs it never went above 91c.
I would have preferred the fans to kick in a bit earlier but the behaviour is ok isn't?

Notes about my config:
I have a radeon X5600XT in the Mac Pro. I did install open core to be able to boot Catalina with the X5600XT and have boot screen etc.
If the only boot drive I have in the Mac Pro is truenas, I won't see boot or menu screen at all. I cannot access the web UI. I cannot see it in my network. I assume the boot went wrong.
If I have the Catalina boot drive attached, the open core EFI boot loader is starting there and I can see the screen all the way and I can access web ui etc.
 
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