Tyan S7012 Fan Speed Control

[Todd Hayward]

Hello, World!

I am building a FreeNAS 9.x server which uses the Tyan S7012 motherboard. It is expected that as the system boots up that all the internal fans are roaring at full speed. However, at some point while the OS is loading, the fans settle down to a nice low 1200rpm (+/-) hum, and the server carries on.
This is true of running Windows, SUSE Linux, and ESXi.

When I boot this system using FreeNAS, the fans never settle down ... they rage on at 110% *forever*.

Is there a tunable, or some IPMI driver/module that I can load into the system that prevent this rig from sounding like an industrial leaf blower while it runs?

Thanks!

 

[cyberjock]

Typically, no. You'd have to figure out what modules you need for your board and see if they are even available for Tyan.

There are few people that use Tyan around here, so you are kind-of on your own to answer your question.

 

[joeschmuck]

You should investigate the BIOS settings to see if there is something you could do there. If that is a no-go then you could run your case fans from 7VDC. You would need a 4 pin molex connector to 3 pin fan connector and if more than one fan, more Y harnesses. Take the black wire and move it to the far end of the connector. This would end up moving the ground wire to the +5VDC line and you would have basically 7VDC (12VDC minus 5VDC equals 7VDC). It's safe providing you do it right and the fans would run at a slower speed. If they still spin too fast for you, you could only move the yellow (may be red on your adapter) to the opposite side. This would make it +5VDC but some fans will not work because that may not be enough voltage to start the fan turning.

Try the BIOS thing first.

 

[Todd Hayward]

That is an interesting option. I'll hold off on working with that for the time being though, and I will check the BIOS for any possible clues.

Since the the fans spin down under other contemporary operating systems, including linux, and FreeNAS is based on FreeBSD, I am reasonably confident that I can get the functionality I seek with a software solution. I have seen other articles discussing managing fans via ACPI calls, and while I have not found a conclusive solution to this behavior, I feel like my research is getting me close to a solution.

I will provide the solution once I find it.

 

[Todd Hayward]

I found some bios settings that allow for the mobo to manage the fan speed based on temp. It's still noisier than I would like, but it is considerably more tolerable.

Thanks for the suggestions.