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Loud fans in HP Prolian 1U chassis

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pcm81

Senior member
Good day all. I am a bit new to server hardware and I just got my first 1U server. It is HP Proliant with 2x Xeons and 8x 2.5" HD bays. Hardware looks fine, but the fans are very loud. Is there an after market fan solution that I should look for or are all 1U units always scream? This one has 12 fans in 2x6 array. I am thinking that may be the fans need to be in 1x6 array, b/c then first and 2nd fan won't be out of sync and scream??

I am also cosidering to move the hardware to a 4U case with 3.5" bays to make a NAS out of it. Do you think full high heat sink on CPUs is the best option to making it quieter or are there 1U cooling solutions that are also quiet?

Thanks ahead
 
Yeah 1U's are typically loud, hard to get away without it due to the size the fans have to be.

That's why I prefer my servers in a separate room. I can still hear them from upstairs though but that will change when I insulate the server room walls.
 
Thanks all for replies. I might end up moving it to a 4U chassis with 3.5" bays to double as a NAS. Original Idea was a small (relatively low power) system to function as a remote desktop server, but the fans are a bit too loud for my liking... May be I just take the lid off and put a giant fan on-top of it, and turn it into wall art. LOL
 
pcm81 said:
Thanks all for replies. I might end up moving it to a 4U chassis with 3.5" bays to double as a NAS. Original Idea was a small (relatively low power) system to function as a remote desktop server, but the fans are a bit too loud for my liking... May be I just take the lid off and put a giant fan on-top of it, and turn it into wall art. LOL
Click to expand...

Or put it somewhere rlse.
 
Yea, I have a Dell C1100 - once the boot up is complete, its quite audible. It sits next to me at my desk.
 
pcm81 said:
Thanks all for replies. I might end up moving it to a 4U chassis with 3.5" bays to double as a NAS. Original Idea was a small (relatively low power) system to function as a remote desktop server, but the fans are a bit too loud for my liking... May be I just take the lid off and put a giant fan on-top of it, and turn it into wall art. LOL
Click to expand...

Proliant servers don't use a standard layout, so moving it to another box is very unlikely to work. Removing the lid will likely cause it to overheat and also run the fans full tilt because the lid is part of the cooling path. Removing the fans may cause the system to also fail to boot etc etc...

[real] Servers are picky.
 
Yeah servers tend to be more proprietary as far as motherboards and such go. You may be able to retrofit some kind of temp based controller in there though. When a server is just sitting idle it does not need as much cooling really.

The newer Dell servers are incredibly quiet though. In a typical office environment which has a bit more white noise than home, you can barely even hear one that's on your desk.
 
As others have mentioned, it should quiet down a bit once booted. However many HP servers also adjust fan speed based on I/O card population. So if you've got the PCIe slots populated, that will by default increase the fan speed.
 
DigDog said:
captain here; proliant servers are loud, very loud.
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Agreed. I've been using ProLiant servers since the late 90's (w/ Compaq), my first being a 4U 1850R server (dual PIII-550). That and the DL580 G1 (quad Xeon 700/2M) were real noisy beasts. The DL580 G3, G4 & G5 were better and could take a lot of abuse before ramping the fans up. The DL380 (2U) G6 & G7 I now have get hot real fast and ramp up to jet engine takeoff levels on occasion. 1U & 2U server fans are generally faster and noisier. I saw a fan sticker on one of the 2U power supplies that said 11K RPM, that's screaming!

They are buried back in the laundry room.
 
The DL380G6's I have aren't bad, although noisier than the Dell R610. All of those are quieter than the Supermicro's and IBM's I have though.
 
DrDoug said:
Agreed. I've been using ProLiant servers since the late 90's (w/ Compaq), my first being a 4U 1850R server (dual PIII-550). That and the DL580 G1 (quad Xeon 700/2M) were real noisy beasts. The DL580 G3, G4 & G5 were better and could take a lot of abuse before ramping the fans up. The DL380 (2U) G6 & G7 I now have get hot real fast and ramp up to jet engine takeoff levels on occasion. 1U & 2U server fans are generally faster and noisier. I saw a fan sticker on one of the 2U power supplies that said 11K RPM, that's screaming!

They are buried back in the laundry room.
Click to expand...

It's cause the fans are so small. They have to spin really fast to push the CFMs they need through the case. Also given the small space constraints in a 1U case the amount of noise from air turbulence is very high too, so not only do you have the whine of a high RPM fan but you have the noise of the actual air being whipped around in the case.
 
Crusty said:
It's cause the fans are so small. They have to spin really fast to push the CFMs they need through the case. Also given the small space constraints in a 1U case the amount of noise from air turbulence is very high too, so not only do you have the whine of a high RPM fan but you have the noise of the actual air being whipped around in the case.
Click to expand...


That is why I was thinking of moving the server guts to a 2U or 4U chassis and adding bigger, slower fans.

It's true that fans slow down to a turbo-prop mode from a jet engine mode once the system boots up into BIOS, but it is still a bit annoying loud.

May be I'll just stick it next to my AC compressor. LOL.
 
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