Sick of Intel X540 10G cards with fans!!!

[catogtp]

I have these cards all over the place in my datacenter, Synology, servers etc. These cards eat fans, period. I was lucky to find a distributor who sells the heatsink/fan combo(the heatsink is the fan shroud/housing so you can't just swap to a better fan without some engineering). I had a Synology drop off the network this morning at 4AM, rebooted it and it was fine for about 4 hours, then it dropped again. I knew it was the fan, so I just replaced the card with an entirely new one and brought back the bad one with me. The bearings are shot in this puppy. Rattles so hard you can feel it in the chassis.

Enough of my rant, any of you guys experience the same thing and found a better solution? I know the cards used to just have a big heatsink on them but they must have had thermal issues and replaced it with this cheap ass fan and heatsink combo.

 

[rtangwai]

Maybe switch to the X550? They are passively cooled.

 

[Spartacus09]

Or get a 3rd party warranty company, check out parkplace technologies, depending on the age of the host it can range as low as 20-30$/mo for next day parts (Dell R710/R720s).

 

[gmui]

I have these cards all over the place in my datacenter, Synology, servers etc. These cards eat fans, period. I was lucky to find a distributor who sells the heatsink/fan combo(the heatsink is the fan shroud/housing so you can't just swap to a better fan without some engineering). I had a Synology drop off the network this morning at 4AM, rebooted it and it was fine for about 4 hours, then it dropped again. I knew it was the fan, so I just replaced the card with an entirely new one and brought back the bad one with me. The bearings are shot in this puppy. Rattles so hard you can feel it in the chassis.

Enough of my rant, any of you guys experience the same thing and found a better solution? I know the cards used to just have a big heatsink on them but they must have had thermal issues and replaced it with this cheap ass fan and heatsink combo.

View attachment 134227

I know this thread was from 2.5 years ago, but am facing this problem today and was wondering if you ever found an elegant fan replacement solution... I am considering to replace this with a Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX 3-pin fan.

 

[Darunion]

I know this thread was from 2.5 years ago, but am facing this problem today and was wondering if you ever found an elegant fan replacement solution... I am considering to replace this with a Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX 3-pin fan.

noctua fans are slower and move less air (i mean quiet fan marketing strategy) so make sure you are not creating a problem. Make sure it has the same or similar cfm rating. I am a fan of Sunon and Delta fans. Easy to find the size you want on digikey or mouser.

 

[Nobu]

noctua fans are slower and move less air (i mean quiet fan marketing strategy) so make sure you are not creating a problem. Make sure it has the same or similar cfm rating. I am a fan of Sunon and Delta fans. Easy to find the size you want on digikey or mouser.

And pretty quiet considering the cfm, too. I mean, the pitch is annoying, but I have three and they aren't deafening at max speed.

Edit: these guys: MF50100V3-1000U-A99

 

[cjcox]

yeah, I was hoping with the advances in tech, that the power required for 10Gbit was going down and hopefully could be passively cooled. But I know that as we keep pushing speed up, the problem of hot 10Gbit (now 25Gbit and beyond) runs is going to continue to be a issue.

 

[Nobu]

If you have room and good case airflow, you could try replacing the sink with a larger copper sink. Could even strap a fan to the side of the new sink if it's big enough and you have the room. Not something I would like to do with more than a few NICs, though.

 

[catogtp]

I know this thread was from 2.5 years ago, but am facing this problem today and was wondering if you ever found an elegant fan replacement solution... I am considering to replace this with a Noctua NF-A4x10 FLX 3-pin fan.

I never did much about it. Part of the issue was dust from an environment, which we moved out of. My goal was to leave the heatsink on these but design/ed print a shroud that could take a larger 40+mm fan at the back of the card and turn it in to a somewhat of a blower style setup. These shrouds would be machine specific so I didn't devote any time to it. The Synology systems would benefit from this the most as they seemed to be where all of my fan failures really caused issues.

Currently, I've ramped up the internal fans of the Synology devices to deal with this, seems to keep them in check. Dell servers move enough air that the fans crapping out do not cause then to overheat.

 

[gmui]

And pretty quiet considering the cfm, too. I mean, the pitch is annoying, but I have three and they aren't deafening at max speed.

Edit: these guys: MF50100V3-1000U-A99

Yeah, that fan you linked has a CFM of 8.4 while the Noctua 40mm only is 5. From similar fans on Jaro website (original fan manufacturer but not exact model match), it seems like fans of similar power and size are 7-8. I guess I probably need to rethink using the Noctua. Is there a way to monitor the temperature of the X540 cards?

I just cancelled my order for the 40mm fan and maybe now instead, I'll strap on the larger 60mm fan to it which has a much higher cfm and a db level under 20 even at max speed.

 

[catogtp]

Yeah, that fan you linked has a CFM of 8.4 while the Noctua 40mm only is 5. From similar fans on Jaro website (original fan manufacturer but not exact model match), it seems like fans of similar power and size are 7-8. I guess I probably need to rethink using the Noctua. Is there a way to monitor the temperature of the X540 cards?

There is a way to dump the temp sensor from linux cli, but I can't find it in my bookmarks. The driver will report an overheat condition, but by then, it's too late and you have to power cycle to fix it. I never found a way in windows, but it may be possible.

 

[Nobu]

There is a way to dump the temp sensor from linux cli, but I can't find it in my bookmarks. The driver will report an overheat condition, but by then, it's too late and you have to power cycle to fix it. I never found a way in windows, but it may be possible.

If not from lmsensors (sensors), then it should be under the /sys directory somewhere, iirc (that's where lmsensors usually pulls it's data from).

 

[mvmiller12]

Not appropriate for most commercial environments, I know, but I use a couple of these in my homelab set up, and 2 of the 3 machines are liquid cooled on custom loops...

...

so I stuck a Koolance chipset cooler on each card. Perfectly quiet, does not overheat. (Bottom liquid cooled card in picture)

 

[Nobu]

Not appropriate for most commercial environments, I know, but I use a couple of these in my homelab set up, and 2 of the 3 machines are liquid cooled on custom loops...

...

so I stuck a Koolance chipset cooler on each card. Perfectly quiet, does not overheat. (Bottom liquid cooled card in picture)

Those little koolance coolers are pretty nice. Probably could get away with 1/4" id tubing if you wanted.

 

[catogtp]

Not appropriate for most commercial environments, I know, but I use a couple of these in my homelab set up, and 2 of the 3 machines are liquid cooled on custom loops...

...

so I stuck a Koolance chipset cooler on each card. Perfectly quiet, does not overheat. (Bottom liquid cooled card in picture)

That's one way to do it!

 

[mvmiller12]

Those little koolance coolers are pretty nice. Probably could get away with 1/4" id tubing if you wanted.

Unfortunately, Koolance does not seem to manufacture chipset coolers anymore . In fact, they seem to be getting out of consumer stuff entirely which is a real shame. I've been a fan of their stuff since the original Koolance Case review on the [H] forever ago - I was the chief tech at a local PC shop back then and we were even an official reseller for a little over a year. To this day, their QDCs and coolants are my preferred go-to watercooling products. The coolant in particular lasts a really long time between changes - I've had PC's run it for between 3 and 4 years straight without changing it with no problems (no growth in the blocks, no discoloration, no funny smells when I finally do change it) AND you can mix and match their colors with no problems. Their blue mixed with a little of their yellow makes for a really exotic "electric blue" color, for example. It is really unfortunate Koolance is getting out of that business, because their chipset coolers, VRM coolers and generic GPU blocks made for extremely agile do-it-yourself builds for cards no one wants to make a full cover block for, like the Gigabyte RX480 Gamer card in my media system.

That being said - the 2 chipset coolers in use are their nozzle-less variety. You have to put your own fittings on them, and they are both currently fit with 10mm ID hose barb fittings. I actually do have a pair with the built-in 6mm nozzles not currently in use, but that is because to use them in my now-standardized 10mm ID systems requires I run a pair of 10mm ID to 2x6mm ID adapters with one 6mm line feeding the chipset cooler and the other running directly between the 2 adapters to avoid the flow rate being severely restricted. It is... ungraceful, but remains a viable option in the future should the need for more come up now that Koolance is no longer selling them at all.

 

[Nobu]

Unfortunately, Koolance does not seem to manufacture chipset coolers anymore . In fact, they seem to be getting out of consumer stuff entirely which is a real shame. I've been a fan of their stuff since the original Koolance Case review on the [H] forever ago - I was the chief tech at a local PC shop back then and we were even an official reseller for a little over a year. To this day, their QDCs and coolants are my preferred go-to watercooling products. The coolant in particular lasts a really long time between changes - I've had PC's run it for between 3 and 4 years straight without changing it with no problems (no growth in the blocks, no discoloration, no funny smells when I finally do change it) AND you can mix and match their colors with no problems. Their blue mixed with a little of their yellow makes for a really exotic "electric blue" color, for example. It is really unfortunate Koolance is getting out of that business, because their chipset coolers, VRM coolers and generic GPU blocks made for extremely agile do-it-yourself builds for cards no one wants to make a full cover block for, like the Gigabyte RX480 Gamer card in my media system.

That being said - the 2 chipset coolers in use are their nozzle-less variety. You have to put your own fittings on them, and they are both currently fit with 10mm ID hose barb fittings. I actually do have a pair with the built-in 6mm nozzles not currently in use, but that is because to use them in my now-standardized 10mm ID systems requires I run a pair of 10mm ID to 2x6mm ID adapters with one 6mm line feeding the chipset cooler and the other running directly between the 2 adapters to avoid the flow rate being severely restricted. It is... ungraceful, but remains a viable option in the future should the need for more come up now that Koolance is no longer selling them at all.

They still sell them in their web store, although not as much variety. I have one of their GPU coolers.

 

[mvmiller12]

They still sell them in their web store, although not as much variety. I have one of their GPU coolers.

Those are generic plates - I'm talking about the chipset cooler blocks they used to sell, like the CHC-122 and CHC-125 blocks. The key is in the mounting hardware. The older models had the ability to mount using the rod and hooks method, or you could use an including "ring with arms" mount to attach to some screw-down posts Those blocks were extremely versatile and the new generic cold plates seem much less so.

 

[Nobu]

Those are generic plates - I'm talking about the chipset cooler blocks they used to sell, like the CHC-122 and CHC-125 blocks. The key is in the mounting hardware. The older models had the ability to mount using the rod and hooks method, or you could use an including "ring with arms" mount to attach to some screw-down posts Those blocks were extremely versatile and the new generic cold plates seem much less so.

They do come with adapter plates, but I can see how the swivel type hardware (like on the GPU cold plates) might be more useful.

Edit: oh, you mean like AMD's mounting hardware? Haven't seen that kind before on a chipset cooler.

 

[mvmiller12]

They do come with adapter plates, but I can see how the swivel type hardware (like on the GPU cold plates) might be more useful.
View attachment 428757
View attachment 428758Edit: oh, you mean like AMD's mounting hardware? Haven't seen that kind before on a chipset cooler.

Like this. The wings are extremely adjustable, and on top of that, the groove in the middle of the cooler is where the rod with hooks attaches if you decide to go that way to mount it. It's just very versatile, much more so than the newer generic cold plate blocks they make now.

 

[gmui]

Just as a follow up, I got the Noctua 50mm fan (NF-A4x10 FLX 3-pin fan) and used some long twist ties to attach it to the heat sink (after removing the original JAMO fan). I also used the low-noise adapter to keep it quieter, betting that there would be enough air flow to keep it cool enough. So far, it seems to work fine.

 

[DanNeely]

Not appropriate for most commercial environments, I know, but I use a couple of these in my homelab set up, and 2 of the 3 machines are liquid cooled on custom loops...

...

so I stuck a Koolance chipset cooler on each card. Perfectly quiet, does not overheat. (Bottom liquid cooled card in picture)

Are all those quick connects going into some sort of water distribution blocks?

 

[mvmiller12]

Are all those quick connects going into some sort of water distribution blocks?

Yes, in a way. I made my own

I started with a block of wood I drilled a 1/4" hole all the way through, and then drilled 4 holes at measured intervals on top. The I took 4x Koolance 5-way fitting bodies and fitted them with temperature probes and g1/4 plugs on each end and glued the probes into the wood block with the wires running through and out of the wood to a Corsair Commander Pro. The QDCs connect to the bottom holes. Since the ends for all of the middle bodies are capped, the water has to come in and go out of a hole on the bottom and is forced across the temperature probes.

 

[DanNeely]

Yes, in a way. I made my own

I started with a block of wood I drilled a 1/4" hole all the way through, and then drilled 4 holes at measured intervals on top. The I took 4x Koolance 5-way fitting bodies and fitted them with temperature probes and g1/4 plugs on each end and glued the probes into the wood block with the wires running through and out of the wood to a Corsair Commander Pro. The QDCs connect to the bottom holes. Since the ends for all of the middle bodies are capped, the water has to come in and go out of a hole on the bottom and is forced across the temperature probes.

I like the concept even though it's way more work and parts cost than I want to put into a future loop.

 

[mvmiller12]

I like the concept even though it's way more work and parts cost than I want to put into a future loop.

I would probably do it differently now if I had to do it all over again, but ease of maintenance on my rig is stooopid simple for a water cooled rig. What you can't see is that everything else is glass tubing, including the reservoir itself - that stuff is mostly off to the right (and behind) the soft tubing custom manifold bit. Plus: You can see all of thr glass bits really easy and they look nice. Minus: Where I have the custom manifold, the tubes block the view of the monoblock on the mainboard. In all fairness though, when I initially built it, the block I was using was a Koolance CPU-390, and it has a black painted metal top, so there wasn't really anything to see there in that space. If I did nit now, I think I would have placed the manifold to be somewhere on the lower right where it would be pretty much out of the way of everything else. When I eventually tear it down to do a thorough block cleaning in another year or so, I may re-design the layout. Since I already have all of the fittings, the glass tube itself is cheap if I need to re-cut some runs.