Precision 690 Fan noise

The 490 is also in Raid 10, and there is also another 400gb SATA 7200rpm drive in there (where the floppy used to be)

Yes, everything is perfect inside. It is dead quiet when you boot it, with the hard drives themselves far louder than the fans - then after a while it just gets louder and louder.

 

 

It is now almost 1am, 10 deg Celsius so not warm....

 

Everest reports:-

 

Motherboard 30degC

CPU1/Core 1 - 38 degC  Core 2 39 degC  Core 3  34 degC  Core4  37 degC

CPU2/Core 1 - 42 degC  Core2 43 deg C  Core 3  39 degC  Core4  40 degC

Aux  28 deg C

GPU 53 deg C

SATA HDs 43 deg C

 

CPU fan: 228 rpm

System fan: 2377rpm (!!!!!!)

Chassis 225 rpm

PSU 1486rpm

 

 

Yesterday, before installing the 4600 gfx card, temps were identical, but the fan has increased about 500rpm

 

Right. Have done some scientific monitoring over time under different loads.

There is nothing mechanically wrong with fans etc. The problem is clearly heat soak.

 

When you start the machine up, the system fan is at 1338 and the PSU fan at 774. Motherboard, Average Core, Aux, GPU and HD sensors are 23,33,23,46,27 deg C respectively. Running a heavy load, the fans went up to 2353rpm and 1455rpm respectively, with temps of 43,52,41,57,35 deg C respectively.

 

When all activity finished it settled down to 2042 and 1238rpm for the fans and 27,36,26,50,34 deg C respectively.

 

The only thing I can't monitor is the temp of the 4 SAS drives under the PSU.

 

The only correlation I can see is that PSU and SYS fans are roughly the same at a ratio of 1.65:1, so the SYS fan runs 1.65 times faster than the PSU fan. The PSU fan is increasing speed considerably, as it is getting hot - so this is either because of the load and/or the heat from the SAS drives.

 

It is probably a combination of both. Since adding the new gfx card, load has increased. I am going to try moving two of the SAS drives to the front of the case (where the the 2 SATA drives are) and may remove the SATA drives temporarily to see if that helps. I could also fit an additional extraction fan externally (like the one at the bottom of the case) to pull air away from the HDs.

 

Whatever EVEREST reports as the CPU Fan and CHASSIS Fans do not change at all. The CPUs are not getting hot at all. I will watch it for the rest of the day and see what happens to the temps as the weather warms up. It is early, and only 9 deg C outside, so see what it is like when it is double that temp later. The office is also a sun trap, so it does end up being more like 30 deg C in the room! It feels like it is about 15 degC in here right now

Now ,here is an interesting point. Between switching the machine on, letting it do lots, then calming down, here is the difference in temperatures:-

 

Motherboard - 3 degC higher

Average CPU - 2 degC higher

Aux - 5 deg C higher

GPU - 10 deg C higher

Sys Fan -- 724 rpm higher

CPU Fan - 5 rpm lower

CHASSIS Fan - 8rpm lower

PSU Fan - 464 rpm higher

 

So basically, the temps are no different. The motherboard doesn't monitor GPU temp, and that has it's own fan anyway. Even though component temps have recovered, the sys and psu fans are still spinning more than 50% faster than when the machine first came one before it did any hard work.

 

I don't know what the Aux temp input is. Could be memory.

 

Plotting the results, the shapes are all very similar, except that the fans never recover whereas the temps do.

I'll move the drives about and see what happens

Hi Tony,

 

I am planning in buying a Dell 690 with the same configuration as yours.

 

The only thing that has delayed my purchase is the need to research the noise issue. I have a Dell 650 and is so noisy that I don't want the same problem in my new machine.

 

Have you made any progress in your investigation?

 

Thanks,

 

Antonio

Antonio - it is heat soak. I would advise not getting 15k drives. They are not much faster than the 10k raptor drives, which are far quieter and much cooler. Also, I have moved into a different cooler office, and that has made a huge difference. Really, I would ensure the room you run it in is cool, then the machine is quiet enough. The hard drives are now noisier than the fans!

Hi Tony,

 

Very interesting.

 

By heat soak I believe you mean that if the room is hot, the system will need to operate the fans at faster speeds and will become noisier. Is this what you mean?

 

I could not agree more with this. It is in the summer, when my office gets north of 24 degrees Celsius, when I start thinking about the noise issue as a major one.

 

I am now installing a better air conditioning and that should help.

 

So can one conclude that a system like yours can operate at an acceptable noise level if the environment is reasonably cool?

 

At what temperature are you experiencing the decreased noise level?

 

Concerning the hard disks, I have now dual Xeon 3GHz with dual 15krpm in Raid 0 in my Dell 650. I was alway keen on the 15k disks because the performance is so good and thought that they are not meaningfully noisy, but never thought that they could contribute significantly to the heat issue.

 

Are the 10k rpm disks really not much worse in terms of performance and instead that much better in terms of quiteness and heat ?

 

Is the internal SAS/SATA card good enough or is it better to get a separate one?

 

Many thanks,

 

Antonio

Hi Antonio.

 

I have 4 Hitachi 15k sas drives, 147gb each in a Raid-10 config (mirrored and striped) on an adaptec SAS controller. I have also got 2 WD Raptor 80gb drives in a Raid-0 config (striped) on the internal SAS controller. The transfer rates are virtually the same, the difference is the access time is slightly different, being about 2ms slower on the raptors. The 490 I have has got 4 WD Raptor 160 drivers with Native Command Queuing in RAID-10 on the internal controller, and it is just as fast as the 690. The 490 has got 2 dual core 2.66ghz  Xeons, where as the 690 has the quad cores. The 490 is virtually silent, the 690 drives are always doing something, especially under Vista!

 

I find it difficult to get a single application using all 8 cores on my machine, unless the app is totally cpu bound and not co-operating between cores and not allocating significant memory. It is easier to max out the quad core 490.

 

Probably the fastest/quietest config would be a 490 with 4 raptors in RAID-10, with a Quadro 4500 (the 3500 is very noisy, but can be quietened with a Zalmann kit), 2 dual core 3ghz Xeon 5160s and 667mhz ram. You CAN get 4 drives in a 490 by putting one below the floppy and the other in a 5 1/4" bay. I actually got 5 drives in my 490 by removing the floppy, and two custom grills at the front provide a bit more air flow.

 

In my new office, the 690 is running at almost half the fan speed, temp is around 18 degrees in the room.

Tony,

 

As far as graphics card, I already have purchased the Nvidia Quadro NVS 440, with no fan and support for four monitors.

 

If you know this card your input is also appreciated. I do need four monitors. No gaming, no need for 3D, just 2D.

 

Thanks,

 

Antonio

Hello Tony,

 

Thank you very much indeed for your helpful comments.

 

I was going to get a 690 with dual 5160 and 4 15k disks.

 

It looks like I am going to go for the 4 10k Raptors if the performance is so similar and they are quieter.

 

The last question, Wouldn't you go still for the 690 rather than the 490? In addition to the bigger room for further expansion, isn't the 690 supposed to be quieter than the 490 given the more room for easier cooling?

 

For Photoshop editing (very large images) and simultaneous MS Office work I believe that dual quad cores would not enhance performance and dual 5160s is better. Do you agree?

 

Regards,

 

Antonio

I would get the 490 really if using 10k drives, but 15k drives, if you want more than two, then you need the 690 really. Also SLI graphics etc - the 690.

 

THere is no other obvious advantage to the 690 really. You can get 6 drives in there, but as mine shows, the heat issues just cause noise. I am looking at moving 4 of my drives out of the case, using the external SAS port on my Adaptec card to hook it up to an external case.

 

The other idea i had was to move the power supply out. Infact, someone on ebay is selling an empty 690 case - I thought of siting it next to the other one, put the power supply in the empty case, the drives in the other case and route the cables through! THen fit a couple of quiet extra fans and I reckon it would be much quieter :D

The 490 is quieter once you chop the blades from the memory fan! The 690 cannot be called quiet under any circumstance really, but isn't bad considering. With 15k drives both machines will resonate their panels which can be reduced with a lot of sound deadening material (not the foam stuff, that will cause heat problems). The 690 case means there is a lot of fan noise despite running alot slower than the 490s fans.

 

The 490 is far quieter. The 380 is the quietest of all though!

 

The NVS440 is fine for what you are doing.

 

The Quadro FX4600 is AWESOME!