In my last post I had a problem with the onboard 10GBit NICs. My assumption is that they were overheated and therefor failed. I read some blog posts of other blogger and some of them experienced the same issue much earlier.
Because of that I bought a Noctua NF-A14 FLX double pack in the hope I can reduce the temperature in my cases. I don’t know how hot the passive cooler of the 10Gbit adapter was but it was approx. over 70°C or higher.
To get the right position of the new fan I read through some article describing the correct air flow. I came across a really cool article from Tom’s Hardware which explains how to position a fan for optimal air flow. The following picture was taken from that article to explain what I have done.
My current build of the server was exactly as shown in the picture, except the fan at the top over the horizontal CPU cooler. I thought this fan doesn’t make any differents or only minimal.
I have checked the temperature sensor of the mainboard through IPMI before and after I installed the fan and these are the results:
| Name | Temp. °C (before) | Temp. °C (after) | Difference (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPU Temp | 39 | 31 | -20.51% |
| System Temp | 50 | 42 | -16.00% |
| Peripheral Temp | 45 | 58 | 28.89% |
| PCH Temp | 65 | 55 | -15.38% |
| P1-DIMMA1 Temp | 51 | 41 | -19.61% |
| P1-DIMMA2 Temp | 49 | 39 | -20.41% |
| P1-DIMMB1 Temp | 48 | 37 | -22.92% |
| P1-DIMMB2 Temp | 48 | 36 | -25.00% |
| P1-DIMMC1 Temp | 48 | 34 | -29.17% |
| P1-DIMMC2 Temp | 50 | 35 | -30.00% |
As you can see the results are pretty awesome. Installing the fan drops the temperature in almost every sensor by a minimum of 15%. Only the peripheral temperature went up. I can only explain it that I haven’t waited some time when the host was powered up before I took the snapshot of the sensors. The fans I have bought are not cheap but worth the money.
I hope that with the new fan the problem from this post will not occur anymore.
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