Quieting a strange server power supply

diamondsw · Post by **diamondsw** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 8:12 am

I have a Dell PowerEdge 2300 that I'd love to play with - it has two PII400's (not fast, but hey, it's SMP), six SCSI hotswap drives, etc. However, it's also loud as all get-out, and the main culprit is the power supply's integrated fan. The only other fans - 2 120mm case fans - are much quieter, but would probably be the logical next step.

However, this server has one heck of a strange power supply. Between the 24-pin motherboard connecter and the 16-pin SCSI backplane connector I'm thinking I won't be able to do anything short of taking apart the power supply and replacing its internal fan.

Anyone have any suggestions? Here's the specs (p17-19, sorry about the PDF):
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/s ... /34365.pdf

Thanks - glad to see I'm not the only one who enjoys a quiet work environment.

fancontrol · Post by **fancontrol** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:22 am

Page 77 says there's a system setup category that "Sets the fan to full speed or a lower, noise reduction speed."

Have you tried it?

Page 18 shows the power supply has "Pin 21 — Thermal fan-speed control (TFSC) is a power-supply input signal used to control power-supply fan speed in special applications." So the setting probably works for the PSU as well.

There are three fan headers on the motherboard. Is one disconnected?

diamondsw · Post by **diamondsw** » Wed Jul 14, 2004 11:29 am

Thanks for helping! I tried the lower speed setting in the BIOS - negligible difference, unfortunately. As for the three connectors and two fans, FAN2 is unused for whatever reason. Then again, this motherboard has a USB-capable chipset (root hub shows up in Windows and Linux) but no actual USB ports, so it's not the most optimized design...