HP DL380 G6. fool it into working with no fans?

[RollinLower]

so here's the deal.

i recently bought a HP DL380 Gen 6 server to fool around with, and to setup for some BOINC.

i also wanted to make this thing silent, so i was thinking watercooling. if i where to watercool this tough, i would take out the stock fans. and this is where the problem starts.

when there are no fans plugged in, the server goes into what i like to call "oh shit! mode" and just stops working.

how would i fool this thing into working with no fans plugged in?

and alternatively, how would i go about plugging in some more quiet fans? HP uses a proprietary 6-pin connector.

[spartaman64]

unless you are talking about immersion the water cooling radiator would have fans right?

[RollinLower]

Just now, spartaman64 said:

unless you are talking about immersion the water cooling radiator would have fans right?

yep, but this is a 2U chassis, so the watercooling is all gonna be external. in the server i would only have the 2 CPU blocks and some tubing.

[Crunchy Dragon]

The most you'd be able to do is try to rig up a "cheat" adapter that can go onto the fan header, I think.

 

My ML330 G6 uses this little guy, that I believe makes the server think there is a fan installed:

Spoiler

I would imagine, if you could make an adapter like that as well as find a pin-out of HP's connector, you should be able to rig up a fan that would connect to HP's connector while making the server think there is an OEM fan installed.

[spartaman64]

8 minutes ago, RollinLower said:

yep, but this is a 2U chassis, so the watercooling is all gonna be external. in the server i would only have the 2 CPU blocks and some tubing.

i read someone fooled it by shorting out pins 4 5 and 6

https://www.moddiy.com/products/HP-DL160G6-{47}-DL180G6-{47}-SE316M1-4%2dPin-PWM-Fan-Power-Cable-(6-x-Fan).html

or you can get these and connect some quieter normal fans

[RollinLower]

9 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

i read someone fooled it by shorting out pins 4 5 and 6

https://www.moddiy.com/products/HP-DL160G6-{47}-DL180G6-{47}-SE316M1-4%2dPin-PWM-Fan-Power-Cable-(6-x-Fan).html

or you can get these and connect some quieter normal fans

the picture you attached looks like the connector on my board, tough the cables you linked have a different connector (6 pins in a row instead of 2 rows of 3)

anyway, i'll try shorting out one of the connectors and see what happnes.

 

getting just more silent fans in there is starting to look like a pretty good option aswell, tough i wonder if i can spoof it into accepting a 3-pin fan.

only 60mm fans with 4 pins i could find where noctua's, and those are 20 euro's a pop. i would need 6, so about 130 euro's post shipping. not really looking to spend that much on a server i bought for 100 euro's.

[CptCarbonat]

This should be what you are looking for. This is the pinout of the fans on a SE316M1. This is the connector:

 

and the pinout is as follows as far as I know:

+---+------------+--------+
|Pin|Color       |Function|
+---+------------+--------+
|  1|Orange      |     12V|
|  2|Grey/Black  |     GND|
|  3|Red         |     12V|
|  4|Blue        |    TACH|
|  5|White/Yellow|     PWM|
|  6|Green       |    TACH|
+---+------------+--------+

[Jarsky]

The pin i'd be concerned about would be the PWM. 

I imagine you either need to run splitter cables and hook them up to a single fan source which would require to keep a fan that meets the minimum RPM that the BIOS will allow without triggering alarms. Or else you probably need to build a simple circuit with a timer chip with resistor & capacitor to fake the PWM signal. 

[andreaci]

Hi!

I know this thread is old, but.. server guy here!

 

if you watercool that server, you have to remember one thing: rack servers are designed with the main fans taking fresh air from the front and pushing it out from the back.

 

 

 

This allow to cool:

- disks (in the front)

- cpu and ram (in the middle) 

- power supply and pci area (in the back)

 

IF you apply watercooling to the cpu block, that won't be enough (especially for powersupply and disks)!

[RollinLower]

2 minutes ago, andreaci said:

Hi!

I know this thread is old, but.. server guy here!

 

if you watercool that server, you have to remember one thing: rack servers are designed with the main fans taking fresh air from the front and pushing it out from the back.

 

 

 

This allow to cool:

- disks (in the front)

- cpu and ram (in the middle) 

- power supply and pci area (in the back)

 

IF you apply watercooling to the cpu block, that won't be enough (especially for powersupply and disks)!

hi, thanks for the thread necro lol.

 

yeah this thread is super old. i don;t own this server anymore, but i replaced it with a lot more (watercooled) server stuff.

what i found is that disks, especially datacenter SSDs don't care about heat.I run 100% loads on my disks for weeks at a time, and they just keep on truckin. HDDs neither, to some extend.

i don;t even remember what my intentions where for this G6 box, but i have successfully watercooled a few supermicro's and some dell boxes since then, without any heat issues with the reduced airflow.