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Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

jolo2
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Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

I was given a ReadyNas Pro 6 and upgraded it to OS 6 (latest firmware).  I soon replaced the Crown system fan with a Noctua NF-A12x25FLX 3-pin, to get efficient and relatively quiet cooling.  The Noctua is plugged in to the same socket on the network card that the Crown came from.

The problem I have is that on occasion the system fan spins down to 0rpm and won't start.  The Readynas issues a warning that fan speed is below minimum and - eventually - if I leave the system it will get hot and shut itself down.

I don't know if the problem would have occurred with the original Crown fan.  I would prefer not to put the Crown back in.  I am wondering if there is a known issue here that I can address or not.  I've read related posts on the forum but this issue doesn't seem to be addressed by those posts.

Any help gratefully received!

 

Model: RNDP6000|ReadyNAS Pro 6 Chassis only
Message 1 of 15

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Supertramp11
Luminary

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

Message 12 of 15

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Equinox1
Guide

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

If I remember correctly, the noctua fans need something done to the cables to work
Message 2 of 15
jolo2
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Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops


@Equinox1 wrote:
If I remember correctly, the noctua fans need something done to the cables to work

Thanks.  I'm aware of discussion about the PSU fan wiring and also about the CPU fan needing to be a four pin, but I *thought* the Crown system fan is a 3-pin and so is this Noctua and I thought that this means they would be a standard connection and interchangeable?  Can we confirm/deny whether the Crown/Noctua are interchangeable?

 

The strange thing here is that the system runs just fine, but - inexplicably - either just after boot, or a few hours (or days) after boot, the fan will stop.  It seems like something in software must be changing and - once changed - only a reboot will fix it.

Message 3 of 15
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

Your problem is that your fan's minimum speed is higher than the stock one.  The fan comes on faster at power-on, and then gets trimmed to the necessary speed to maintin the desired temperature.  But the OS is trying to trim your fan to something below it's minimum..

 

When they added the ability to select cool, balanced. or quiet for the fan setting, they seem to have removed the way to set the minimum speed.  It's not in the usual places, anyway.  Neither changing the min fan speed in system.conf nor adding a min_fan_speed_override file work.

 

While it likely flies in the face of why you changed the fan, you can try using the "cool" setting.

Message 4 of 15
jolo2
Star

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops


@Sandshark wrote:

Your problem is that your fan's minimum speed is higher than the stock one.  The fan comes on faster at power-on, and then gets trimmed to the necessary speed to maintin the desired temperature.  But the OS is trying to trim your fan to something below it's minimum..

 

When they added the ability to select cool, balanced. or quiet for the fan setting, they seem to have removed the way to set the minimum speed.  It's not in the usual places, anyway.  Neither changing the min fan speed in system.conf nor adding a min_fan_speed_override file work.

 

While it likely flies in the face of why you changed the fan, you can try using the "cool" setting.


Your analysis of the problem makes sense. I'm finding that the problem often occurs when the unit is first switched on.  It has done this this morning, for example, and it's quite cool here today, so the system would no doubt be trimming the fan speed right back.

 

I'm less confident that the solution will work as I believe I've tried the three settings (cool, balanced, quiet) with no difference.  I'll check again with the system set "cool" again.  Also, the Noctua has two types of "Low Noise Adapter" that can be inserted in the cable to reduce the maximum speed.  Is it worth experimenting with those?

 

I wonder if anyone else is aware of where the minimum fan speed setting is now located in the system files.  To change that would seem the most obvious thing to do, of course.

 

Thanks again.

Message 5 of 15
jolo2
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Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops


@jolo2 wrote:

@Sandshark wrote:

Your problem is that your fan's minimum speed is higher than the stock one.  The fan comes on faster at power-on, and then gets trimmed to the necessary speed to maintin the desired temperature.  But the OS is trying to trim your fan to something below it's minimum.


One thing I don't understand here is why the fan doesn't re-start as the system heats up.  The above explanation makes sense, but once the fan has stopped the temperature rises and - I assume - the OS then raises the volts to the fan to generate more cooling.  I assume that should re-start the fan; but that never happens.

 

Message 6 of 15
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

It's a PWM fan, not one controlled by changing the voltage.  Some require quite a "bump" to spin up, which is why they come on full blast to start.  Left long enough (to potentially damage your NAS and/or drives), it likely would start.

Message 7 of 15
StephenB
Guru

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

It's a PWM fan, not one controlled by changing the voltage.  


In case you haven't googled the acronym - PWM: pulse width modulation.  The motor is sent regular pulses of power.  The longer the pulses, the faster the fan spins. 

 

There is an explanation here: https://www.ekwb.com/blog/what-is-pwm-and-how-does-it-work/

Message 8 of 15
jolo2
Star

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops


@StephenB wrote:

It's a PWM fan, not one controlled by changing the voltage.  


In case you haven't googled the acronym - PWM: pulse width modulation.  The motor is sent regular pulses of power.  The longer the pulses, the faster the fan spins. 

 

There is an explanation here: https://www.ekwb.com/blog/what-is-pwm-and-how-does-it-work/



Thanks. Yes, I should have said that the system changes the pulse, and that’s an interesting article. To solve the problem, I guess I need to discover how to increase the minimum spin speed, though. Any ideas on that with os 6?

Message 9 of 15
StephenB
Guru

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

@jolo2 wrote:
To solve the problem, I guess I need to discover how to increase the minimum spin speed, though. Any ideas on that with os 6?

 

It's set in /etc/sensors.d/system.conf.

 

The challenge is that @Sandshark said he tried changing that, but it didn't work.

Message 10 of 15
jolo2
Star

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

Thanks. I'll give it a go and see if it makes any difference in my case.
Message 11 of 15
Supertramp11
Luminary

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

This thread also mentions the fan speed override: https://community.netgear.com/t5/Using-your-ReadyNAS-in-Business/OS-6-5-2-still-causes-fan-issues-on...

Let us know if this works...

Message 12 of 15
jolo2
Star

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

Thanks very much indeed for this link.  I have made the change.  Although the uptime is not yet sufficient to judge that this has worked, there have been no problems so far and my perception is that the fan is running consistently slightly faster than it has.  The web interface reports fan speed just under 1000rpm consistently, even if set to "quiet" so I am hopeful.  I will report again when it's been running for a week or more - hopefully to confirm that the issue is resolved.

Message 13 of 15
Sandshark
Sensei

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

Maybe there is a max allowed and it's ignored otherwise.  I tried with 2000, just to see if it seemed to do anything, and it didn't.

Message 14 of 15
jolo2
Star

Re: Readynas Pro 6 (OS 6) Fan Control with Noctua System Fan stops

Since setting the minimum fan speed to 1000rpm using the command described here, the system has run flawlessly for at least a couple of weeks.  Problem solved.  Much appreciation to all who helped with this.

Message 15 of 15
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