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Something seems wrong after fan reversal!

yoh-dah
Guide

Re: how safe is removal of this dust filter?

bashkin001 wrote:
What about the problems that dust may cause? We have cats and live in the midwestern US- there is lots of stuff in the air like dust, pollen, cat fur. This doesn't sound very safe.

Will I need some kind of air filter in my room?

If dust is of concern, go for the add-on.
Message 26 of 347
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: What are new units being shipped with?

Fox Mulder wrote:
yoh-dah wrote:
New ReadyNAS NV+ that will get into the field will be shipped with 2100 min RPM.


Earlier you said that reversing the fan provides better cooling.

How will new NV+ units be shipped from the factory? (i.e. which of the following will be true)

Minimum 2100 RPM fan speed?
Reversed fan?
No mesh on front door?

Will a future firmware update enforce this without an add-on?

I want my ReadyNAS NV+ to be both reliable and quiet, but if I had to trade one for the other, I'd pick reliability.

I feel most confident doing the same thing here that you are going to do with your newly shipped boxes. Can you clarify?

The new systems are being shipped with 2100 RPM.
Message 27 of 347
Fox_Mulder
Aspirant

Re: What are new units being shipped with?

yoh-dah wrote:
The new systems are being shipped with 2100 RPM.


With no other changes? (i.e. identical to what will happen if I install the add-on mentioned in the technote?)
Message 28 of 347
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: What are new units being shipped with?

Fox Mulder wrote:
yoh-dah wrote:
The new systems are being shipped with 2100 RPM.


With no other changes? (i.e. identical to what will happen if I install the add-on mentioned in the technote?)

Yes.
Message 29 of 347
JasonG1
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Idle temp on the drives looks to have increased 1-2 degrees C after doing the fan reversal.

The dust issue is a bigger one. Since there is now no filter, dust will be deposited all over the inside of the unit/drives. Even though our unit operates in a relatively clean, server room environment, I will probably create some sort of filter to place under the chrome grill outside of the fan on the back and remove the filter from the front. Or I may switch it around back the way it was; 1:100 is pretty good odds that there will not be trouble 😉

Users with a NAS unit operating in a dustier environment should definitely be concerned as dust can cause circuit failures after it builds up.
Message 30 of 347
Fox_Mulder
Aspirant

Re: What are new units being shipped with?

Thanks yoh-dah. If Infrant is going to make 2100 RPM without fan reversal the factory configuration, I'll do the same (rather than second guess your hardware folks and reverse the fan.)

That alleviates the dust concerns too. May make for more noise, which is never pleasant, but probably the best compromise under the circumstances.
Message 31 of 347
ggemelos1
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Quick question, after installing the add-on and rebooting twice, my fan speed was upward of 2100. When I wnet back to check it I found that it occasionally was slightly lower, e.g. 2083. Is this normal? Just curious since I thought the add-on changed the min rpm to 2100.

Also, I want to thank you for answering all our questions so promptly. The feedback in this forum is generally excellent and particularly so on this issue. I recently purchased my first Infrant product, an NV+. It is reassuring to see the way you handled this product issue. Thanks.
Message 32 of 347
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

ggemelos wrote:
Quick question, after installing the add-on and rebooting twice, my fan speed was upward of 2100. When I wnet back to check it I found that it occasionally was slightly lower, e.g. 2083. Is this normal? Just curious since I thought the add-on changed the min rpm to 2100.

Yes, that's normal. The speed may change slightly and the fan monitoring system will push it back to where it should be on a regular basis.

Also, I want to thank you for answering all our questions so promptly. The feedback in this forum is generally excellent and particularly so on this issue. I recently purchased my first Infrant product, an NV+. It is reassuring to see the way you handled this product issue. Thanks.

You're welcome! It's never easy to get a lot of customers to follow a service action, but we're serious about data integrity and avoiding unnecessary downtime. As mentioned in a previous post, we've seen less than 1% of systems getting a premature PSU failure, but that's still too high as the experience of having to go through the RMA process to get it replaced is something we all definitely want to avoid.
Message 33 of 347
bhoar
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

samundsen wrote:
Btw, I tried to remove some of the dust screen... but that stuff seem to be glued to the door, and would be very hard to remove.

I'm concerned about the fan reversal procedure.... I've just never seen computer hardware that blow air into the system, all the PCs, servers and storage systems I work with all pull hot air out.


Yes, but the air has to get into the box somewhere, right? 🙂

All kidding aside, cooling a heterogeneous combination of components is a complex affair, and mixes of push and pull fans are used by a lot of hardware devices.

The dust filter is a nice feature, but dust build up is less of a source of problems to me than heat, and loss of the intake dust filtering is a smaller matter to me than loss of power supply (or especially drives!).

BTK* - Maybe the next generation of hardware should have a heavier duty fan (or combination of fans) that run/runs at a quiet speed all of the time. Once a month, it activates a blow-it-out-the-rear** mode and spins up to 10,000rpm to dislodge the dust. Add a speaker so that it can play cough-cough.mp3 and it might even reduce the number of smokers worldwide by a slight amount.

🙂 🙂 🙂

-brendan

* back to kidding

** maybe a poor choice of phrasing?
Message 34 of 347
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

bhoar wrote:
BTK* - Maybe the next generation of hardware should have a heavier duty fan (or combination of fans) that run/runs at a quiet speed all of the time. Once a month, it activates a blow-it-out-the-rear** mode and spins up to 10,000rpm to dislodge the dust. Add a speaker so that it can play cough-cough.mp3 and it might even reduce the number of smokers worldwide by a slight amount.

🙂 🙂 🙂

-brendan

Yeah I can just imagine all the heart attacks caused by the fan speeding up to 10K, not to mention a big dust bunny on the wall :lol:
Message 35 of 347
bhoar
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

yoh-dah wrote:
Yeah I can just imagine all the heart attacks caused by the fan speeding up to 10K, not to mention a big dust bunny on the wall :lol:


Thar' she blows!

-brendan
Message 36 of 347
JasonG1
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

yoh-dah wrote:

There's a EnableFanMinRPMOverride addon at http://www.infrant.com/wiki/index.php/Add-Ons that allows you to override the minimum fan RPM. You can install this and manually set it for 2100. This will essentially do the same thing.


After installing this I can't find where to set the fan speed. Enlightenment needed. 🙂
Message 37 of 347
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

JasonG wrote:
yoh-dah wrote:

There's a EnableFanMinRPMOverride addon at http://www.infrant.com/wiki/index.php/Add-Ons that allows you to override the minimum fan RPM. You can install this and manually set it for 2100. This will essentially do the same thing.


After installing this I can't find where to set the fan speed. Enlightenment needed. 🙂

Oops, I think I may have mentioned incorrectly that it was in the Health tab earlier. It's in the power management tab.
Message 38 of 347
JasonG1
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Gotcha, thanks 😎
Message 39 of 347
avalonpb
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

What about just putting the orginal fanned power supply back in (for those of us who have replaced the original supply). The minute I received my "retrofit fanless supply kit" and noticed it was nothing more than the original supply with the fan and cover removed I figured it was going to have heat issues long term.

Would returning back to the original power supply be the ultimate preferred solution? I've had enough trouble with my 3 Ready NAS units already.
Message 40 of 347
Jetlag1
Guide

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Yes, I still have my "fanned" PSU. Should I just put that back in instead?
Message 41 of 347
IanSav
Apprentice

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Hi Yoh-dah,

Thank you to you and the Infrant team (Jedi council) for bringing this issue and the resolution options to our attention.

I too have concerns about reversing the fan and the subsequent dust flow change gumming up the works. I was far more concerned when I read that some users who used the fan reversal technique encountered temperature increases in their hard drives.

The issue I wanted to raise in this post is the choice of the 2 fan speed modification patches. I understand that the Enhance_NV_Thermal_Characteristics engineering patch will simply set the fan speed minimun to a fixed 2100 RPM. The EnableFanMinRPMOverride addon on the other hand will allow me to set any speed as the lowest fan speed limit. I have always wanted to use the override addon so that I could increase the fan speed on warmer days when I wanted to bring the drive temperature down a little. I have never loaded the addon given the dire warning and implications on the warranty.

Would it be possible to combine the two addons and ammend the EnableFanMinRPMOverride addon to have a system defined minimum fan speed setting such that this addon can no longer be tagged as warranty threatening. The UI could then allow users to select any fan speed they want as a minimum but if it is lower than that defined as safe by Infrant then the minimum will be reset to the minimum safe level. The minimum safe level can be defined by Infrant and set as appropriate for the ReadyNAS model, engineering revision, serial number, etc. Obviously anyone who wants to increase the speed a little can then safely do so.

The benefit of this defensive coding would be that anyone who has access to FrontView who may try to set the fan speed lower than is safe will not have their change accepted and the ReadyNAS will not be put at risk.

For those who *really* want to set the fan speeds lower than recommended another addon can be provided that overrides the safety limit. This addon should be the one that carries the warranty threat etc. This proposed new addon would return the EnableFanMinRPMOverride addon to its current, and potentially dangerous, configuration.

What do the Jedi council think?

( Sorry I didn't post this in the Feature Request topic as I thought it would be better placed in context. Please feel free to move/copy it there if appropriate - or tell me to cross post it there and I will. 🙂 )

Regards,
Ian.
Message 42 of 347
Jetlag1
Guide

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

I'm with IanSav on this. I attempted to install the new addon for the NV fan speed but it stated it was not applicable for my unit.

I then thought about the 'replacement fan' addon but decided not to install it due to the warranty voiding clause. If I were to install it though I would have set the min fan speed to 2100 same as the new add-on is designed to do.

Since I still have my original PSU I'm doing a few experiments to see which configuration gives the best temps. For example; I ran SS on the NV all night (fanless PSU and a reversed fan) and took a screen cap of the health page noting the ambient temperature. I plan to duplicate this same test with the fan in the normal position, then re-run both tests with the original "fanned" PSU back in place.

If Infrant has already done so please let me know which configuration provided the best cooling results please. In my setup noise is no longer a big issue.
Message 43 of 347
Fox_Mulder
Aspirant

Re: What are new units being shipped with?

yoh-dah wrote:
New ReadyNAS NV+ that will get into the field will be shipped with 2100 min RPM.


FWIW, I'm happy that my ReadyNAS NV+ is now safe from premature power supply failure.

Subjectively, it is noisier, which is not insignificant in my home office. Right now this is the only room in my house which has a wired network.

I may have to consider moving the box.
Message 44 of 347
SJMarty
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

yoh-dah wrote:

There's a EnableFanMinRPMOverride addon at http://www.infrant.com/wiki/index.php/Add-Ons that allows you to override the minimum fan RPM. You can install this and manually set it for 2100. This will essentially do the same thing.

What is the highest RPM value the fan can be set?
Message 45 of 347
yoh-dah
Guide

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

SJMarty wrote:
yoh-dah wrote:

There's a EnableFanMinRPMOverride addon at http://www.infrant.com/wiki/index.php/Add-Ons that allows you to override the minimum fan RPM. You can install this and manually set it for 2100. This will essentially do the same thing.

What is the highest RPM value the fan can be set?

The NV can go up to around 2500. The NV+ can go up to about 3000.
Message 46 of 347
phaedrus1
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Hmm, I'm now officially confused.

I have a NV the serial number of which is roughly 200 into the affected range. I'm also happy to tolerate a little extra noise rather than have dust blown into the drive area, so I opted for the Enhance NV Thermal Characteristics add-on.

This is validated, I reboot to install it and get the following:

"This add-on (Enhance_NV_Thermal_Characteristics) does not apply to this system."

I suppose I could install the fan RPM override add-on, but why is the Enhance NV Thermal Characteristics add-on failing to install? It can't be objecting to my serial number.

Interestingly enough I have never seen the fan RPM less than 2303. It's currently 2343. Given that the fan RPM seems always >2100 is the message about the add-on not applying accurate?
Message 47 of 347
bondisdead
Aspirant

Something seems wrong after fan reversal!

Okay, I opted for the "less noisy" option, and reversed the fan. But what is confusing is that this seems to now pull air out of the rear of the box, not push it in like others are suggesting. An on top of this, the fan is constantly on, with a very high RPM. It's currently at 2800RPM, after running recalibrate. I can hear this thing down the hall! It is totally unacceptable!!

Please tell me how I should configure this thing. I did not download the patch. I just reversed the fan from the factory settings. Did I make it worse? WHy is it spinning so fast now? Drive temps range from 41-46, and board temp is 35.

If I have to hear this fan like it is now, I'm gonna sell this POS, and just buy a computer, as my tower computer is quieter than this thing now.
Message 48 of 347
bondisdead
Aspirant

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Yikes, now it's 3000RPM! I am guessing that the factory setting was in the wrong direction. I did verify that my S/N was in the range of "affected" units.
Message 49 of 347
IanSav
Apprentice

Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+

Hi Bondisdead,

It sounds like something has gone seriously wrong with your ReadyNAS. If I understand the modification correctly the fan should, after modification, be taking ambient air from the behind the ReadyNAS and blowing it into the case. The bulk of the air should be leaving via the front door.

When the fan is in the blow air in mode (as opposed to the extract warm air out mode) you should also consider removing the air filter fitted to the front door to minimise air flow restriction leaving the ReadyNAS cabinet.

If you make these hardware changes you do not need to reset the minimum fan speed to 2100 RPM.

I suggest you check the modifications, ensure that there are no air flow blockages / restrictions. Also check that no cables are jammed, pinched or in the way of the fan blades.

Let us know how you get on.

Regards,
Ian.
Message 50 of 347
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