Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
Thanks for your reply. If you follow the fan reversal instructions, you will notice a picture of the fan before and after the flip. The label on the fan is visible before, and not after. Looking at my fan, the arrow indicating air-flow direction is towards the label side. This means that the default fan setup, with the label facing backwards, was pulling air out of the back of the unit. With the new setup, it "should" be pushing air into the back of the unit, where it would blow out of the front and sides. So I took a look at the front, and that black filter screen seems pretty impervious. Heck, I took the whole front screen off, but noticed little difference. Only when I took the sides off did I notice much of a difference. Hard drive temps of 33-37, board temp of 30. Air is being blown out of the sides, most notable the top side vents, toward the back. I did a recalibrate, and the fan dropped to 1700rpm. I do notice that the air-holes on the side panels to not perfectcly align with the spot where the air is being blown out. ALso I am not sure why most air is coming out of the rear sides versus front and/or front sides. Very frustrating!
So, after about an hour, the temps start to creep up, as does the fan. Board temp is now 32.5, four hard drive (seagate 500gb) temps from 39-44, and fan speed 2500rpm. I have not even accessed the unit in the last hour, other than for a few uses of the printer.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
My NV is outside the affected serial numbers - my serial is lower than the lowest affected serial number. Still, as I had swapped my PSU for a fanless job I decided to reverse the main fan and saw my temps increase by 4-5 degrees. Not good.
I've now reverted back to "s.uck" mode and temps have reduced to normal with the main fan spinning between 2100 and 2200 rpm. I installed the RPM override addon as the Enhance_NV_Thermal_Characteristics addon didn't work, and set a minimum rpm of 2300 and rebooted (twice) however the fan is now spinning at 2205 rpm and not 2300 rpm. I've recalibrated several times and it makes no difference. As a test I set the minimum rpm to 2500 and the fan speed briefly changed to 2142 rpm before stabilising at 2205 rpm again.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
Milhouse wrote:
My NV is outside the affected serial numbers - my serial is lower than the lowest affected serial number. Still, as I had swapped my PSU for a fanless job I decided to reverse the main fan and saw my temps increase by 4-5 degrees. Not good.
I've now reverted back to "s.uck" mode and temps have reduced to normal with the main fan spinning between 2100 and 2200 rpm. I installed the RPM override addon as the Enhance_NV_Thermal_Characteristics addon didn't work, and set a minimum rpm of 2300 and rebooted (twice) however the fan is now spinning at 2205 rpm and not 2300 rpm. I've recalibrated several times and it makes no difference. As a test I set the minimum rpm to 2500 and the fan speed briefly changed to 2142 rpm before stabilising at 2205 rpm again.
Confused - does this addon actually work?
Your rev A NV won't take the add-on. Instead you can use the EnableFanMinRPMOverride add-on from the Wiki Add-on page. This will allow you to specify the min RPM in the Power Management tab.
Check the bottom of your NV to make sure there's no blockage of the air holes.
So, after about an hour, the temps start to creep up, as does the fan. Board temp is now 32.5, four hard drive (seagate 500gb) temps from 39-44, and fan speed 2500rpm. I have not even accessed the unit in the last hour, other than for a few uses of the printer.
Are my readings normal?
The fan speed should be lower. Go ahead and send in your logs (see my sig) and I'll take a look to see what's going on. Attn yoh-dah.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
yoh-dah wrote:
Your rev A NV won't take the add-on. Instead you can use the EnableFanMinRPMOverride add-on from the Wiki Add-on page. This will allow you to specify the min RPM in the Power Management tab.
As per my post - this is installed.
yoh-dah wrote:
Check the bottom of your NV to make sure there's no blockage of the air holes.
Holes are clear.
Health page still shows fan spinning at 2205 rpm when the minimum speed is 2300. Whatever value I use for the minimum rpm, it makes no difference.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
I've read the 3 major threads I've found in the forums on premature power supply failures and have opted for the bump in fan speed increase. Zippy chance I was going to s.uck unfiltered air through the unit. Even with my Ready NAS NV+ located 50 inches above the ground in my relatively clean office, after only 3 months of use the front filter is covered with a fairly substantial layer of fine, dense dust. I'm guessing some dust still gets into the case, but I can just imagine how bad it would be inside the case after a year of use with no filter!
Having said that, I'm disappointed with the increase in noise. I bought the NV+ specifically because of its reduced noise characteristics. When I got it a few months ago I was surprised at how, relatively speaking, loud the unit was at 1600rpms. For something described as "Server-rated power supply with noise-killer design for quieter operation" I had expected something just above dead silent. Maybe that was wishful thinking, but it definitely wasn't the case - mostly due to the hum of the drives. Now add the hum of the fan at 2100rpm, and the NV+ is competing with my (soon to be replaced, 9 fan) Mac G5.
Frankly, its an audible relief when I power everything down in the evening. I was hoping with the new Intel Macs and their reduced cooling requirements, I'd finally get a fairly noiseless work environment, but that won't be the case now with the NV+ humming along.
I will say that I very much appreciate Infrant's efforts to keep their customers aware of what's going on though. Having worked as a Unix system administrator at various large scale operations centers, this kind of follow up is much appreciated. But, as someone else mentioned in one of these threads, it works well for the computer geek who likes to fiddle with settings and such. For the general consumer though, this is the equivalent of one of the big automakers asking their customers to fix a recall problem themselves. A better solution for them would have been a true recall, or, more practically speaking, an over the net upgrade.
Anyway, my 2 cents after spending a couple of frustrating hours indoors during a beautiful, springtime, Saturday afternoon fiddling with this upgrade.
I agree with the previous post: I am both grateful for the hard work done to provide solutions and communicate them and frustrated at the results.
I reversed my drive but the disk temps are 42-44 degrees (I have 4 X 500 GB drives, not the enterprise drives, either. The fan isn't spinning faster than 1700 rpm except on boot-up. DOES THIS SEEM NORMAL? Thanks.
I too am horrified at the prospect of reversing this fix and going to the high fan speed with its higher noise levels. I just spent a lot of time and some money quieting my new pc. The only solution for me will be to run a gigabit wired network through my house, locating the NV+ far away (in the cool basement). Given my thick plaster walls, this is going to cost some money also.
At the moment, using the scheduler to turn the NV+ on and off only when backing up is working well, but that won't last once I try to to back up multiple computers every day and stream music on demand (which was the plan).
One observation: with the fan reversed, I saw no difference in drive temp with the front door open or closed (my attempt at modeling the removal of the dust cloth grill before actually removing it). Since my fan never spins very fast , maybe I would only notice the benefits of decreased resistance in the airflow path if it ran at 2400 rpm.
Question: Do I need one of the software fixes to bump up the fan speed, no matter which way the fan is pointing?
One question: is there any chance that using any acoustic damping material at strategic places in the case will cut down on noise?
Another question: is there any possibility of a replacement door with a built in fan, so we can push air in and pull it out? Even with an external power supply, this seems to me it could cut down on the rpm per fan and decrease noise (in my fantasy world, anyway). I have a bunch of silent 120 mm fans that would love to take up residence in the front of the NV+.
And maybe finally: removing the dust filter for the reversed fan method is irrelevant to dust if the fan is now blowing in from the back, but wouldn't we want a dust filter at the back, in between the fan and the components?
I installed the EnableFanMinRPMOverride add-on and set it to 2100 rpm. After a recalibration the fan speed is around 2200 rpm but it emits a slight clicking hum wich is a bit annoying as I have the NV+ on my desk. The clicking disappears if I set a minimum speed below 2000 rpm (1900-1800 rpm).
The temperature didn't fall that much. Just a 0.5 degree lower both on board and on disks (before the fan speed was about 1700-1800 rpm).
I have two disk tray still unused as there are only two drives in my unit. Do you think removing them could help psu dissipation?
I installed the EnableFanMinRPMOverride add-on and set it to 2100 rpm. After a recalibration the fan speed is around 2200 rpm but it emits a slight clicking hum wich is a bit annoying as I have the NV+ on my desk. The clicking disappears if I set a minimum speed below 2000 rpm (1900-1800 rpm).
The temperature didn't fall that much. Just a 0.5 degree lower both on board and on disks (before the fan speed was about 1700-1800 rpm).
I have two disk tray still unused as there are only two drives in my unit. Do you think removing them could help psu dissipation?
Thank you
I'm not sure where the clicking could come from -- are you able to tell by putting your ear close to the unit? Keep in mind that the fan speed up is meant to increase the ventilation of the PSU head -- not necessarily to reduce the disk and board temp. The board is at the top of the chassis, so the board temp will not reflect the temp of the PSU. And your disk temps are probably running at the low range already.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
Clicking will be produced by the fan due to the PWM nature of speed control.
"The stator motion is a square wave that is switched on and off before and after the peak torque position. This motion causes a small amount of undulation in motor torque, producing an audible noise caused by the lower frequency commutation operation. Each small torque causes a minute contracting of the entire fan structure and results in an audible clicking noise while the fan is operating."
Some fans are designed to eliminate clicking by moving out of the human audible range of hearing.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
I'm sure the clicking comes from the fan.
If I lower it's speed below 2000 rpm it disappears. And the sound comes clearly from there.
That's the reason why I'm not very happy with this solution to the psu problem. Not only I have a noisier unit, but I also have this annoying clicking.
And reading other users reports I don't think reversing the fan will help that much. Raising disk temperature and removing dust protection could help psu, but will lower disk reliability.
I think perople from Infrant should think about offering us a more reliable psu as a retrofit kit.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
Guys, there's a simple $2.99 compressed air solution to any dust build-up problem if you go for the quieter fan reversal procedure. It doesn't hurt to shoot a couple puffs in once in awhile, and you would need to do this without fan reversal anyway (the black mesh in the front will filter the dust but you'll need to clear it once in awhile).
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
Okayy... I did the "fan swap side trick" yesterday. My NV SN is right in the middle of the batch. I cleaned the whole box at the same time. But bad news today : the temp is UP (and the weather cooler than yesterday...)
Disk 1 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 51C / 123F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 2 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 53C / 127F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 3 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 54C / 129F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 4 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 51C / 123F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK
Fan 1 2205 RPM Temp 1 44.0C / 111F
I even installed the add-on to speed up the fan. No luck. Drive 3 even reached 60°C some hours ago. The hot air is now trying to escape from the front. I'm thinking of changing that back... Any other idea ? 😕 (ho, and even with all services disabled, the spindown feature is useless : all the drives are spinning back up right away... 😞 )
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
Cafeine wrote:
Okayy... I did the "fan swap side trick" yesterday. My NV SN is right in the middle of the batch. I cleaned the whole box at the same time. But bad news today : the temp is UP (and the weather cooler than yesterday...)
Disk 1 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 51C / 123F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 2 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 53C / 127F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 3 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 54C / 129F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 4 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 51C / 123F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK
Fan 1 2205 RPM Temp 1 44.0C / 111F
I even installed the add-on to speed up the fan. No luck. Drive 3 even reached 60°C some hours ago. The hot air is now trying to escape from the front. I'm thinking of changing that back... Any other idea ? 😕 (ho, and even with all services disabled, the spindown feature is useless : all the drives are spinning back up right away... 😞 )
See if opening the door reduces the drive temp. If so, consider removing the black mesh as that's what keeping the air from ventilating out faster.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
yoh-dah wrote:
Cafeine wrote:
Okayy... I did the "fan swap side trick" yesterday. My NV SN is right in the middle of the batch. I cleaned the whole box at the same time. But bad news today : the temp is UP (and the weather cooler than yesterday...)
Disk 1 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 51C / 123F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 2 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 53C / 127F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 3 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 54C / 129F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK Disk 4 WDC WD5000KS-00MNB0 465 GB, 51C / 123F, Write-cache ON, SMART+ OK
Fan 1 2205 RPM Temp 1 44.0C / 111F
I even installed the add-on to speed up the fan. No luck. Drive 3 even reached 60°C some hours ago. The hot air is now trying to escape from the front. I'm thinking of changing that back... Any other idea ? 😕 (ho, and even with all services disabled, the spindown feature is useless : all the drives are spinning back up right away... 😞 )
See if opening the door reduces the drive temp. If so, consider removing the black mesh as that's what keeping the air from ventilating out faster.
Opening the door does help a bit, but the NAS is still 3 to 5° above what I had with lower fan speed, when the fan was in the "wrong" position. Weird. 😞
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
I would expect the temperature to register a bit warmer. In the original configuration you are pulling "fresh" air from the front, over the drives, board, and PSU and pushing out the "hot" air through the back. The new configuration is to pull the "fresh" air over the PSU, board, then the drives. The drives are getting air that is warmed by the PSU and board. The drives are still running within acceptable temperature.
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
I have now tried two of the options offered: reversing fan/leaving door open and applying the min fan speed plugin.
The first option of reversing the fan worked fine but the door had to be open otherwise the HD temperature went to 55c +. I pressed out the metal grill on the door and removed the filter (easing the edges inwards befoire replacing the grill to allow future ready access). This brought the temperature right down but I have worries over potential dust ngress problems.
I then tried restoring the fan to normal and washing the filter in warm water The temperature is now 29.5c with the disks running between 35c and 39c. I then applied the min fan plugin for security.
The second option is by far the best. Noise is not substantially increased and the system has a modicum of dust protection. For me the biggest single factor in improving cooling was the washing of the filter - it needs to be done once a month at least. By making the grill easy to remove the filter cleaning is simple.
Maybe Infrant should a) make the grill easy to remove and b) make the cleaning of the filter mandatory, possibly popping up a reminder every 30 days?
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
One easy way is to use a compressed air can to blow the dust out or to use a vaccuum to pick up the dust build-up. As mentioned in another thread, you'll see a crop-circle image when dust has built-up on the vent.
I'd like people form Infrant tech to suggest some fan models (if there is any) that could lower the noise without lowering the cfm.
I've asked this before in another thread but got no reply. I am not keen on the quality of the supplied fan; the original had that clicking noise. I replaced it with the official one from the Infrant shop and that was worse! The third one was slightly better so the quality does vary. I'd like to replace it with a good quality one by a different manufacturer (and the same now applies to the PSU!)
Re: Service Action to Prevent PSU Failures in ReadyNAS NV/NV+
I own a ReadyNAS NV that is not affected by the power supply issue. However, when I first received my unit a year and a half ago, I actually did play with fan reversal just to see if I could improve temps or airflow.
What I found is that reversing the fan actually made the unit HOTTER by 2-4 degrees C. This was odd to me, since the reversed fan would be acting as an intake, and blowing fresh cool air directly onto the drives.
Turns out that the limiting factor in fan reversal, is the ability to then get that air OUT of the box. I think the front mesh grille makes it hard for this to happen. After that little experiment, I turned the fan back around into its stock position. That worked best for me, but then again, I don't have the PS issue being discussed here.
I'd like people form Infrant tech to suggest some fan models (if there is any) that could lower the noise without lowering the cfm.
In general, this is hard to accomplish, since for a given fan size, CFM is related to fan speed. And fan speed is related to fan noise. Now the quality of that noise may differ (high-pitched being more annoying than low-pitch).
The first link looks at recommended quiet fans, whereas the second has actual MP3 files of various fans under "standardized" conditions to allow for user comparison.
Maybe this same principle (using an adapter) can be used to add a larger, quieter fan to the Infrant NV/NV+?
Also, there are a lot of things that can improve noise for a given fan size: using a good fan design. See silentpc review as already suggested and http://quietpcusa.com/index.html. Also, minimize turbulence to reduce noise by making sure that there are no obstructions (grills etc.) within an inch of the fan's blades on the side that air come out of: this can be done using spacers if necessary (this is just one bit of info that I think I understand correctly from silentpcreview and elsewhere after months of searching to quiet my pc, not a thought original to me).
