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ReadyNAS 4200V2 OS6.6.1 fan control
OK, I couldn't resist picking up an inexpensive ReadyNAS 4200V2. I ran it a short while on OS 4.2.30, then upgraded to 6.6.1. While the fans ran a bit higher than I thought they needed to on 4.2.x with only 4 drives installed, it was way better than with OS 6.6.1. Here is what I have now:
Everything starts out at a very nice speed, mid 2000's for case fans and lower for the CPU fan, all lower and quieter than on 4.2.x. But fan speeds step up in just a couple minutes to max even though all temperatures are well within normal bounds, without regard to whether fan control is "cool", "balanced", or "quiet".
One major point, the system only has (and is only supposed to have) 4 fans. So "Fan 3" is a phantom. Maybe this is the crux of the problem. Is it overcompensating for a "bad" fan? It's reporting it in the log as well has here. I believe the motherboard does have another fan header on it. Maybe the 4220 has 5 fans? Based on what I saw on OS 4.2.x, I assume that "Fan 2" is the CPU fan, which has a lower max speed. Does the 4220 have a CPU fan or passive cooler? Maybe somebody has mistakenly used 4220 parameters for the 4200, even though it does properly identify itself as a 4200V2 on the Overview page?
It would be nice if the fans were properly labeled. I have no idea what temps 1 - 3 are. Maybe one is CPU case temp? Does it even know which temperature the CPU fan affects?
The performance chart shows no entries for CPU or System temperature, they are stuck at zero. So, there is another possible cause. Nothing to control on, so no control?
System is currently in a resync, so more disk activity. But with only 4 drives installed, this is ridiculous. I don't think the fans can take this for long.
Is there a file that controls this? I seem to recall seeing one mentioned in another thread, but couldn't find it in a search. I'm very comfortable with SSH and am willing to run some tests, as this is not currently being used for anything but experimentation.
There is no RN4200v2 sensors config that ships with OS6. There aren't any RN4200v2 systems around here so I can't verify this, but you may be able to just copy the RN4200v1 config and start from there. It might "just work". Just do this:
# cp /etc/frontview/sensors/RN4200.conf /etc/sensors.d/ # systemctl restart readynasd
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OK, I did some experiments unplugging fans:
Based on the OS6.1.6 labeling, the physical location of the fans is as follows:
Fan 1 = Fan_Sys2 = Fan 3 MB header
Fan 2 = CPU fan = Fan1 MB header
Fan 3 = Rear, uninstalled fan = Fan5 MB header
Fan 4 = Fan_Sys1 = Fan4 MB header
Fan 5 = Fan_Sys3 = Fan 2 MB headerTemp2 appears to be CPU case temp, as it rose the most when I unplugged the CPU fan..
I plugged a fan into the rear motherboard fan header and the fan control point dropped to 5200 on the case fans, 2220 on the CPU fan, and 3300 (which I believe is somewhere near its max) on the extra fan. So the fan "failure" was a factor. This was further confirmed when all the fans bumped up whenever I disconnected one of them.
The case fan speeds are still higher than expected. My curent guess is that the system wants to get the CPU and extra fan RPM higher, but they aren't the same kind of fan and won't go that high. A next possible step is to jumper the tach output of one of the case fans to the rear header and see if it slows things down any. But what to do about the CPU fan not achieving desired speed? If I fool the system on that one, I won't know if the fan really fails. But it's worth a try.
Is there any way to tweek the fan control to know what to expect from the fans rather than using a hardware hack?
I could, of course, go back to 4.2.x; but I was really hoping for 6.x.
There is no RN4200v2 sensors config that ships with OS6. There aren't any RN4200v2 systems around here so I can't verify this, but you may be able to just copy the RN4200v1 config and start from there. It might "just work". Just do this:
# cp /etc/frontview/sensors/RN4200.conf /etc/sensors.d/ # systemctl restart readynasd
Many thanks Skywalker, the force is truly with you. It made all the difference in the world. I looked at the file contents and everything agreed with what my experiments showed, I verified the fan headers were numbered the same on the V1 and V2 motherboards, and I was satisfied it should work. Once I copied it and restarted, the fans are running at a much more reasonable speed. It's been going now for several minutes, and I'll leave it on over night.
Sometimes, none of the graphs are active after a reboot. I get some spinning wheels when I first bring up the tab, then nothing. But that may have always been the case, as I have not rebooted it a lot. Another side effect of doing this is that the Overview tab now reports the unit as a 4200 rather than a 4200V2. I tried renaming the .conf to RN4200V2.conf, but that didn't make a difference. As long as it still recognizes drives larger than 2TB (and it does, as you can see in bay 10 above), I guess it doesn't matter.
If you need anything checked on a 4200V2 for a future release, let me know. I plan to move some of my backups to the 4200, but I can always pull the drives and experiment with a couple spares.
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