I have never been quite happy with the passive CPU cooling system on the HP servers. I always felt that it was barely adequate and like most users I upgraded my CPU and it only got hotter. Most servers have a fan on a small heat sink and I wanted to put one into my server.

Unfortunately HP used a special hole mounting pattern that does not fit any standard available CPU heat sink. I knew I could design one but being retired I had no access to professional machinery to produce one. I measured up the EX490 heat sink with primary interest in the size and hole pattern. I then looked at hundreds of available CPU fan and heat sink combinations available. I finally found one that I knew I could work with but still would have design flaws. I wanted to try to make one anyway. I was armed with only a hacksaw, file and a grinder so don’t expect much, but here is what I came up with.

Sorry I had to split the post into two entries:

I use AS5 CPU thermal paste and I am now in the burn in phase in the first day. The heat sink is at least as good as the original and seems to run generally 5 to 10 degrees C cooler than the HP original one. Yes it is noisier but my goal was to run cooler. Please remeber I had to use jungle shop mechanics to make this so it is not pretty but it works. A real design would have the fins on the heat sink being higher and also running the other way but I wanted to see the possibilities.

I powered the fan using the fan power terminals on the motherboard. I will keep you advised of the final results.

Does it still run hot? Yes.

Is it better? A little!

Could it be designed better? Certainly!

I just wanted to post it as food for thought on what could be possible in these servers>

Hi

Since I have replaced the Celeron in my EX490 to a Core 2 Duo E8500 it will run a little hotter too.
Read Alex Forum Spotlight: Custom heat sink and fan for the MediaSmart Server and got interested to see If I could improve the cooling in my box inspired by Eidos post above.

I quickly came to the conclusion that a fan on top of the heat sink would probably be more work than I think is worth the job.
The initial plan was to to some machine work on the existing heat sink to make room for a fan with a milling machine but then much of the flanges in the heat sink would be lost so the heat would not be transferred to the fan at all.
From what I can see Edios heat sink is smaller and perhaps less efficient so I tried a different approach.
I searched for a small fan to put in front of the existing heat sink to blow away the hot air between the flanges in the heat sink since they can't rise up as they normally do from a heat sink because of the chassis design.

I found a 25x25mm 12VDC fan for 99SEK (approx. 15US$) so I bought 2pc and placed them in front of the heat sink, the wiring was connected to the same connector as Edios used but only 12VDC and GND.
Before I installed the fans I did several test with several fans placed in front of the unit with the door open to see if a fan would have any impact to the core temps. Both a 120mm fan that I ran at different voltage and smaller ones until I run it without fan at all.
Some tests was mayd in idle mode and some with load of IntelBunTest.
My conclusion was that the unit will have a lot more healthy life with some kind of fans, actually it seams the just a small air stream will keep the temps down, Of course at full load any PC need a lot of cooling but these type of unit that will be up 24-7 is nice if it can be as quiet as possible.

With the 2xfan in front of the heat sink the Core temps drops more that 10 degrees in idle state (CPU usage close to zero) from 54/57 to 45/46.
The idle temp with a 120mm fan in front of the unit with the front door open was also about 42-45 degrees so I don't think it will go any lower with the ambient temp between 22-26 that I have in my home office now.
What the min & max temps will be when the unit is in normal operation or under full load will be monitored and hopefully I can add that information here too.

Fan Info:
akasa 25x25x10mm
10000rpm
24.76db(A)
2.50 CFM
two ball bearing
12VDC 2-pin connector for 2.54 PCB header
Fan is avalible in Sweden at Kjell & Company


Use shrinking tube or other insulation when soldering the wires together to avoid trouble

The fans did fit very good to there was no need for any screws to fix them, I only used a small piece of kapton tape to fix one cable but can also be used to fix the fans or why not use the clue gun?

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Upgraded HP MediaSmart Server EX490
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8500 mounted with Arctic Silver 5 and simple fan cooling
Mem: Kingston 4GB DDR2 800MHz Value (KVR800D2N6/4G) Black Revoltec RAM Cooler Aluminium

The first tests with fans installed using IntelBurnTest 2.51 shows that the temp peak at 80°C in the end of each test run but it never goes any higher.
I use the standard test with 5 runs each time.
Without the fans installed It won't last 5 runs because it will go above 100°C causing the CPU to re-boot


I plan to add SNMP monitoring of various params in the unit. Then I should be able to get better temp statistics during long term testing.

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Upgraded HP MediaSmart Server EX490
CPU: Core 2 Duo E8500 mounted with Arctic Silver 5 and simple fan cooling
Mem: Kingston 4GB DDR2 800MHz Value (KVR800D2N6/4G) Black Revoltec RAM Cooler Aluminium

Hey Herman,

I used the e7500 and the fan assembly for about 5 months. I was a little better (about 4 degrees C) when compared to the standard heat sink. I never liked the e7500 in the EX490 so I searched the web for an E5200 and finally found a new one at a reasonable price. I installed it with the standard heat sink and I was getting 20 to 30 degrees less temperature than using the E7500 and really did not see a massive difference in performance.

I use the server for storage and crunch my DVDs and other heavy jobs on 6 core CPUs.

In my testing I found the same thing you did that putting a 100 mm fan even in front of the EX490 dropped the temperature by up to 10 degrees C. I also purchased a 25x25 mm fan (for 4$ from Excesssolutions.com model UTEC AT2510L-12H2B) to do the same thing you did. Ultimately I got such good results from the E5200 CPU I just stopped messing around with the unit and never installed the fan. My EX490 has not had one issue in 5 or 6 months and is rock stable.

You’re on the right trail to get better performance. I was a Design Engineer, VP of Engineering and CEO of a high tech company. I can't keep my hands still and am building a computer or modifying a server or network every day. I retired early and need this type of past time to keep my mind active. Thanks for your e-mail and showing me your results.

I'm contemplating upgrading my CPU to a Q8400 which I have going spare from an old desktop so have just grabbed two of these little 25mm fans off ebay. Hopefully this will help to keep the temp down...

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EX490 with 7TB storage

With just the standard heat sink my Q8400 sits at around 70C which is pretty high I think! Need to get my little 25mm fans installed to see if that makes a difference?

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EX490 with 7TB storage

Installed my two 25mm fans just like Herman and it drops the temp by about 8 degrees.... Only issue is that the little fans whine so loud that is sounds like some sort of alarm buzzer is going off.... Will have to hunt around for some more silent ones, suppose $2 each on eBay was a little too good to be true.

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EX490 with 7TB storage

I just ordered a couple of Sunon fans from ZSFans.com. They're rated at 16dBA so hopefully the noise will be acceptable. Since the server is located in a guest bedroom I'll probably implement a switch of sorts for when the room is in use.

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

Interesting, I've just now gotten around to installing the two fans but I don't have the power connector on my MB as shown in Herman's pictures. Did you have to add that or was it already there? Would it be possible to run the fans off the rear connectors? How would I determine which pins to connect to? My fans only have 2 wires (1 read, 1 black).

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

I have a question. I just upgraded my EX48X with E6550 and added the 2 small fans and the temps are within specs but i am still not happy with it. When i was doing the CPU update it switched the boot up sequence for whatever reason so it went into recovery mode. I noticed it was looking for the hard drives starting from the top drive bay to the bottom. Is it possible to install the operating system in a different bay so i can leave the bottom bay open? That way i can cut open the bottom bay to add a taller quieter fan.

I'm pretty certain the BIOS is set to use the bottom drive only as the OS drive. It will check the USB ports but that's not what you're asking about. If you use a SSD in the bottom slot you'll have a little extra space. You might be able to find a short SATA cable that will allow you to mount the drive in the upper area of the slot which would give you maximum space. Is it possible the drive would fit sideways? I don't have one handy so I can't check. Another option might be to snake a long SATA cable up to the top of the case and lay the SSD up there. It would be tight but I think there is enough room.

I suspect the biggest challenge is the cost of the SSD. I think you'd want a 500GB at a minimum if you're using WHS V1 (because of how it deals with your data). If you've moved to WHS 2011 or Windows Server 2008, a 120GB drive would work.

Please post pictures of whatever you decide to do.

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HP MSS EX490, Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300, 1TB System drive, 6TB Storage pool managed by StableBit DrivePool

If anyone happens to mess up their heat sink and want another just send me a PM I have a couple extra. Also the HP ProLiant 1U servers have a similar heat sink that's made of copper that may also work.

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Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8