The Windows Home Server Enthusiast Community

Thought I would open a separate thread here to discuss SpeedFan. I downloaded this utility the other day and am finding it quite helpful. I immediately found my fans are running at 50% (approx 1400 rpm) and increased that to 65% (1800 rpm) and watched the temperatures go down immediately! So it has some obvious value.

Others have reported automating this as well as setting it up in the Startup folder to have it run at all times.

The painful part -- which I am only starting -- is to configure the utility! For example, there are more temperature sensors in there than I see on my unit. And the measurements do not match up real well with what I see on the Settings--Hardware Configuration tab or via the PC Client Info Add-In.

Sooo... I'll start this thread and ask if some of you who have set this up would be willing to contribute details here? When it looks like we have enough to pull together a good "how to" I'll volunteer to consolidate and post on the wiki. (Unless someone else would prefer to do that!)

Thanks in advance.

Happy to help with the Wiki if anyone needs it.

When I played with Speedfan early in the MSS development I found that it would detect the internal CPU temperature sensors, as well as the two default MSS sensors.

I installed speedfan yesterday and immediately increased the fan speed to 65%. There was virtually no change in the system or cpu temperatures. I then increased the fan speed to 75% and the system temp dropped from an average low temp of 37C - 39C to 37C and the cpu temp dropped from an average low temp of 35 - 36C to 34C.

I want to get my CPU temps down below 30C so I increased the fan speed to 80% late last night and this morning the cpu temp at idle was 31C and the system temp was 35C. The fan speeds according to the hardware status on the console are running a little over 2k. I've also noticed under the disk management add-in that all three drive temps have dropped approximately 5 degrees F.

All I've done so far is adjust the fan speed percentages on the main speedfan window.

Okay, I'm a newbie....
What's the impact of 5C on the system? In other words, why do I want to lower the temp?

Does it make processing faster? Increase longevity (I've never had a problem with other systems)?

Thx

It basically increases longevity. Lets assume that your CPU can handle 60C perfectly, but what about the components beside them like capacitors, hard disks, etc. They may not be able to. Since the mediasmart server is so compact and tightly packed, heat dissipation is a concern to a certain extent.

So depending on how warm your server runs, you may want to cool it down a bit.

The best way is to put it in an open location. I have mine near my monitor on my desk. Ventilation is good and the temps are acceptable.

But some people have them in their TV Cabinets, and other more concealed places. Therefore less circulation/ventilation and more heat buildup.

Thanks for the explanation.

I've read a lot of posts concerning temps, and didn't understand what all the hoopla was about.

Thx.

I've had speedfan running for several days now and I can report the following:

original speed setting was at 50%
at 65 - 75% I didn't see much temperature difference.
at 80% the temps started dropping.
at 95% the system temp dropped to 35C and the CPU temp dropped to 31C. (these are the lowest temps I've seen so far).
at 100% the system temp increased to 36C and the CPU temp increased to 33C.
I don't know why the temps increased at 100%, but I've settled on 95% for now.

At 95% the fan speeds are: upper fan: 2596 rpm - lower fan: 2556 rpm.
And the fans are pretty loud at this setting.

Is it possiable that with the fans at 100% / full speed, they are creating some extra heat that is defeating the extra cooling?

I have never really trusted 3rd party temp/fan speed programs, it seems like most will lie to you at some point.

GoodLuck

I was hoping this thread would take on a life of its own, but it hasn't so I'll start some discussion based on my observations:

1. The temperatures reported by SpeedFan do not match those reported by the WHS Settings --> Hardware status. The CPU was offset by 6C and the System was offset by 10C.
2. The Disk temperatures were also off in comparison to the Disk Management Add-In. My Seagate disks wer off by -19C and 14C (slots 1 & 2) and my WD drive was off by -1C.
3. In both cases I used the advanced tab in SpeedFan to adjust for the offsets under the presumption that the temperatures from the settings and from the Disk Management Add-In were correct. The big question here is which are really correct??? Comments?
4. Has anyone posted a configuration for the MSS? (As a related question, who is the motherboard manufacturer and what is the model?)
5. Anyone tried to automate the fan speeds? After adjusting the offsets I set the upper fan for Disks 2 & 3, upper and lower for Disk 1 and lower for system and CPU. Then I set desired temperatures for the Segates (35C) the WD (30C), the System (30C and the CPU (32C). Then I went to the Speeds tab and set the fan speed ranges to 40-100% and allowed them to be automatically varied. (The third fan sensor is unused and I deselected it.) Then I selected "Automatic Fan Speed" on the main (Readings) screen. Seems to be working at the moment. Any comments on the settings? I have monitored the results on the charts tab, by the way.
6. I also charted the voltages out of curiosity and noticed that the -5v and -12v results make no sense. I have basically ignored them. Are others seeing the same thing?
7. I also changed the names for the fans and temperatures to be a bit more descriptive. See attachment below.

OK... My intent is to get a discussion going on the proper use of SpeedFan and, hopefully, to eventually get a configuration agreed-to that we can post for others to pick up and use.

I believe the driver we use compensates about 7C from the sensors based off of empirical measurements of the inaccuracy of the sensor parts. I think you're seeing the unprocessed measurements, which are somewhat in line with the observed (and compensated for) temperature differences.

Here's a link with the info: http://www.homeserverhacks.com/2008/04/hp-ex470-make-and-model.html. (BTW, the SJ in SJD4 stands for "SanJuan", the old HP-internal code name for the MediaSmart Server project; D4 stands for "four drive".)

So I'm currently using ymboc's BIOS mod with a BE-2300 45W dual core chip and using Speedfan to crank up the fans up. I'm quite pleased, the system is staying cool, but I want the automated fan speed adjustment in the event I need to reboot (or that it auto reboots).

There are some APIs tucked away in one of the DLLs that allow fan adjustments, let me see if I can throw together an add-in to eliminate the need for Speedfan on the MSS (no promises, I have plenty of other stuff to do ).

Jerry

Thanks, Jerry!

I had hoped manufacturer and model would yield a configuration for SpeedFan already posted -- it did not! Looks like anything done here may be the first! (I am inclined to use HP and MSS as it will be easier for folks to find.)

An Add-In would be wonderful. If it did nothing more than allow us to set the fan speed I would go that route rather than SpeedFan, just for accessibility and convenience!) And if if went the path of allowing the fan speed to be automatically adjusted -- even better!

Thanks!

John,
I'm confused, speedfan reports 3 sensors off the IT8712F whether you have 1 drive or 4 drives, how do you equate the IT8712F sensors to the drives. Speedfan normally picks up the sensors for the drives and the SMART data. In this case it is not picking up the smart data sensors or identifying the as drives. I'm also picking up an ACPI temperature off the SiSx30 SMBus. It's also picking up my core temp as -49 C. I'm not sure what I can do with this data but it's good for varying the speed of the fans
Errol

John
I found some documentation that speedfan doesn't pick up smartdata on some raid chipsets and the MSS dasd chipset is identified as SiSraid2. So, I'm not sure that has any bearing on what the temps actually are - I know I'm at a loss. I wish we were able to do more with speedfan but it's been a lifesaver for me just being able to vary the fan speed.
Errol

Good point. Actually I was just logging in here to add to my list above a question "Has anyone been able to access any SMART data on the MSS disks?"

It is interesting that the Client PC Information Add-In is able to pull SMART data from the drives yet SpeedFan does not. Made even more interesting considering your comment about "the MSS dasd chipset is identified as SiSraid2". Anyone have any further insight into this before I send a note to the SpeedFan author?

As to your comment that there are "3 sensors off the IT8712F whether you have 1 drive or 4 drive", I do not know how to respond. Having only three drives I never thought about the lack of #x and assumed (ASS-U-ME?) that the information really came from SMART. And once I entered the correct offset values for the three they seem to track the temperatures in the WHS Disk Management Add-In fairly well, but they are not perfectly matched over time. Which, of course, brings up the question of where Disk Management gets it's data and are they all from the same source? If these represent something other than disk temperatures, what are they?

See why I started this discussion? More input is needed here!