12 mo. ago • 100%

New to this homelab stuff, is there a way to make it quieter?

*** WARNING *** I am a complete newbie at this!

So I just received a new Nutanix rack mounted server from a friend, two nodes and I don't intend to run Nutanix on it.

I don't have a rack or means of mounting it so it is just sitting on a table for now, without any soundproofing. Is it possible to use pwm to control the fans? As far as i can tell, the motherboard can control the fan speeds, like at startup.

Could i replace the fans with a noctua fan?

21 comments

"rack mount" and "quiet" don't go together.

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You could try fan swaps and sound dampening but it can easily end up costing more in money and time researching compatibility than what some of these servers are worth.

Starting small is what I recommend. I had a rack before. Now I just run mini PCs.

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- Jokes ok you I have a rack for my mini pcs. Please, send help
  
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  Same. I only have a prosumer Cisco switch that is rack mounted, one mini pc and two SFFs, not even sure why I got a rack…
  
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Easiest way to make it quieter is to not turn it on

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- Sounds like the homelab equivalent of "The only winning move is not to play". I'm sure WOPR was loud AF.
  
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Soundproof it.

Don't fuck with the fans. Not ever. They're loud because they're small. They don't move much air when they're quiet. It's a small oven if the air moves slow.

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- It's easily possible to fuck with the fans if you know what you're doing. Most of the time they're loud because the chassis fans are trying to push air through heatsink fins a couple of feet away from them. Sticking active coolers on the sockets is a good way to calm them down a bit.
  
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  The guy who gave it to me mentioned the loudest thing is the power supply, but the main fans are easily the loudest. Do you think there is a way to mod the fans slower or maybe put it in a consumer case?
  
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IIRC Nutanix use rebadged Supermicro servers. What size boxes are they, and what hardware do they have in?

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- I'm not sure. The guy who gave it to me got it on a dumpster dive. As far as I know its from 2021 with a Zeon E or something
  
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Yea don’t use enterprise stuff and build servers yourself with lowpower hardware. Less power less heat also can be cooled easier with Noctua Low RPM low noise fans.

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Sell what you have and buy a generic desktop computer. Voilà. If you already have a desktop or laptop that you don't use at home, use it as your server and turn off the enterprise stuff.

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What model is it? Ive got a few G5 and G6 chassis and ive gotten the G5's to quiet down really well and previously some g4 systems.

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That's why I ditched enterprise equipment. I prefer not to sleep next to jet engines

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Having a isolated place is pretty much the only thing you can do. Rack servers were not produced for home usage and sound in mind.

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I built with consumer hardware.

Be Quiet case, with a Dark Rock Pro 4. Only noise I hear from the case is HDD noise when stuff gets written to the array. I'm currently sitting half way betw

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Your friend pulled a sneaky on you. Give it back and get a mini PC or three.

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Low power, consumer grade hardware. That's the only thing I can think of.

I wonder how many homelabbers pay the difference between their used server hardware and new consumer hardware every couple of years due to their electricity bill.

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Really depends on the gear. Some of it you can, some you can't.

Check IPMI and see if you can adjust it there. For mine, I use the IPMI plugin that you can get for Unraid. So some OS's do have solutions. But depends on your OS and hardware.

You can replace fans, usually. But need to make sure you still have enough airflow for the equipment.

I did replace my server grade fans with the Noctua Industrial. They are still a bit loud for being in the same room, but quiet one room over. Where before you could hear it in any room of the house.
My goal was quiet one room over.

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