Re: Office Friendly Kit for rx2620

[MG]

On 8/17/2011 10:12 AM, Keith Parris wrote:
> My guess is the 2nd power supply generates more heat, which takes
> more airflow, which makes more noise.

Thus a second power supply is a definite no-go?


> Sorry, I have no pictures. Doesn't look any different from the
> outside.

Out of curiosity, what was included in the kit? I've been informing
as of late, but I've been told by one company I contacted that "it's
just a fan." 350 USD (which was quoted to me) for "just a fan" is
quite a bit, I must say.

If it's just one fan, which one of the four is it, I wonder? Would
you know? I've also seen mention of 'special firmware', is that true?
(Was it delivered with your kit?)

- MG

(* HP part number references:
- <http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?SearchText=AD244A>
- <http://partsurfer.hp.com/Search.aspx?SearchText=AD244AR>)

[MG]

[Christoph Gartmann]

In article <4eb0724d$0$6914$e4fe...@news2.news.xs4all.nl>, MG <marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:

>Out of curiosity, what was included in the kit? I've been informing
>as of late, but I've been told by one company I contacted that "it's
>just a fan." 350 USD (which was quoted to me) for "just a fan" is
>quite a bit, I must say.

As far as I recall it were four fans together with some grids around them.

Regards,
Christoph Gartmann

--
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Phone : +49-761-5108-464 Fax: -80464
Immunbiologie und Epigenetik
Postfach 1169 Internet: gartmann@immunbio dot mpg dot de
D-79011 Freiburg, Germany
http://www.immunbio.mpg.de/home/menue.html

[Chris Scheers]

Christoph Gartmann wrote:
> In article <4eb0724d$0$6914$e4fe...@news2.news.xs4all.nl>, MG <marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:
>
>> Out of curiosity, what was included in the kit? I've been informing
>> as of late, but I've been told by one company I contacted that "it's
>> just a fan." 350 USD (which was quoted to me) for "just a fan" is
>> quite a bit, I must say.
>
> As far as I recall it were four fans together with some grids around them.
>
> Regards,
> Christoph Gartmann

The last time I looked into this I was told that it also required
updated firmware to control the fans and that the firmware was not
customer installable.

The firmware update required a visit from a field engineer. I don't
know if this visit is included in the cost of the upgrade or if it is extra.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Chris Scheers, Applied Synergy, Inc.

Voice: 817-237-3360 Internet: ch...@applied-synergy.com
Fax: 817-237-3074

[Richard B. Gilbert]

On 11/2/2011 7:14 PM, Chris Scheers wrote:
> Christoph Gartmann wrote:
>> In article <4eb0724d$0$6914$e4fe...@news2.news.xs4all.nl>, MG
>> <marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:
>>
>>> Out of curiosity, what was included in the kit? I've been informing
>>> as of late, but I've been told by one company I contacted that "it's
>>> just a fan." 350 USD (which was quoted to me) for "just a fan" is
>>> quite a bit, I must say.
>>
>> As far as I recall it were four fans together with some grids around
>> them.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Christoph Gartmann
>
> The last time I looked into this I was told that it also required
> updated firmware to control the fans and that the firmware was not
> customer installable.
>
> The firmware update required a visit from a field engineer. I don't know
> if this visit is included in the cost of the upgrade or if it is extra.
>

You would be wise to assume that the cost is "Extra" until you have
documentation to the contrary! DEC, Compaq, and H-P have a culture that
calls for asking for top dollar for all goods and services!

[MG]

On 3-11-2011 1:01, Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
> You would be wise to assume that the cost is "Extra" until you have
> documentation to the contrary! DEC, Compaq, and H-P have a culture that
> calls for asking for top dollar for all goods and services!

I think I'm going to give up on this whole idea. 350 USD (which was
quoted to me, by one company and 150 EUR by another) for a set of fans
is definitely not worth it, especially if it turns out that I need some
'engineer' to load firmware onto it. Especially because the answers I
have been getting are so different and contradictory most of the time.

Unless, as you say, I get to see some concrete documentation and maybe
also pictures of the actual kit contents (since there seems to be some
confusion about it, amongst resellers). Then I might still consider
it.

- MG

[Forster, Michael]

Mount in an enclosure box or in the basement or other room other than where you sit? I tried a DL360 within a personal office years ago without success - huge fan and whirling sounds at a high pitch that droned out yelling.

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[MG]

On 3-11-2011 2:49, Forster, Michael wrote:
> Mount in an enclosure box or in the basement orother room other
> than where you sit?

I already did that, but it's still quite loud (lesser with the winter
temperatures at the moment, though) and it still dissipates a lot of
heat. Especially in the summer (for my VMS cluster and remote access),
of course, it'll be all the more problematic.

I know nothing about the "Office Friendly" kit, even what people told
me is still very vague to me. I think it would be safe to say that
with less noise and with only one power supply installed, the system
would also dissipate less heat, right?


> I tried aDL360 within a personal office years ago without success -
> huge fan and whirlingsounds at a high pitch that droned out yelling.

Do you mean that the loudness and pitch of that fan would be such that
even yells would be drowned out...? That's unbearably loud then. I'd
say you're lucky if you haven't damaged your hearing in the process.

- MG

[MG]

On 2-11-2011 8:27, Christoph Gartmann wrote:
> As far as I recall it were four fans together with some grids around them.

Do you recall where you ordered your kit from and the price you
approximately paid for it?

- MG

[Christoph Gartmann]

I got the computer already converted to "office-friendly" from HP together with
a box of fans. The told me that I would need these if I ever wanted to revert
the computer to be noisy ;-) But currently I don't know where I left this box
so that I could have a closer look into it :-(

[VAXman-]

http://www.amazon.com/Peltor-H10A-Optime-Over--Earmuff/dp/B00009LI4K/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&sr=8-3


--
VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

All your spirit rack abuses, come to haunt you back by day.
All your Byzantine excuses, given time, given you away.

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

Chris Scheers <ch...@applied-synergy.com> wrote:

(snip)

> The last time I looked into this I was told that it also required
> updated firmware to control the fans and that the firmware was not
> customer installable.

Is it possible to check on this by checking the installed firmware?

Is the firmware flash, or hardware xxPROMs to be replaced?

-- glen

[JF Mezei]

Note that power consumption won't change with the "office friendly" kit.
So the unit would still dissipate the same amount of BTUs. (but perhaps
less air movement but air will exit at higher temperature).

The power supplies have their own fans inside. So pulling one out does
reduce fan noise, but those are not the big noise producers.

Since motherboard power consumption will remain the same, the one
remaining power supply will get hotter since it will handle all the load.


If I look at my Xserve, the firmware controls fan speed and fan speed is
dictated by various temperature sensors on the motherboard.

If you change fans to have less CFM and tolerate higher output
temperature, then perhaps the firmware needsto be updated to reflect
that. (assuming that the IA64 box has variable fan speed controls).

In the case of x86, it has variable power consumption based on CPU load.
Not sure if that IA64 thing has that level of sophistication. The Alpha
doesn't.

[glen herrmannsfeldt]

JF Mezei <jfmezei...@vaxination.ca> wrote:

> Note that power consumption won't change with the "office friendly" kit.
> So the unit would still dissipate the same amount of BTUs. (but perhaps
> less air movement but air will exit at higher temperature).

> The power supplies have their own fans inside. So pulling one out does
> reduce fan noise, but those are not the big noise producers.

> Since motherboard power consumption will remain the same, the one
> remaining power supply will get hotter since it will handle all the load.

One might hope that the power decreases. CMOS naturally uses power
proportional to the switch rate of the transistors. Usually when
the CPU isn't doing much, it takes less power.

> If I look at my Xserve, the firmware controls fan speed and fan
> speed is dictated by various temperature sensors on the motherboard.

> If you change fans to have less CFM and tolerate higher output
> temperature, then perhaps the firmware needsto be updated to reflect
> that. (assuming that the IA64 box has variable fan speed controls).

And assuming the same power dissipation.

> In the case of x86, it has variable power consumption based on CPU load.
> Not sure if that IA64 thing has that level of sophistication. The Alpha
> doesn't.

Well, newer processors actually turn off the clock on blocks that
aren't being used. That makes for much better power savings.
But usually, even without that, there will be some power decrease.
You might not notice so much from heat, though. The disk might
not change much, for example.

-- glen

[MG]

On 3-11-2011 21:12, JF Mezei wrote:
> Note that power consumption won't change with the "office friendly" kit.
> So the unit would still dissipate the same amount of BTUs. (but perhaps
> less air movement but air will exit at higher temperature).

That sure doesn't sound terribly "office friendly" to me.

- MG

[Forster, Michael]

Since when is cubicle life "friendly"? :)

[Dennis Grevenstein]

MG <marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> wrote:other

>
> I already did that, but it's still quite loud (lesser with the winter
> temperatures at the moment, though) and it still dissipates a lot of
> heat. Especially in the summer (for my VMS cluster and remote access),
> of course, it'll be all the more problematic.

If you really plan to run this 24/7 than the 150 USD will be
a fine price. The power bill will be high enough that you
shouldn't care about that. I used to run a zx6000 as a
server. I finally replaced it with a PC and paid for the PC
just with the savings on the next electricity bill. (just one
year). To me, Itanium isn't sinking like the Titanic. It's mostly
burning like the Hindenburg.

> I know nothing about the "Office Friendly" kit, even what people told
> me is still very vague to me. I think it would be safe to say that
> with less noise and with only one power supply installed, the system
> would also dissipate less heat, right?

Not really. The rest of the machine still produces a whole lot
of heat. In the classic rackmount configuration the system is
louder because the fans spin so fast that the machine survives
a full rack of other machines. With the silent fans you can't
rackmount the system as you would expect it from a server.
If you want to save electricity, you could take out a CPU,
but then again, this would also reduce the fun.

One possibilty to deal with the noise, really is wearing
ear protection. I got myself some ear muffs. I have an
rx1600 here which is rated at about 70dB. It's so loud
the dog leaves the room when I turn it on. With the
ear muffs on, I can still hear it, but it's aceptable.

Dennis

--
Nichts begrüßt einen freudiger als ein nasser Hund.
(Werner Koczwara)

[JF Mezei]

glen herrmannsfeldt wrote:

>
> Well, newer processors actually turn off the clock on blocks that
> aren't being used.

But it is not clear to me that this would happen on an IA64 box running
VMS. Can anyone say for sure if there is active power management on
these rx2620s running VMS ? Would power management be enabled by the OS
or something that is firmware driven and independent of the OS ?

[MG]

On 4-11-2011 2:33, Dennis Grevenstein wrote:
> If you really plan to run this 24/7 than the 150 USD will be
> a fine price.

150 EUR, not USD! The price I (was) quoted in USD was 350.


> I used to run a zx6000 as a server. I finallyreplaced it
> with a PC and paid for the PC just with thesavings on the

> next electricity bill. (just one year). To me, Itanium
> isn't sinking like the Titanic. It's mostly burning like
> the Hindenburg.

All of that good fun aside, this just so happens to be the
comp.os.VMS usenet/newsgroup. VMS, as may've occurred to
you, runs on IA-64 and therefore I run IA-64. I also just
so happen to really and actually like VMS and I'm not all
that terribly interested in PC mediocrity. But thanks for
the suggestion though, it was a worthwhile try I guess.

> Not really. The rest of the machine still produces a whole lot
> of heat. In the classic rackmount configuration the system is
> louder because the fans spin so fast that the machine survives
> a full rack of other machines.

In a air-conditioned room or data center, perhaps. During
the summer my rx2620s had difficulty staying up and running
all the time and all all at once (four nodes for periods).

My rx2600s never had that problem. It seems like the non-
"Office Friendly" rx2620s have been 'tuned' differently to
run at far higher default fan speeds.

The type of processor doesn't seem to affect things much
(or at all) either, because I initially had "Madison 9M"
type processors before the "Montecito" types, in case you
were wondering if that should make a difference.

- MG

[MG]

On 4-11-2011 2:33, Dennis Grevenstein wrote:

> If you really plan to run this 24/7 than the 150 USD will
> be a fine price.

150 EUR, not USD! The price I (was) quoted in USD was 350.

> I used to run a zx6000 as a server. I finally replaced

> itwith a PC and paid for the PC just with the savings
> on thenext electricity bill. (just one year). To me,
> Itanium isn'tsinking like the Titanic. It's mostly
> burning like theHindenburg.

The impressive Von Hindenburg may've been burning, but
it's definitely better than to flame, right?

All of that good fun aside, this just so happens to be the
comp.os.VMS usenet/newsgroup. VMS, as may've occurred to
you, runs on IA-64 and therefore I run IA-64. I also just
so happen to really and actually like VMS and I'm not all
that terribly interested in PC mediocrity. But thanks for
the suggestion though, it was a worthwhile try I guess.

> The rest of the machine still produces a whole lot of heat.
> In the classic rackmount configuration the system is louder
> because the fans spin so fast that the machine survives a
> full rack of other machines. With the silent fans you can't
> rackmount the system as you would expect it from a server.
> If you want to save electricity, you could take out a CPU,
> but then again, this would also reduce the fun.

In an air-conditioned room or data center, perhaps. During

[Michael Kraemer]

In article <4eb3c539$0$6898$e4fe...@news2.news.xs4all.nl>, MG

<marc...@SPAMxs4all.nl> writes:

>
> All of that good fun aside, this just so happens to be the
> comp.os.VMS usenet/newsgroup.

Sure?
It could well be that "Windows", "PC", "x86" and other commodity crap
have a higher hit rate than genuine VMS related terms.

> VMS, as may've occurred to
> you, runs on IA-64 and therefore I run IA-64.

It also runs on Alpha workstations which are "office friendly"
by definition. If you must have a server, put it in your basement.

[MG]

On 4-11-2011 12:30, Michael Kraemer wrote:
> Sure?

Yes, quite sure actually.

> It could well be that "Windows", "PC", "x86" and other commodity
> crap have a higher hit rate than genuine VMS related terms.

You wouldn't just happen to know how that came to be? Also, don't
you like that "crap"? Because you sure don't seem to like VMS.

> It also runs on Alpha workstations which are "office friendly"
> by definition. If you must have a server, put it in your basement.

The availability and going prices of Alphas are way out of my league.
Unless someone, or you, could donate one to me?

In fact, I was promised a DS10 through the local VMS SIG, already back
in June, but I haven't been able to get a hold of it yet. (The person
never got back to it either.)

Also, whether I want to run IA-64 or not is none of your business!

- MG

[dit...@dittman.net]

MG <marc...@spamxs4all.nl> wrote:
> My rx2600s never had that problem. It seems like the non-
> "Office Friendly" rx2620s have been 'tuned' differently to
> run at far higher default fan speeds.

I have two rx2620s. One is older and shipped with two
1.6MHz 3MB cache Madison CPUs. The new one shipped with
two 1.4MHz 12MB cache Montecito CPUs. Neither have the
Office Friendly kit installed, but the newer one is much
quieter than the older one. The part numbers for some of
the fans are different but none of them are the same as
the ones in the Office Friendly kit. I've been watching
eBay for the fans with the same part number as the quieter
rx2620 but so far none of them have appeared.

I would buy an Office Friendly kit for one of them if I
didn't need to pay to have it installed. I haven't been
able to verify that it can be installed by the end user.
--
Eric Dittman
dit...@dittman.net

[Michael Moroney]

Is there a way to tell if a particular rx2600 has the office friendly kit?
(firmware version or part # of a fan or something)

I have an rx2600 and it's rather quiet (except when first switched on), so
I assume it does.

[MG]

This thread is about the rx2620 (rx26*20*), not rx2600!

- MG

[dit...@dittman.net]

The rx2600 is much quieter than the stock rx2620.
--
Eric Dittman
dit...@dittman.net