Dynatron A6 fan problem.

Couple of quick questions. Came in to the office this morning and found, as you can see below, one of the fans on a Dynatron had died. Machine is the 4P IL 6272 and it was running full bore all fans and I did a reset to shut it off. Looking at the log, it had been like this for ~12 hours. Let it cool down and restarted with the Antec case fan in place. Everything seems to be running fine. Left the case open on the side, let it fold 100% load for 20 minutes, and checked the HS to the touch. It is warm, not hot. Looking at the specs for the Antec it runs at 2600 RPM, which is what the normal Dynatron runs at 50% load. Any problems with running it like this until I can get a replacement fan? What would be a good fan for replacement? Should I just get a whole new Dynatron A6 unit? Thanks.

Isn't the rest of the Dynatron A6 mostly a solid metal HS, with fins? Hard to imagine that the HS would be damaged.

I'd just get a new fan for it, being careful to get a fan of equal or greater CFM, and PWM controlled. For original equipment fans, you may need to go to a server supplier dealer, if the regular retailers don't have it.

I'd worry that the Antec case fan has a sleeve bearing and will wear out very quickly. That has been my experience with Antec fans in general, I don't think I have a single Antec fan left in an Antec case.

THe Antec fans does about 34 CFM @ 100%, about 60% what the dynatron does at 100%. The egg only has a few fans 80 mm fans that do over 50 CFM, but any of them would be a cheap permanent fix. There's not much advantage to having PWM control on a fan that's going to be running flat out all the time anyway, as on a folding rig.

The PWM fans on my folders, definitely slow down whenever the ambient air cools.

No. The HS is fine, no damage. But since the fan is 77mm I don't think I will be able to find a suitable "drop in" replacement quite readily. May be easiest to just order a whole new unit and just take the fan off as a replacement. The 80mm Antec is simply a "quick fix" to allow the current unit to finish until I can find a permanent fix. Just wanted to be sure it won't hurt the CPU in the interim.

You might try contacting Dynatron, they have an office in Fremont, CA.
Details at:
http://www.dynatron-corp.com/en/service.aspx

I looked but could not find a 77x77 mm fan for it, at any retailer. With several of these A6 units, it seems like you'd need a few spare fans, surely.

You don't need a Dynatron odd-size fan. What you do need is a high static pressure fan. 80mm will do just fine. CFM rating alone is not good enough. Look for 80mm with higher static pressure. If you have a bunch of fans in the parts bin, look for fans with a very steep fin pitch. Those will usually be higher pressure. The reason I'm harping on pressure is that those Dynatrons have a very dense vane configuration. A high volume of air, at low pressure, might just blow over the top of the sinks without penetrating.

I substituted high pressure 80mm fans for the stock Dynatron fans and retained the same cooling capacity, but lost the gawdawful jet engine whine. If you do go with the 80mm option, you'll need to drill new mounting holes in the heatsinks' cowlings, or use machine springs to secure the fans.

Do you know what temperature the affected CPU cores are running at with the case fan?

Leonardo said:

Do you know what temperature the affected CPU cores are running at with the case fan?

Click to expand...

I'm curious too... lm-sensors only shows me a temperature per "node" (6 cores) on my MC chips. Been meaning to ask what everyone else is seeing using lm-sensors.

I only get node temperatures as well. So, Mac, what are your CPUs' node temperatures?

That binder clip seems to be doing the job in holding that fan in place....

It's up to you... either cut up the fan bracket of the heatsink so that an 80mm fan fits on nicely or buy another dynatron heatsink.

Heck, you should be able to RMA the heatsink/fan back to Dynatron.

I was looking at some Noctua heatsink/fans on Newegg - I had no idea Noctua had so many different models.

Anyway, one of them had little "extender" tabs, to allow a larger fan, to fit onto a heatsink that was designed for a smaller fan. Just a straight strip of material (I would use durable plastic or metal), with a hole on each end of it.

Hole #1 has the screw going into the heatsink, and anchors the tab down. Hole #2 on the other end of the tab, has the screw going into the fan.

The advantage is that you don't have to drill and tap anything - just build or buy a little strip to use as your extender tabs, (balancing the fan out using 4 tabs would probably be best), and now your 77mm heatsink will easily hold an 80mm fan (or larger, if you want). If you build your own (easy to do), you'll need to drill 2 holes for each tab, but no tapping needed.

And there's your smart idea of the day, thanks to Noctua.