Hi, 2 months ago I have bought a fanless computer with an A8N SLI Deluxe board. Normally this board has a chipset fan built in. The hardware vendor exchanges this fan by a big heat sink to provide a really fanless system. Now I have shredded the second board within 2 months. The computer works excellent over about 3 weeks. The last uptime was 22 days. Then I get errors on the 3 sata disks. The disks themselves are ok. Last time we have changed the board and all problems were gone. I suspect the exchanged chipset fan to be the problem. The hardware vendor assures there weren't any problems with the modified board so far. He claims linux is the culprit. But I think the chip runs somewhere on it's temperature limit and after a half-live of 22 days it decays. Who is right? Are there any similar problems known? Torsten Förtsch
I built a system with the same motherboard, with normal fans. Its been running linux over 2 months now with no hardware problems. Sounds like a chipset cooling problem as you suspect. John On Thursday 12 May 2005 16:41, Torsten Foertsch wrote:
Hi,
2 months ago I have bought a fanless computer with an A8N SLI Deluxe board. Normally this board has a chipset fan built in. The hardware vendor exchanges this fan by a big heat sink to provide a really fanless system.
Now I have shredded the second board within 2 months. The computer works excellent over about 3 weeks. The last uptime was 22 days. Then I get errors on the 3 sata disks. The disks themselves are ok. Last time we have changed the board and all problems were gone.
I suspect the exchanged chipset fan to be the problem. The hardware vendor assures there weren't any problems with the modified board so far. He claims linux is the culprit. But I think the chip runs somewhere on it's temperature limit and after a half-live of 22 days it decays.
Who is right?
Are there any similar problems known?
Torsten Förtsch
-- John Storrs, Laboratory for Micro Enterprise, 8 The Green, Culham OX14 4LZ
Ditto here - I have this motherboard in a system with fans galore (CoolerMaster CMS stacker case) and have had no heat-related issues whatsoever. Getting Suse to recognize all SATA devices is another matter, however... On Friday 20 May 2005 9:47 am, John Storrs wrote:
I built a system with the same motherboard, with normal fans. Its been running linux over 2 months now with no hardware problems. Sounds like a chipset cooling problem as you suspect.
John
On Thursday 12 May 2005 16:41, Torsten Foertsch wrote:
Hi,
2 months ago I have bought a fanless computer with an A8N SLI Deluxe board. Normally this board has a chipset fan built in. The hardware vendor exchanges this fan by a big heat sink to provide a really fanless system.
Now I have shredded the second board within 2 months. The computer works excellent over about 3 weeks. The last uptime was 22 days. Then I get errors on the 3 sata disks. The disks themselves are ok. Last time we have changed the board and all problems were gone.
I suspect the exchanged chipset fan to be the problem. The hardware vendor assures there weren't any problems with the modified board so far. He claims linux is the culprit. But I think the chip runs somewhere on it's temperature limit and after a half-live of 22 days it decays.
Who is right?
Are there any similar problems known?
Torsten Förtsch
-- John Storrs, Laboratory for Micro Enterprise, 8 The Green, Culham OX14 4LZ
* Torsten Foertsch (torsten.foertsch@gmx.net) [20050512 17:41]:
I suspect the exchanged chipset fan to be the problem. The hardware vendor assures there weren't any problems with the modified board so far. He claims linux is the culprit.
Linux can't be the culprit. Linux possibly stresses the hardware more then Windows and that additional stress is too much for the system.
But I think the chip runs somewhere on it's temperature limit and after a half-live of 22 days it decays.
Note that it's really hard to create a fanless *and* performant system.
I'm very sure it's the heatsink on the southbridge that's to blame. There's
a reason why the nf4 southbridge is cooled either by water or by heat pipe if it
has to be fanless. One possibility I've seen and am going to try out is
using the Aerocool VM-101 VGA-Heatpipe cooler to replace the noisy chipset
fan. The only problem will be bending the heatpipes as this is a bit tricky.
See
http://www.nethands.de/athlon/anzeige/show_pic.php4?cat=motherboard&id=2&uid=37406&sysno=1
for what I'm going to try.
Philipp
--
Philipp Thomas
We have a lab of 9 of these computers, and aside from 1 DOA
motherboard, they have been operating fine under high load for quite
some time. Running 9.3...
On 5/13/05, Philipp Thomas
* Torsten Foertsch (torsten.foertsch@gmx.net) [20050512 17:41]:
I suspect the exchanged chipset fan to be the problem. The hardware vendor assures there weren't any problems with the modified board so far. He claims linux is the culprit.
Linux can't be the culprit. Linux possibly stresses the hardware more then Windows and that additional stress is too much for the system.
But I think the chip runs somewhere on it's temperature limit and after a half-live of 22 days it decays.
Note that it's really hard to create a fanless *and* performant system.
I'm very sure it's the heatsink on the southbridge that's to blame. There's a reason why the nf4 southbridge is cooled either by water or by heat pipe if it has to be fanless. One possibility I've seen and am going to try out is using the Aerocool VM-101 VGA-Heatpipe cooler to replace the noisy chipset fan. The only problem will be bending the heatpipes as this is a bit tricky.
See http://www.nethands.de/athlon/anzeige/show_pic.php4?cat=motherboard&id=2&uid=37406&sysno=1 for what I'm going to try.
Philipp
-- Philipp Thomas
Research & Development SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, Maxfeldstr. 5, D-90409 Nuremberg, Germany -- Check the List-Unsubscribe header to unsubscribe For additional commands, email: suse-amd64-help@suse.com
On Fri, 13 May 2005, Philipp Thomas wrote:
* Torsten Foertsch (torsten.foertsch@gmx.net) [20050512 17:41]:
I suspect the exchanged chipset fan to be the problem. The hardware vendor assures there weren't any problems with the modified board so far. He claims linux is the culprit.
Linux can't be the culprit. Linux possibly stresses the hardware more then Windows and that additional stress is too much for the system.
Installing SuSE, in particular over a faster medium than CD/DVD, is among the most stressful things I ever do to a a computer. I have at times been forced to send SuSE CDs and detailed instructions to vendors so that they'll be able to trigger a problem NOTHING else will trigger. Which still doesn't make SuSE the culprit, a machine I can't install an OS on is broken and needs fixing - often it's been a case of too poor cooling and the combined CPU, disk, and network activity of a SuSE network install triggers it. More or less what Philipp is saying is likelty to be the problem here. Bjørn -- Bjørn Tore Sund Phone: (+47) 555-84894 Stupidity is like a System administrator Fax: (+47) 555-89672 fractal; universal and Math. Department Mobile: (+47) 918 68075 infinitely repetitive. University of Bergen VIP: 81724 Support: system@mi.uib.no Contact: teknisk@mi.uib.no Direct: bjornts@mi.uib.no
participants (6)
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Barrett Abel
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Bjorn Tore Sund
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John D. Jegla
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John Storrs
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Philipp Thomas
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Torsten Foertsch