HDX card fan

[Roger Stauss]

Hello,

Is there a way to control the HDX fan?

I installed a 2nd SSD in the Sonnet PCI express xMAC server, and while everything is venting nicely, the HDX card fan begins to whine about 5 minutes into the session.

Removed the SSD, and the fan still activates. I'm working at 32bit, 48k, average plug-ins and 39 tracks.

The only other change beside the SSD install was an upgrade to WSControl 3.6.1.80 from 3.6.0

Is the fan on the card an exhaust fan?

Any fan based advice is welcome...

Thanks.
Roger
PT HDx v12.7.1

[TNM]

oh thanks for the heads up.. the HDX card being fanned has just killed the idea for me..

Sorry to hear of your problems..

Are you pc or mac?

On mac you can get around it i guess by buying an external thunderbolt chassis for the cards and just putting them in another room. But you'd also need really long digilink cables to get to your interfaces then or somehow thread them through the wall.

I presume you have a tower mac pro or PC, where all your pcie cards and ssd are together on the main motherboard, so putting it in another room is impractical?

If it's one thing I can't stand it's fan noise or vibrations.

The other option you could look into is an iso box. We had one made when we had a pro tools tdm mix 17 years back, it worked! Kept the hoover G3 and the expansions quiet.

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by Roger Stauss

Hello,

Is there a way to control the HDX fan?

I installed a 2nd SSD in the Sonnet PCI express xMAC server, and while everything is venting nicely, the HDX card fan begins to whine about 5 minutes into the session.

Removed the SSD, and the fan still activates. I'm working at 32bit, 48k, average plug-ins and 39 tracks.

The only other change beside the SSD install was an upgrade to WSControl 3.6.1.80 from 3.6.0

Is the fan on the card an exhaust fan?

Any fan based advice is welcome...

Thanks.
Roger
PT HDx v12.7.1

You're talking about the xMac Pro Server that also houses the Mac right?

There is obviously a fan on the HDX card but before that triggers, (I'm pretty sure it's a temperature sensitive,) the two fans in the PCIe expansion bay usually kick in.

You mention having a second SSD drive installed. If that means you have the Sonnet drive expansion bay installed then that things is as noisy as hell! If not the drive expansion bay, how have you got the second as SSD installed?

[Roger Stauss]

I'm using the Sonnet Mac pro server that houses the expansion chassis as well as the Mac Pro (trash can style). The server chassis is well ventilated with quiet (not silent) fans. I have 1 HDX card and 1 Sonnet card with 2 SSD's.

After some testing:

The 2nd SSD is not creating heat to trigger the HDX fan. It's the 30+ track count for my current project, working at 32bit, 48k. Another 32bit project with 25 tracks, including busses and aux inputs does not heat up the card enough to trigger the HDX fan.

Avid support confirmed that the HDX card fan is an exhaust fan. I'm installing a couple extra "Silent" fans in the rack to help vent the server.

As a test I removed the face plate of the sonnet server and ran a large quiet fan blowing into the front of the server. The HDX card stayed cool.

Here's the model fan I'll use...maybe: PROCOOL AV-280T - Two Fan Cabinet cooling system - Silent 17 dBA at 64 CFM Airflow

I hate fans in the mix room too. I'm also looking into moving the whole thing into a quiet corner...I'll let you know how the new fans work out.

Thanks for help.
Roger

[Hugh-H]

Hello Roger,

Good to hear from you, glad you're doing whatever it is you're doing. How are those enormous bovines doing?

Looks like you figured it out, those HDX fans are loud. Interestingly different iterations of the HDX cards have different thermal thresholds for turning the fan on. They also do not do any temperature dependent PWM of the fan, just on or off. And LOUD.

We have perhaps 10 HDX cards in various systems and my experience indicates approximately two different fan thermal thresholds. Several years ago when particularly annoyed at the fans I did a thermal scan of every chip on the HDX card below and above the fan turn-on threshold and the simple matter is that the threshold is set too low for certain cards. They don't turn on because the card is too hot, they turn on because the human-programmed parameters are incorrect. I know the thermal parameters of every chip on that board so I can say that with a small bit of confidence. As you figured out extra cooling helps.

Good luck and hope to see you again sometime,
Hugh

[Marsdy]

Originally Posted by Roger Stauss

I'm using the Sonnet Mac pro server that houses the expansion chassis as well as the Mac Pro (trash can style). The server chassis is well ventilated with quiet (not silent) fans. I have 1 HDX card and 1 Sonnet card with 2 SSD's.

After some testing:

The 2nd SSD is not creating heat to trigger the HDX fan. It's the 30+ track count for my current project, working at 32bit, 48k. Another 32bit project with 25 tracks, including busses and aux inputs does not heat up the card enough to trigger the HDX fan.

Avid support confirmed that the HDX card fan is an exhaust fan. I'm installing a couple extra "Silent" fans in the rack to help vent the server.

As a test I removed the face plate of the sonnet server and ran a large quiet fan blowing into the front of the server. The HDX card stayed cool.

Here's the model fan I'll use...maybe: PROCOOL AV-280T - Two Fan Cabinet cooling system - Silent 17 dBA at 64 CFM Airflow

I hate fans in the mix room too. I'm also looking into moving the whole thing into a quiet corner...I'll let you know how the new fans work out.

Thanks for help.
Roger

Yes please post back. My HDX card's default mode is for the fans to be on! In my case it's simply the presence of VE Pro instances in a session that sets off the fan.

[Roger Stauss]

Originally Posted by Hugh-H

Hello Roger,

Good to hear from you, glad you're doing whatever it is you're doing. How are those enormous bovines doing?

Looks like you figured it out, those HDX fans are loud. Interestingly different iterations of the HDX cards have different thermal thresholds for turning the fan on. They also do not do any temperature dependent PWM of the fan, just on or off. And LOUD.

We have perhaps 10 HDX cards in various systems and my experience indicates approximately two different fan thermal thresholds. Several years ago when particularly annoyed at the fans I did a thermal scan of every chip on the HDX card below and above the fan turn-on threshold and the simple matter is that the threshold is set too low for certain cards. They don't turn on because the card is too hot, they turn on because the human-programmed parameters are incorrect. I know the thermal parameters of every chip on that board so I can say that with a small bit of confidence. As you figured out extra cooling helps.

Good luck and hope to see you again sometime,
Hugh

Oh Man! Great to hear from you. And thank you for the HDX insights. I added two, ProCool silent fans, to vent air out the back of the server rack and that's helping so far. And those little fans, noted in a link in this post, are very very quiet. I can run a large session now for at least 4 hours without the HDX fan spinning. I do have a plan to move the rack...
Please keep in touch!

[Roger Stauss]

I'm moving the sever. Extra cooling, as Hugh noted, seemed like a good idea, but even with extra air flow HDX card fan comes alive sooner on some of the sessions.

Hugh, the Bovines are reproducing.

Thanks,
R

[propower]

When I had HDX I made a DIY ISO-Box for the Sonnet Echo III-D and the HDX card. Even with small loads HDX fan on ~5 minutes in and never turns off. Even the Sonnet chassis alone was too much for me.

[Roger Stauss]

Update: I have found that adding a 37th track, with all 10 sends assigned to the interface's outputs, (Aviom Headphone Sends) the Fan comes on in less that 5 minutes. Deactivate and hide the track, no HDX fan...

Roger