SGI: Hardware

Silencing an O2

bjames
From Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Who joined Nov. 22, 2007, 10:09 a.m.
Wrote the following at April 13, 2009, 5:53 p.m...
I have been reading some posts here about sugestion on silencing an O2. Seems like the two most obvious is to do the following;

1. Replace the power supply fan - Are these common?
2. Install modern drive

Can anyone offer sugestion as tot hard drive would be best? The drive I am using now is a Seagate "Cheetah" 18 gig 10K. Anyone know how this drive compares?
:O2: :Octane: :1600SW:
japes
From Lynnwood, WA
Who joined Nov. 8, 2007, 4:35 p.m.
Wrote the following at April 13, 2009, 6:35 p.m...
bjames wrote: 1. Replace the power supply fan - Are these common?

I don't know if I would bother unless it sounds like it's going bad. If you do replace it, check the specs for the current fan and try to get something close. It's the only fan in the chassis and it needs to keep your hard drive, cpu, motherboard, powersupply and anything else in there cool. (edit: only fan the vents, R10k+ processors have a little fan on the heatsink)

bjames wrote: 2. Install modern drive

absolutely, it's probably the single loudest part of your O2.

bjames wrote: Can anyone offer sugestion as tot hard drive would be best? The drive I am using now is a Seagate "Cheetah" 18 gig 10K. Anyone know how this drive compares?


Unless it's a new new new one, it's probably quite loud.

A quick search for "quiet scsi" brings up this thread you really should read through for your hard drive answers:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16719862
:O3000: :Fuel: :Tezro: :Octane2: :Octane: :Indigo: :Indigo: :Indigo: :O2: :1600SW: :Indigo2: :Indigo2: :Indigo2: :Indigo2IMP: :Indigo2IMP: :Indy: :Indy: <--challenge S
recondas
Moderator
From NC - USA
Who joined June 6, 2004, 5:55 p.m.
Wrote the following at April 13, 2009, 7:36 p.m...
As an indirect follow up to josehill's mention that your drive was thermally recalibrating, I had a first generation Cheetah 10k that recalibrated continually. A firmware update and a drive attached cooling fan/heat sink only helped slightly.

But, just on the odd chance that your drive is thermally recalibrating because it's in too warm of an environment , you might want to carefully consider whether or not you want to mess with the cooling fan.

As SGI systems go, the O2 is known as a relatively quiet platform. You might try just the drive to see if that resolves the noise issue to within your tolerance level.
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bjames
From Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Who joined Nov. 22, 2007, 10:09 a.m.
Wrote the following at April 14, 2009, 10:31 a.m...
Silencing the drive is more important to me than the fan. Right now the drive is really anoying. Its like a constant reminder of how slow the machine really is ;) as it sounds like the old x486 computers.
:O2: :Octane: :1600SW:
jade_angel
From Richmond, VA, USA
Who joined May 27, 2007, 3:26 p.m.
Wrote the following at April 16, 2009, 2:50 p.m...
Some of the newer Fujitsu and Seagate 10k and 15k units really aren't very loud. Their seeks are a little louder than the 7200RPM SATA units I've got, but not bad at all.