I have a few server PCs and find their fans too noisy. I want to remove them and put in some of my own fans that are very quiet. However, low and behold the motherboard shuts down when I remove its internal fan. This is because the motherboard actually reads an RPM signal from the fan and shuts down when it doesn 't see it. I am looking for a RPM circuit that can fake this kind of signal. I figure its a ON-OFF-ON-OFF type of signal that gets fed into the motherboard. Does anyone know of any website or links that has this type of simple circuitry.
Before I replaced it completely, my previous machine lost a case fan. It was a three-wire RPM output type.
I found a setting in the BIOS that allowed me to shut off the RPM sensing so I could use a two-wire fan.
...Jim Thompson
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| James E.Thompson, P.E. | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC\'s and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona Voice:(480)460-2350 | |
| E-mail Address at Website Fax:(480)460-2142 | Brass Rat |
| http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
The computer I am running is a Compaq Proliant 3000 server class computer, inside are 2 extremely noisy computer fans + the one in the power supply. So 3 noisy fans. Its like you have a vacuum cleaner going at maximum speed. So far I have not found the key switch to allow me into the bios to check this enable/disable mechanism. I am assuming it can't be disable.
PS: Wow Compaq engineers are so smart, I guess that's why they merge with HP. That's right, design machines that once retired from service must be landfilled instead of being put to good use by some good people.
as another poster said this feature is usualy enabled/diasbled in the bios setup, ive replaced several fans in my system with very quiet ones but they have fan speed sense signals.
the suposedly quiet antec psu i have has 2 fans on it, one on outside and one on the inside, however there is a seperate set of holes that has no fan so i put a third fan on this, this meant when the cpu was using 100% it no longer needed to speed up its fans and so remains quiet, handy it has a fan conector.
i also managed to modify one fan ages ago so it had a speed sensor just by adding 2 diodes conected to the coil drive.
you could always add an extra quiet fan with sense signal and put it somewhere usefull and use this, or i suspect you would be able to use the sense signal of one fan and conected it to more than one input.
- i gues this is what they call 'fan out' heh
quiet fans usualy move less air ... i would hope this isnt a server thats relied upon 100% of the time.
"Joseph" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
Why not go back to the source. On
formatting link
you can search for - and find - (almost) all the doc you need. The manual part
formatting link
shows the switches you need to use for changing configuration and wiping the CMOS-data. Other chapters of the manual, diagnostic tools and packs are also available, for free. If all that fails you can simply ask a question and get an answer by e-mail. That's to say I always got one so far.
On all Compaq machines, you get into the BIOS by hitting F10 when you see the blinking square at the top right of the screen during powerup.
Also, your BIOS is on a hard disk partition, not on the motherboard. Get yourself a Compaq SmartStart CD on eBay so you can restore it. It doesn't matter what version of smartStart; the newer ones handle newer servers but the files for tthe old servers stay the same.
BTW, you are correct about there being no way to disable the fans. The machine will overheat very quickly without them. A fan that makes less noise will work, but you really should get a three-wire fan with a tach. You do NOT want a compaq server to keep running after a fan failure; it will overheat and may never work again.
Your Dell doesn't have quad Xeon processors, eight hot-plug SCSI drives in a RAID array, dual redundant hot-plug power supplies, or seamless switchover to a backup system upon hardwatre failure.
The BIOS is still in ROM/FLASH. The setup program and some sort of diagnostic tool lives on a disk partition. Hitting F10 at boot time just redirects to the bootsector of the Compaq partition. It loads something which looks suspiciously like Windows 3.1.
The problem is that you don't know the difference between a BIOS and a bootloader.
Yes, it is true that BIOS's made by Pheonix and Award contain bootloaders, but that doesn't make them the same thing.
Compaq systems (the real ones made by the real Compaq - I don't know about the ones sins HP ate Compaq) have a BIOS thatis seperate from and loaded by the bootloader.
One could argue that we are simply using different terms for the same thing, but in my opinion I am using the correct terminology and you are not. The term "BIOS" was defined by the OS that invented the first BIOS - CP/M. CP/M had the BIOS on the floppy with a bootloader in ROM. Compaq followed this pattern, IBM did not (they put the BIOS in ROM), and most manufactures followed IBMs lead.
The idea of a bootloader existed long before either CP/M or it's BIOS were invented. It was originally toggled in to core memory using front panel switches, and it gave the ability to fire up the paper tape reader and to start loading the data on the paper tape into core. (RAM came along and replaced core later).
You should be careful about calling correct information "an obvious mistake."
I am using the correct terminology and you are making a mistake. Yours is a common error among those who have never used a computer other than PC clone.
The program that runs first is called a bootloader, not a BIOS. See [
formatting link
]. The confusion came when IBM combined a bootloader and part of a BIOS and put them in the ROM of the original IBM PC and called it a "BIOS." (The entire BIOS didn't fit, so part of it was put in the file io.sys).
Bootloaders existed long before either CP/M and it's BIOS were invented. The term comes from the term "bootstrapping" which goes back to the pre-computer phrase "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps." See [
formatting link
].
A bootloader can be in Flash, ROM, RAM, core, or even hardware.
The first computer booted from a hardware plugboard. See [
formatting link
]. It had no BIOS because BIOSs (and operating systems!) had not been invented yet.
The early DEC PDP series booted from a bootloader in core or RAM that was loaded one location at a time from the front panel. See [
formatting link
]. By this time operating systems existed, but BIOSs were yet to be invented.
The DEC first stage bootloader was originally toggled in to core or RAM memory using front panel switches, and it gave the ability to fire up the paper tape reader and to start loading the second stage bootloader the paper tape, mag tape, or disk. Going directly to tape/disk involved a cumbersome process of setting up a boot block, so most users used paper tape for the second stage bootloader. (There was also a hardware bootloader that was a bunch of discrete diodes on a PCB - essentially a ROM - but it was rare. The term "BIOS" is defined by the OS that invented the first BIOS - CP/M. CP/M had the BIOS on the floppy with a bootloader in ROM. Compaq followed this pattern, IBM did not (they put the BIOS in ROM with the bootloader), and most manufacturers followed IBM's lead.
Apple correctly calls their bootloader in ROM "Firmware" instead of the incorrect "BIOS." (The correct term for a PC would be "bootloader and BIOS", but that horse is out of the barn already). See [
formatting link
]
The next time you think someone is wrong, I suggest a gentle "I thought that X was true, was I mistaken?". If it turns out that a mistake was made you can always escalate to flaming whoever made the mistake, but if you start out with an insulting tone it becomes quite embarassing for you when it turns out that it was you who made the error.
I may be wrong, but AFAIK the BIOS is the "Basic I/O System" and traditionally offers some rudimentary drivers (floppy, hdd, keyboard, etc.) which are accessible via software interrupts. The first PCs even had a BASIC interpreter in int15.
The bootloader makes use of int13 disk services to get at the bootsector. In DOS, the filesystem is based on int13 functions.
Nobody uses the (real-mode-only) disk services any more, but other functions have protected mode support. The Linux ACPI driver, for instance, is just an interface to a BIOS driver.
I understand a bootloader to be a piece of code which sets up the memory timing, initialises a few devices and loads the OS. In particular, a bootloader isn't used after the OS starts. The PC BIOS has all kinds of useful functionality which is still used by most OSes at runtime.
The Compaq setup utility is not a BIOS. No code from the Compaq partition ever runs unless you hit F10 at boot time. I would clasify it as an application instead, which allows you to set a few flags in the NVRAM for the Bootloader/BIOS to use on the next boot.
I doubt it, but my experience stops with the PDP-8. As soon as smaller machines were available for embedded systems, I made the switch.
I can still toggle in the first-stage bootloader from memory. We used to race each other.
Common usage has certainly changed, but there are still many folks like me who use CP/M on a daily basis, and tend to use the original definition. Not always, though; I myself used the common usage when I called the Compaq Diagnostics and Setup Partition a "BIOS"; the part that does the setting up is part of "BIOS" as redefined by IBM, Pheonix, and Award, but in CP/M it would be considered a utility. Then there is Linux, where the usual way of changing a configuration is to edit a textfile rather than running a program - but x86 Linux runs on machines that have a IBM/Pheonix/Etc. "BIOS". Interestingly, good old DOS uses the BIOS to run but Linux/BSD/OS X and Win NT/2K/XP only use it as a bootloader.
lower Fan speeds by inserting some diodes serially to + (red supply line) or replace them with 3-wire silent ones; you can find certain schematics under electronics on my site ... (there´s also a circuit for 2-wire fans to show RPMs ...
--
Regards , SPAJKY ®
mail addr. @ my site @ http://www.spajky.vze.com
3rd Ann.: - "Tualatin OC-ed / BX-Slot1 / inaudible setup!"
Sorry, I meant to be a bit less up myself when I started, with an "I could be wrong", but I did a couple of re-writes before firing it out and it lost it's saving graces.
So, humble pie in mouth, (by the way, nice history!) are "all" DEC servers like that? We run a few and I didn't think that was the case. Mind you, on reflection, if only one drive goes then the redundancy (at least should) take care of that. I don't think we've had to even go to the install CD for recovery.
I have vague recollections of salivating while 'helping' out the computer tech back in college and finally being allowed to fire up the PDP-8. Ah, the toggle switches. To be able to do that was to be a true geek. Which didn't matter as there were only guys on campus anyway!
Would you consider that the definition of 'BIOS' has changed over the years to refer to the firmware that the CPU uses to boot up from, rather than the boot sector code itself?
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