PCA Forums

I bought this server board because it was cheap:
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=SE7520BD2-K1-R
I was going to use this new board to replace my very old Asus PT4 which is 13 years old (recently had a CPU fail).

I received it today and it won't fit in my large case LOL. See attached pictures. I have a tray that slides out and I was able to install the mobo on it with no problems, but the design has the CPU's on the other side of the board so now I can't use the existing mounts for my SCSI hard drives.






As you can see, I can't slide the tray back in all the way since the heat sinks will hit the drives. I can put spacers on the tray to prevent it from sliding in all the way, but I was curious if you guys have any other suggestions.

Also, there are no settings in the BIOS to lower the fan CPU speed. They both run a full speed and it does not have to be full speed. Any options here for something that be adjustable?

Can you mount the HDD in the bays above with some 3.5"->5.25" adapters + longer SCSI cables where your optical drives are now? As far as the fans are concerns you could use some in line manual variable speed controllers. I think they were called fan mates and were sometimes packaged with zalman HSF. I'll look in my parts drawer to see if I have any left or something similar.

Yeah, I'm with DaMaN on this one. Move them up to the 5.25" bays if you can. Servers don't really need CD drives anyhow after setup. Another option is pulling the screws on the hard drives & moving them as far forward as possible & drilling new holes for the drives. In my case, I actually rotated the drive mounting cage sideways for this very reason.

Simple fix for the fans is to rewire them to wire them in SERIES on the 12 volt line (usually yellow) from one of the spare hard drive power connectors. This will run them each at half voltage (6 volts) which should still provide adequate airflow but greatly reduced RPMs. Just make sure the server is not configured to fail to boot if it doesn't detect the fan's RPM.

Some kind of variable speed controller would give you more control but cost some money.

Another option is to replace the fans with super quiet fans. I LOVE the Nexus fans. VERY efficient & VERY quiet. I use them in all my Media Center PCs. That way you don't reduce the airflow (these are actually more efficient than most standard fans) but greatly reduce the noise:

http://www.coolerguys.com/840556054054.html

BTW: Are those SCSI drives worth using? They look like antiques. I see the mobo has a couple of SATA ports.

Oh yeah, I forgot the fan suggestion. The cheap fix is to move the negative wire (should be black) to one of the red wires on the power supply. That'll give you 7v on the fans. But anymore, I use the Fanmates too.

Pretty reasonable pricing IMO:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Zalman-FAN-MATE-2-F ... 0524648207

Never been a big fan of using the 5 volt line as a return for the 12 volt line. Yeah it works, and a well designed PSU shouldn't have a problem with it, but electrically it's really a no-no and depending on the design of the PSU could introduce noise to the rails.

That's why I prefer connecting the fans in series on the 12 volt line. Trouble is some fans won't spin reliably at 6 volts.

That Fanmate controller is a pretty good deal for the price and probably the best solution.

Sorry Executioner, I have no more Fan-Mates in my parts bin.

Personally I've never had an issue with the 7v trick & the threads I was subscribed to never had a complaint, but it's possible to have an issue. The nice thing about the 7v trick is that most fans will spin up with that voltage where 6v is questionable. You could also just grab a 1/2w 11-22 ohm resistor & splice it in on one of the wires to give about 10v-8v to the fan.

he just needs a flux cappacitor..

FlyingPenguin wrote:BTW: Are those SCSI drives worth using? They look like antiques. I see the mobo has a couple of SATA ports.

Yeah they are 320 SCSI drives that I had laying around. I plan to use them with a 64 bit card as a RAID 0 boot drive. I know that most people don't use SCSI anymore, but these are great drives, and I hate having them sit with no use.

Thanks for all the suggestions.

normalicy wrote:Oh yeah, I forgot the fan suggestion. The cheap fix is to move the negative wire (should be black) to one of the red wires on the power supply. That'll give you 7v on the fans. But anymore, I use the Fanmates too.

Pretty reasonable pricing IMO:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Zalman-FAN-MATE-2-F ... 0524648207

I found the Fan-Mates on the Egg for just slightly more that dealing with ebay:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835118217

Yeah, I'm with DaMaN on this one. Move them up to the 5.25" bays if you can. Servers don't really need CD drives anyhow after setup. Another option is pulling the screws on the hard drives & moving them as far forward as possible & drilling new holes for the drives. In my case, I actually rotated the drive mounting cage sideways for this very reason.

I plan on having 2 SCSI Plextor CD drives (remember those)? These were great for ripping music. I also plan to have a DVD drive as well.
Looks like I need to modify the case by cutting a larger hole in the front so I'm able to move them another couple of inches, but mounting the drive bay the other direction might work also. Thanks for the tip.

Meh. It's a server. Let the mobo hang out the back.

I know how Exec feels, I'd spend 3 days on something unnecessary just because it's not right.

Honestly, I'd dump the CD-R drives. I loved the Plextors too, but how much CD recording do you do anymore?

I actually have some SCSI 320 drives too & with 3 drives in RAID-0, you can manage 200mb/s with the 10,000rpm ones. I've actually got about 10 that I may try for speed some day. They were my boot drive for a while till I just ran out of drive bays for my RAID setup (Not to mention, my SCSI cable wasn't as pretty as my UV SATA cables).

Mine are @15,000 rpm. Suckers run very hot so each one has a driver cooler underneath.
I don't mind having the Plextors installed since I have plenty of drive bays in this old InWin case.

I'll be posting pictures. I was able, with some modifications, install the drive tray right above the power supply. I had to cut about 1 inch from the drive tray, but I did get the drives installed so it looks like it all fits so far.

Oh, the 10,000rpm ones run mighty hot too (hot enough to hurt). Another part of why I pulled them out. I'm thinking that if I go to use them again that I'll make an external enclosure for them. They were surprisingly quiet though.

Good idea on putting them above the PSU. Heck, you could mount a fan there as a bonus.