I just purchased and received a Dell PowerEdge 2950 server for my work. This thing is very loud, even after the fans go past the super-loud startup mode. Have servers just gotten louder? I have always had a server in my office, that just hummed along, not *too* much louder than a typical PC. Needless to say, this sever is too loud and must go back. Any suggestions?

Yes, they have over the last few years. It's quite simple, actually.

CPU's have gotten *MUCH* faster, resulting in much higher temperatures, thus needing much more cooling.
At the same time, the cases have gotten *MUCH* smaller with 1U being the norm these days, so there's much less space to work with.

All that has resulted in much louder and more fans as they struggle to keep the CPUs from burning up.

I have a PowerEdge 1850 here in my office for testing but i rarely use it because i can't stand the noise.

Whenever i go to the colo to work on our servers, i now wear ear-plugs. No joke ...
Andy

Maybe what I really need is just a workstation with 2 CPU's.

Are they AMD processors?

They require much more cooling than Intel.

Yes they are louder.

Make sure you have all the dell utilities installed, the fans will run super fast at startup, but they probably default to high speed when windows isn't telling them the temperature is ok and slowing them down. A few HP servers I've installed do that.

The Xeons in the 2950 shouldn't make THAT much heat, I think the highest powered one they slot in there is around 100w.

Yes it is loud! I am listening to one right know. The easiest solution is to listen to loud music! Seriously these rack servers require A/C not just normal room A/C and of course they do not need heating in the winter.

They are not designed to be used in the same room as regular computer users e.g. think computer rooms and data centers.

Regards,

James

Is it the form factor? I read that the 2900 (a tower) is just as loud. I have had servers before, Sun servers, that were loud, but not that loud. Why are PC workstations with Xeon processors not so loud?

My server has variable speed fans. The warmer it is the louder the fan (notice startup speed). The cooler it is the slower/quieter it is.

Regards,

James

I would suggest pulling each fan out and setting it back in again. Our server sounded like it was going to take off and I found out one of the fans was not seated and wouldnt turn on so the others were running at full speed to make up for it. Once I got the fan seated they ran much, much quieter.

Because they're not built to be run at 99% CPU capacity for hours ...

The servers are built to run under high load for hours. And noise isn't really an issue if you have a dedicated server room or rent space in a colo facility.

Andy

I have to agree with Andy. I also have to work in DC's frequently. All servers have gotten louder and require better hearing protection. Why have a poweredge under your desk? Put some of the fun stuff for remote support and park it in a closet somewhere or in a server closet. With the speed of connection these days, no need to park it close to you. Check out some other options. Get an apple and virtualize it. you can run any o/s that you want.

I would recommend the Dell Precision workstations. They are very well built these days and you can get them with dual quads. I have a one-socket model, and I can't hear if it's on or not in a quiet room. Under full load it might get a bit louder, but the modern Xeons make hardly any heat.

So what am I not getting if I went the precision workstation route? They are nice machines, and redundant power supplies are not standard, but an option with the server class machines. So what do I lose by running a nice dual processor Precision workstation as a server?

If you are not pegging out the cpu and not supporting hundreds of concurrent users PROBABLY nothing. Although my 2950 sure keeps the garage warm in the winter!

Regards,

James

Not sure why everybody assumes you are using windows but anyway Sun T1000 or T2000 CMT servers quiet low power and thread eating monsters running Solaris a proper OS

Actually, I am going to run Red Had Enterprise, and host some Windows XP virtual machines, trying out Redhat's built-in virtualization feature.

or a Sun box with Xen server or virtualbox, much better then RH, Linux is not the answer to everythng... but then agaian I am solaris Geek...

I prefer fedora/kubuntu myself but I really like sun's ZFS file system and wish it would make it's way to linux. My biggest problem with sun is their lack of driver support or I'd use it on my servers. I can never get it to recognize hardware like sata interfaces or ethernet cards.

I just build my own servers. A lot of the high end non-server boards work fine. I have a amd phenom quad core and a heavily overclocked intel quad. Both are almost silent because I build them with massive heatsinks and 120mm fan on the heatsink. The loudest noise is when the raid arrays spin up and I've lowered that noise by using rubber washers where the screws go in. There is also the option of watercooling the servers you have but it could void any warranty. The other thing you could do is locate them in a closet (with decent airflow) or make a hush box.

Any commercial servers you buy sound like they have jet turbines in them to make sure they don't overheat and are designed mostly to be in a datacenter server environment where noise isn't an issue