TP-Link SX-3016F fan modification

TechMinerUK

TechMinerUK

TechMinerUK

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Hi all,

Hoping someone may be able to help me as I've made a bit of a blunder recently with a purchase.

Currently for my network I have a TL-3800F which is a great bit of kit, 8x 10 Gbit SFP+ ports and it's fanless, I use it for my NAS and servers which use DAC cables and a couple of SFP fibre connections to the main switch in the house.

Because I'm slowly moving everything over to 10 Gbit thats "Core" in the house such as backup servers etc I decided to take a punt on the TL-3016F. Unfortunately it never clicked for me to check if the unit had a fan let alone if it was a loud fan.

Fast forward to yesterday when I installed it and realised whilst it isn't loud it does have an annoying whine which would probably be fine in a network cabinet but in the home office is definitely audible and it has a weird resonance to it.

So, because of where I bought it from I'm a bit stuck as I can't send it back and for all intents and purposes it works exactly as intended, I just jumped the gun on the purchase. So I was thinking of the following options:

  • Sell the switch, take the hit and get 2x TL-3008F for the planned usage and just accept it will need more space and uplinks
  • Dismantle the unit and install a Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX as a replacement fan
I've seen online that some people who have had the TL-3008 have done a fan swap however those are considerably hotter units since they are copper RJ45 10G ports which spit out quite a lot of heat. Checking the 3016F it definitely doesn't appear to be getting hot with the DACs or fibre cables however I'm a bit concerned that swapping the fan may lead it to cooking itself which wouldn't be ideal considering it has stuff hooked up to it using iSCSI

Any ideas or comments would be appreciated :)
 
Right, in-case anyone comes across this in the future and has a similar idea my experience so far is as follows:
  • Other fans can be used in the switch however you have to swap the ground and "signal" (tachometer) wires as the pinout from the switch fan header is not normal
  • The Noctua NF-A4x20 fan whilst quiet doesn't have anywhere near the air-flow of the fan included with the switch unless run at full RPM (Which there isn't an option to do from within the switch management)
  • The Arctic S4028-6K fan can also be used and does have closer to the air-flow of the standard fan however the noise difference between it and the standard fan is only noticeable at higher RPMs
  • If you have a low RPM/noise reducer adapter if you add that onto the existing fan (The Noctua SRC-10 works but the SRC-12 doesn't) then it makes the RPM much more palletable without reducing air-flow too much
So, from testing so far I would not be comfortable replacing the fan with the Noctua or the Antec, both show up with a "Fan error" warning after pro-longed use. The error comes and goes but clearly the switch isn't happy with the readings back from the fans (I assume down to the low RPM nature of them)

That being said, with the use of some foam pads and gaskets I have fashioned some little "rings" to go around the screw holes on the fans and to go inbetween the fan and the case. This paired with the low noise adapter has made it more of a dull tone rather than a high pitch wine which I'm okay being next to when on my PC.

As for the temperatures of the switch after this modification I don't have anything too scientific however with the switch placed ontop of another switch in a well ventilated area there was no real difference to the temperatures of the casing or the heatsink after 12hrs of usage with the modifications compared to without, I don't doubt that if I had something to read temps it would be slightly higher however you can comfortably touch the heatsink inside of the unit without it being noticeably hot (Room temperature water is what it felt like)

A weird point to note is the switch does actually have a second mounting area on the chassis however there is no cut out on this particular case, I'm assuming because they share chassis between switches but hypothetically another fan could potentially be installed. If there were two of the Noctuas to replace the single default fan that would probably be the ideal scenario to reduce the noise without it being too detrimental to the cooling :)
 
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You could get around your second bullet point by forcing the fan to run at 100% by disconnecting the PWM signal pin (akin to putting a 4 pin fan on a 3 pin header in a PC).

Do you have the model number of the original fan? The fan error may be the switch expecting a server fan style constant-on-when-running rather than a tachometer pulse to indicate speed.
 
5abr3 said:
You could get around your second bullet point by forcing the fan to run at 100% by disconnecting the PWM signal pin (akin to putting a 4 pin fan on a 3 pin header in a PC).

Do you have the model number of the original fan? The fan error may be the switch expecting a server fan style constant-on-when-running rather than a tachometer pulse to indicate speed.
Click to expand...
So the header is actually only a 3 pin header on the actual board, I tried the Arctic PWM fan on the header however it still seemed to be working under DC control rather than full speed.

As for the fan included I'll have another look as it seems to be just a generic 3 pin fan with the pins swapped round for ground and tachometer as it definitely ramps up and down rather than running at full speed as the switch seems to up the fan speed based on ports connected rather than temperature :)
 
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