[HPADM] Turbocooler fan trouble on J5600

From: Peter Hsieh (p-hsieh_at_northwestern.edu)
Date: 10/05/04

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    Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 12:26:23 -0500
    To: hpux-admin@dutchworks.nl
    
    

    A few days ago one of the J5600's in the lab shut down with a fan error
    message. The LCD on the front of the machine indicates that fan 6, the
    right CPU turbocooler fan, was at fault. Upon removal of the side
    panel, I found that the fan was difficult to spin, possibly due to dust
    buildup. (The left CPU0 fan, in contrast, was easy to spin.) The
    service manual indicated that the entire system board tray assembly
    should be replaced. As HP has discontinued the Visualize J5xxx line
    (and the system is not under a service contract), I attempted to replace
    the bad fan on my own. The repair failed. I am trying to determine why
    it failed and what I should do.

    I obtained a Panaflo DC brushless fan (Model FBA06A12H, DC 12V 0.22A) in
    muffin fan configuration and reshaped the plastic to fit the geometry of
    the HP turbocooler heat sink. I had to solder the HP connector wires to
    the new fan (+ to red, - to black, and S to yellow). The new fan is an
    exact fit for the bad fan in the turbocooler housing (which is just a
    piece of machined metal). I attached the repaired fan to CPU1 with
    PC-grade thermal paste and screwed the entire assembly into the system
    board.

    When I turn on the system power, both CPU fans spin up. However, the
    system powers itself down after approximately 30 seconds without
    warning. Disabling CPU1 makes no difference. The system shuts down
    whether it is booting or in diagnostic mode. Interestingly enough, if I
    unplug the chassis fans from the system board, the system will go all
    the way through the boot-up process to the GUI log-in screen before
    shutting itself down with fan error messages. I suspect that there is
    something wrong with the fan monitoring hardware or software, but I am
    not sure what I should do to resolve the problem.

    Questions:
    1. Has anyone replaced a CPU turbocooler fan on a Visualize
    workstation? If so, where did you find the turbocooler? (Apparently HP
    dumped a large number into the PC overclocking market in '99, but no one
    is selling them now.) What kind of thermal compound did you use? (The
    HP compound is hard, unlike the PC thermal pastes on the market.)

    2a. Assuming the fan is good, what can I do to test the fan control
    electronics? I am guessing that there is some process from the firmware
    that monitors fan status and triggers a shutdown if the fan is outside
    tolerance (voltage, rpm, etc.) I went through the diagnostic menus but
    found nothing that would let me poll the fan status directly. Is there
    any way of overriding the monitoring daemon short of doing something
    drastic to the firmware?

    2b. If the problem is a faulty fan controller board (per J. Fletcher in
    [HPADM] [SUMMARY] "bad fan 3" warning on a J6000), is it something I can
    replace, or do I need to call HP?

    3. If there is no other way to fix the problem other than to replace
    the entire system board tray assembly, what's the easiest way to move
    data off of the system? Can I just remove the hard disk, plug it into
    the drive bay of another J5600, and mount it?

    Thanks in advance for any insight you may have on how I can resolve this
    problem.

    Peter Hsieh
    Northwestern University

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