Mac Pro 5.1 Replace Fans

[MIKX]

I would 100% trust th

• There's a guy with a channel on Youtube - numerous step-by-step videos all about the upgrades he has recently done to his Mac Pro 2009.
• He has just completed installation of fans for PSU and CPU...

• He used Noctua fans and a Noctua controller.

An absolutely first rate 'how to' video !

I would 100% trust this guy with my cMP except when he picked up the CPU tray by the heatsink .. .

 

[tsialex]

Mac Pro has two enormous micro-controllers to do all the thermal management automatically, then you replace the original fans for 3rd party ones that can't be managed thus disabling automatic management and now have to do all the management with manual fan controller.

 

[ye1hunter]

Well, I mean, if I need a bearing for a Festool sander, it will show up in less than 24 hours. If I need a controller board for a 1980's Elu router; Black and Decker will get it to my local Dewalt Service Center in about two to three days. If I need an opamp for an API compressor, standard shipping rates apply. If I need a plastic knob for an SSL console, it will be expensive, but it will also be waiting for me in a warehouse.

If I need to replace my old Apple fans..... I'm out of luck

.

So, I can run a hot computer with noisy bearings; or I can just accept my fate.

 

[orph]

nice photos, how dose it run?
can you post a screen shot of the temps at idle and load?

ps what are the tiny pci cards ?

 

[ye1hunter]

This was after turning the fans down earlier today. When I first installed a few of them; PCIE temps were getting within 1 degree of ambient temperature which I am led to believe is something you want to avoid. CPU temps were at like 30 degrees. It was insane.

The tiny cards are the passive M.2 adapters from Aqua Computer. Alphacool offers a very similar product.
The third tiny card is a USB 3.... whatever they call the 10Gbps USB. This particular on is a Vantec, I believe.

EDIT:

Minutes later with the fans turned up.

Edit that edit:

This is with the fans dead silent (although the gpu fans will kick in).

It's a shame they chose to use proprietary standoffs for the cpu cooler. There are reasons as to why the CPU fan is noisey and the Northbridge is blazing. Easy fix had they not....

 

[orph]

temps are good, assume that is with light use?

cool mod, assume the fans are fairly quiet?

always was tempted to stick a extra fan in the PCI bay to kick out the heat from my GPU.

 

[AlexMaximus]

View attachment 841181 This was after turning the fans down earlier today. When I first installed a few of them; PCIE temps were getting within 1 degree of ambient temperature which I am led to believe is something you want to avoid. CPU temps were at like 30 degrees. It was insane.

The tiny cards are the passive M.2 adapters from Aqua Computer. Alphacool offers a very similar product.
The third tiny card is a USB 3.... whatever they call the 10Gbps USB. This particular on is a Vantec, I believe.

EDIT:

Minutes later with the fans turned up.

View attachment 841183

Edit that edit:

This is with the fans dead silent (although the gpu fans will kick in).

View attachment 841184

It's a shame they chose to use proprietary standoffs for the cpu cooler. There are reasons as to why the CPU fan is noisey and the Northbridge is blazing. Easy fix had they not....

Thank's man for your great pictures, much appreciated. I am actually in the process to weigh those options whether I do that swap or not.
I have seen the YouTube spot some time ago, so I configured a Scenario that would fit my needs.
To be frank, I like the solution but I am not sure if I can live with two Noctua fan controllers that are dangling around in the case. Somehow I really want to keep as much as possible to the original machine for transport reasons and reliability. To trust the machines live a third party is an issue for me.
However here is my thought, maybe you can tell me what you think about it, - and maybe this would be also a fresh thought for yourselfe.
Check out this link for an alternative fan controller:

https://www.nzxt.com/products/sentry-3

Since that solution would work for exactly 5 fans, it would be perfect for my Hex core 5.1 (1xPSU, 1xPCI, 2xIn&OUt, 1CPU)
I would choose three of them from Noctua as you did, but I would choose two Alphacool fans as the In&Out fan in the lower CPU compartment, - just because of optics, - Somehow I like the blue-black design, and they are quiet with good enough values.

https://www.alphacool.com/shop/luef...ack/blue-edition-1700rpm-120x120x25mm?c=20550

Location for the Sentry3:



With a little Dremel work, I figured that the 5,25 module would fit very nicely into that spot. It needs just one Molex for powering up to control the five fans. Of course, all fan cables have to be routed as you did in your example above. To make it really flawless, I would manufacture a nice base plate to cover up the two default holes, maybe a great homework task for that 3D printer Makerbot. Now here is the question for the geek like you:

The sentry3 can deliver 75 watt, that's 15 watt per fan as described on the webpage above. My lower HDD would need to go to make space for the module, so I would connect the free SATA/Molex cable to the Sentry for power. - What I am not sure of is the 75 Watt the could be needed from this one SATA power molex. A better alternative from a power perspective would be to rout a cable down to the GPU section and hook it up to the GPU 6-pin socket. This socket is empty in my case because of the pixlas power mod for the Vega 7.

What do guy's think, would that be a nice solution? Did I forget some aspects here that would not make it possible?
Your thoughts are much appreciated.

 

[ye1hunter]

Looks good.

In my situation, my Mac has been delegated to routine office work, so a strong YMMV.
It’s been almost a decade since I walked away from audio, and my interest in video went as quick as it came.
Personally, I’d leave the stock fans (or replace with refurbs) if I was doing any actual lifting.
Running FC, Avid or Premiere with those manually controlled fans? No way.

 

[Itconnects]

Are the noctua fans at high speed quieter than stock fans ?

 

[AlexMaximus]

Finally, I did locate my source of the noisy trouble maker. To my surprise, it was not one of the case fans, it was the little fan inside the PCIe bridge card for the NVMe/AHCI blade SSD's. The implanted resistor slows down the fan speed and eliminates the disturbing fan noise. Now my 5.1 is back to normal. Because of this, my original Noctua project has been shelved so far. This was an effective low noise mod, however not a standard case fan mod yet. I had to mill the heatsink a little to accommodate the somewhat large resistor that sits between the power fan socket and the fan connector.
Hot-glued it down to perfection, more to come. The calmed down Crest I/O card performs excellently and works better than before. Regardless of this noise mod, the Crest cooling design is surprisingly well thought through. Those SSD's are very well cooled, even with a slightly slower running fan. Kudos to the CAD/CAM designer @ Crest, you should send your resume to the AMD GPU Duct-Fan department, - they desperately need you!

 

[AlexComputerWiz]

@AlexMaximus, I know it's been a while, but have you tried the Sentry3? About to start on my 5,1 project and wanted to see if that was a way to go. I'm all about having a cool system so I'm ditching the fans no matter what I have to do.

 

[Andrey Andrey]

View attachment 841144 Well, I mean, if I need a bearing for a Festool sander, it will show up in less than 24 hours. If I need a controller board for a 1980's Elu router; Black and Decker will get it to my local Dewalt Service Center in about two to three days. If I need an opamp for an API compressor, standard shipping rates apply. If I need a plastic knob for an SSL console, it will be expensive, but it will also be waiting for me in a warehouse.

If I need to replace my old Apple fans..... I'm out of luck View attachment 841138 View attachment 841139 View attachment 841140 View attachment 841141 View attachment 841142 .

So, I can run a hot computer with noisy bearings; or I can just accept my fate.

Hey, man! Great mod! How have things been turning out with it? I'm trying to to the same. Would you be able itemize fans you installed from Noctua? Much appreciated. ?
[automerge]1584020380[/automerge]

View attachment 841144 Well, I mean, if I need a bearing for a Festool sander, it will show up in less than 24 hours. If I need a controller board for a 1980's Elu router; Black and Decker will get it to my local Dewalt Service Center in about two to three days. If I need an opamp for an API compressor, standard shipping rates apply. If I need a plastic knob for an SSL console, it will be expensive, but it will also be waiting for me in a warehouse.

If I need to replace my old Apple fans..... I'm out of luck View attachment 841138 View attachment 841139 View attachment 841140 View attachment 841141 View attachment 841142 .

So, I can run a hot computer with noisy bearings; or I can just accept my fate.

Hey, man! Great mod! How have things been turning out with it? I'm trying to to the same. Would you be able itemize fans you installed from Noctua? Much appreciated. ?

 

[Andrey Andrey]

Which fans did you use? You just ordered the fans, or were you in touch with Noctua to see which one will work?

Was someone able to replace the fans which are working with MacsFanControl form Noctua?

Same here. Would love to know, which fans have been used. Thanks!

 

[Ludacrisvp]

The work looks nice but i really don't see the point.

Also the proprietary header is expected as they use different methods to control the fan speeds vs the typical PC fan.
So you would have found out quickly that if you could have connected a normal fan to that header that it would have behaved different from what you expected. (some of that is assumption based on how they did the G5 fans, and i have no reason to believe they'd change how they did the fans)

 

[MIKX]

I cool my Samsung 970 EVO Plus with a USB powered 16.14 CFM which sits directly on top of the onboard 2 copper and 1 Aluminum heatsinks.
The fan is connected to an external 7 port powered USB HUB which is also used to power an identical fan for my Tdiode Northbridge heatsink.

Note : The lower Samsung 970 EVO 250gb doesn't get as hot as the 500gb 970 EVO Plus.

 

[AlexMaximus]

@AlexMaximus, I know it's been a while, but have you tried the Sentry3? About to start on my 5,1 project and wanted to see if that was a way to go. I'm all about having a cool system so I'm ditching the fans no matter what I have to do.

I am sorry to report to have stopped the project for the time being. Since I have found the most annoying source of fan noise, I am really good now. It's still not perfect, but it's good enough. The other reason to be careful is the
is the topic of reliability. Reliability is overall the most important reason why I am so happy with the 5.1 With such a major modification - reliability would suffer greatly and I have the feeling I would leave that quality. So, no the plan is scraped.

 

[venonm]

Mac Pro fans fans are the best on the market.
Exchanging them for others will be expensive, cumbersome and the final performance will be worse.
If you want to decorate your mac pro, better to use led strips.

 

[MIKX]

I have absolutely no regrets in replacing my 4,1>5.1s' PSU fan with the Noctua NF-A12x25 120mm model.
While slightly noisier than the original fan I used the included "low noise" inline cable and to be honest, I currently cannot hear the Noctua but if it does bother me there is the Noctua inline NA-FC1 fan controller which can reside in the DVD drive cage area. I also now have TWO PSU fans with the original now relegated to being a spare.

By the way, the original rubber fastening grommets CAN be safely removed my using TWO sets of pliers to stretch the grommet from BOTH ENDs and slowly working the grommet back through the insertion holes.

Noctua NF-A12x25 120mm

amazon.com link https://www.google.com/search?sourc...hUKEwjC3LTiuPnoAhWMfXAKHfxCAN0Q4dUDCAY&uact=5

 

[ukhanspam]

Haha could imagine

• Noctua

• for now only INTAKE and EXHAUST, will check the PSU fan tomorrow

• low RPM, good quality is def what you want

Hello, I have a Mac Pro 4.1 and the fans are getting really loud. Is it possible to connect the Noctua fans directly to the system board pins? I would hate to lose the fan speed control ability from the OS. Right now its the power-supply that's really bad, but I would like to replace all the fans. I am considering buying the Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, 4-Pin, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan with 3000RPM (120mm, Black). Amazon link:

Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM (120mm, Black)

Conceived For Industrial Heavy Duty Applications That Require Enhanced Cooling Performance And Advanced Ingress Protection, The Nf-F12 Industrial Ppc (Protected Performance Cooling) Is A Ruggedized High-Speed Version Of The Award-Winning Retail Model. Thanks To The Outstanding Aerodynamic Efficie...

www.amazon.com

So again, could these be wired to the system board? If so, did you have to make any modifications? I look forward your thoughts/suggestions.

Thank you

 

[amedias]

Our findings on doing just that

it is possible, requires careful choice of fans though, and mild mods. Have a read for info.

are your fans getting noisey as in the bearings and motor failing due to age, or just spinning faster due to everything being dirty or clogged with dust?

what RPM is the noisy PSU fan running at?

 

[Flamenco Dude]

Mac Pro has two enormous micro-controllers to do all the thermal management automatically, then you replace the original fans for 3rd party ones that can't be managed thus disabling automatic management and now have to do all the management with manual fan controller.

I am totally with you here! Can you offer any solution to heat management? Given that the original fans are old, noisy and to keep the system really cool, one needs to crank them higher than usual using a software like Macs Fan Control. The system wasn't designed to handle the extra heat emitting from the "upgraded" CPUs. Do you think that adding more fans to enhance airflow would be a good idea? And if so, in which areas?

Cheers

 

[MIKX]

Right now its the power-supply that's really bad,

Noctua NF-F12 iPPC 3000 PWM, Heavy Duty Cooling Fan, 4-Pin, 3000 RPM (120mm, Black)

Conceived For Industrial Heavy Duty Applications That Require Enhanced Cooling Performance And Advanced Ingress Protection, The Nf-F12 Industrial Ppc (Protected Performance Cooling) Is A Ruggedized High-Speed Version Of The Award-Winning Retail Model. Thanks To The Outstanding Aerodynamic Efficie...

www.amazon.com

So again, could these be wired to the system board? If so, did you have to make any modifications? I look forward your thoughts/suggestions.

Thank you

My solution to the cMP 4,1 / 5,1 PSU fan Noctua replacement using the NF A12x25 PWM with the Noctua NA FC1 speed controller. ( MY setup obviates the need to remove the backplane = motherboard except for the first time to re-route the PSU fan cable. Works well.

cMP 4,1 & 5,1 120mm Noctua PSU fan with Noctua NA-FC1 PWN speed controller- both working.

I have replaced my cMP 4,1>5,1 Apple standard 120mm PSU fan with the Noctua NF A12x25 120mm PWN fan and have also installed The Noctua NF-FC1 PWN Fan speed controller. I am happy to report that both the Noctua fan and the fan speed controller are working perfectly. EDIT : I cleaned up the...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Flamenco Dude]

My solution to the cMP 4,1 / 5,1 PSU fan Noctua replacement using the PWM with the Noctua NA FC1 speed controller. ( MY setup obviates the need to remove the backplane = motherboard except for the first time to re-route the PSU fan cable. Works well.


I hope that you are feeling better and healing after the accident!

The NF A12x25 is unavailable. I ordered 2x Noctua NF-F12 PWM

Do you believe that they will work fine as an Intake/Exhaust fans? I am fine with extra noise, my computer is outside the recording studio, and have long cables for the monitors and audio interface. So most likely I will use the low noise adapter cable and connect them directly to the Logic Board.

Cheers!

 

[hwojtek]

We are here with this topic: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ans-with-automatic-smc-control.2232167/page-4

 

[MIKX]

I hope that you are feeling better and healing after the accident!

The NF A12x25 is unavailable. I ordered 2x Noctua NF-F12 PWM

Do you believe that they will work fine as an Intake/Exhaust fans? I am fine with extra noise, my computer is outside the recording studio, and have long cables for the monitors and audio interface. So most likely I will use the low noise adapter cable and connect them directly to the Logic Board.

Cheers!

Thank you for your kind words, I can almost walk semi-normally as of today. May 31st. should see me at 90%.

I have no idea re: the Noctua NF-F12 PWM but with the low-noise cable it .. " should " be OK.

Try one to replace the PSU fan but don't forget to re-route the fan power cable as shown in this thread,

cMP 4,1 & 5,1 120mm Noctua PSU fan with Noctua NA-FC1 PWN speed controller- both working.

I have replaced my cMP 4,1>5,1 Apple standard 120mm PSU fan with the Noctua NF A12x25 120mm PWN fan and have also installed The Noctua NF-FC1 PWN Fan speed controller. I am happy to report that both the Noctua fan and the fan speed controller are working perfectly. EDIT : I cleaned up the...

forums.macrumors.com

You will only have to re-route it once and then changing the PSU fan becomes much easier.

In this case the LOW NOISE cable attaches to the backplane PSU fan power socket.