Need An Electricians's Assistance. DELL Fans.

our company has decided to implement a large scale water cooling solution

>watercooling
>not overclocking
>server data base
>Dell

FFXIAH runs on dells, don't hate

Water cooling a Data Center? Why? Is your company HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE or just full of fail? Water cooling isn't intended to be used in a server or mission critical environment. I don't know why they don't put the servers in an A/C controlled room like everyone else does.

The company and IT dept both sound full of fail. If the boss says 'lets remove the fans cause they're noisy' or 'I'd be cool if we used water to cool our computers', the IT guy(s) should have the balls to explain why that isn't a good idea. I can think of several myself, the biggest being that real servers being used in a production environment are not toys and when it fails the IT guy get the blame.

Anyways, I have no clue how you'd emulate 5v, but I'm sure the computer is also using RPM monitoring to make sure the fans are spinning. So you might want to look into that too. What I'm more curious about is why don't you just plug in the fans for the radiator into the fan headers? Problem solved. (I'm also really curious how a DC is going to maintain any reasonable amount of uptime, but that's not really my problem.)

Edit: Just thought of this. Wouldn't your idea just be counter productive? The created electricity would be dissipated in the form of heat and unnecessary heat is bad.

custom LED light kits? heh.

All good argument for the use of watercooling, but in the end, I think you're going to find it's a pain in the goddamn ***. There's no doubt the efficiency levels rock compared to air-based, and when left alone it can be highly effective, but maintaining the cooling systems will be obnoxious, without a doubt, and may incur hidden costs in manpower and time. I'm sure someone got a fat bonus check however for showing a lot of theory math on how many hojillions of dollars this will save, so whether it's your idea or not, it is your job to make it work and work well.

In my experience, fluid pumps tend to have much less longevity than basic air fans, even though the mechanisms should be pretty similar. Anytime you need to replace parts that have failed over time you'll have to deal with the fluids and the annoyances of ensuring no air bubbles get trapped in the system.

If you had unlimited resources I think it would have genuinely been more efficient to create a cooling system that more directly paths conditioned air through the systems and out as opposed to just mass cooling the room they're in. Maybe work on a setup that makes it easy to get the systems in and out for maint as well.

Whatever to all that. As for getting what you're trying to do working, the process of creating a dummy fan to bypass fan failure recognition has been done before, and I was able to find a thread where they discuss what had to be done here. You basically have to send a responding frequency to the third pin that matches the expected RPM rate the system is looking for. It's just pulsing that line as the fan turns, once per revolution - if the fan is physically stopped, the pulse naturally stops and the system can tell the fan is not physically turning. Even if you rig a device that responds properly to pass the initial BIOS load, you'll want to make sure you rig one that appropriately behaves across the expected fan speed range, which should pass the 'fan tests' for high/low/off speeds in the Dell diagnostics. Once you've got a setup done, have them manufactured and hope they're reliable.

Beyond that, I'm thinking using systems from OEMs that don't directly support watercooling in the servers is probably not a good idea, mostly just because the systems just weren't designed with your objectives in mind. Whatever manufacturer you choose to go with would be hard pressed to support your self-developed solutions if problems are encountered, and future changes to their lines also may not take into account your custom systems. Maybe your organization should consider custom building the entire servers from selected components? Could be just what you guys need.

Edit:

Just saw this:

Way to look like a douche while asking enthusiasts for assistance with something that falls into their realm of expertise.