System and associated method for cooling components within a computer system

• Main Authors: HARDT; THOMAS T, TAVALLAEI; SIAMAK, VINSON; WADE D, LACOMBE; JOHN S, VU; AN T, MOUTON; JAMES A
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 08.08.2000
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: CALCULATING; CASINGS OR CONSTRUCTIONAL DETAILS OF ELECTRIC APPARATUS; COMPUTING; COUNTING; ELECTRIC DIGITAL DATA PROCESSING; ELECTRIC TECHNIQUES NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; ELECTRICITY; MANUFACTURE OF ASSEMBLAGES OF ELECTRICAL COMPONENTS; PHYSICS; PRINTED CIRCUITS

A cooling system for a high-end server includes four hot-pluggable fans plugged into a fan control board. The fans are arranged in two groups, with each group having two fans, one behind the other. One of the groups of fans is used to cool the processor boards and the other group is used to cool the system I/O board slots. Under normal operation, only one fan from each group is active, while the other fan freewheels, providing redundancy. A fan control board delivers power to each of the fans and further provides a signal, responsive to temperature sensors, to each of the fans to control their speeds. Each of the fans provides a fan fault signal and a fan not present signal to the fan control board. The temperature sensors are placed proximate the processors and I/O components to monitor the operating temperatures thereof, and communicate the respective temperatures back to the fan control board, via I2C bus. An operating system is utilized to drive the fan controller but can be overridden by the fan controller during critical conditions. An air ramp is positioned between the processors to help direct the flow of air generated by the fans onto some of the processors. Additionally, each of the fans are configured with a quick installment device to facilitate single-hand insertion and removal of the fans from the computer system.