Ok so I’ve backed myself into a silly corner here. I have managed to install my P4 and pass it through to my containers. What I’m concerned about is the lack of an onboard cooling fan. It did come with a blower mount with an adapter, but I have no way to control it.
I have been trying for some time to bodge a solution with shell scripts. I’ve tried to access a fan controller on the motherboard but was stonewalled by the locked down kernel.
My next attempt was to use an esp32 to generate a PWM signal (3.3 v boosted to 5v using a MOSFET). I would then try to use a shell script to output temperature data from nvidia-smi to the esp32 through USB. Once again I was stonewalled by the kernel.
Does anybody have any ideas? Am I just barking up the wrong tree?
Thanks!
Are you just worried about cooling or is it actually an issue?
If it really is I see two options without too much tinkering:
Use a normal case fan, if you have access to a 3D printer maybe brint a shroud that redirects the air exclusively or in large parts to the GPU and set it’s speed to something static that provides enough cooling while not beeing too loud.
If you have the space for it: replace the P4 with a GTX 1080. At least in Germany they are about 80€ used and have the exact same GP104.
The Problem with the 1080 approach is, that nvidia announced dropping them from support with the next driver version truenas will get in october.
Honestly if the gpu is only used for transcoding in jellyfin or plex i’d recommend an intel 1-slot card. They’re also around 100-120€ and for transcoding work very well.
If it is really used for encoding I absolutely agree. An A310 (update the firmware!) or something similar would probably be more efficient while being even better at transcoding (AV1 support, better quality (at least compared to this Nvidia generation IIRC) and driver support is backed into TrueNAS without any extra steps.
Right now 25.10 is still using the 570 series drivers. NVIDIA is still supporting Maxwell/Pascal/Volta (so the GTX 10-series and Quadro P-series) through the 580 drivers. It’s not until the 590 series that those cards drop off.
Good to know, but then again, i wouldn’t want to invest money into a used card that will not be supported any more in let’s a 6-12 months. I’d still go the intel a310 route for a longer supported card…
I’d tend to agree, unless someone needs the CUDA or passthrough-gaming functionality.
I assume it’s actually a 4-pin PWM fan and it isn’t just masquerading as one?
I do have a couple of P4s but right now their blowers are just set to a static speed as @TheColin21 where they can’t really be heard over the other fans. They don’t do much of sustained workload so this is fine for them.
That’s a nice project. I even voted for that feature request but overlooked the docker container😅
If only it supported HDD temperatures as sources and maybe some method of combining temps for controlling one fan from different sources like FanControl for Windows.
