# 'Arm'ing my new HL15 **URL:** \ **Category:** Show Your Homelab Builds\ **Created:** [November 13, 2023, 9:02pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636 "2023-11-13T21:02:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 9:02pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/1 "2023-11-13T21:02:59Z")
I received shipment of the chassis + PSU this morning. No space on my workbench right now since I’m finishing up another project, but I am planning on dropping in an Ampere Altra Max-based motherboard, and seeing how energy-efficient I can build out my HL15 🙂 I plan on documenting the process on this forum so anyone else interested in the process can learn from it! (And yes I plan on doing a video for it too). First things first: the ADLINK dev kit board is EATX (12" x 13"), therefore it will not fit inside the HL15 chassis. (See [Motherboard Options - #13 by Hutch-45Drives](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/motherboard-options/370/13)). I’m trying to get my hands on an [ASRock Rack ALTRAD8UD-1L2T](https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=ALTRAD8UD-1L2T#Specifications), which is ‘Deep Micro ATX’, but more importantly includes built-in SlimSAS headers. I would likely need some [SFF-8654 8i to SFF-8643](https://amzn.to/47bfk3g) cables (I think that’s the right one) to connect to the wires hanging off the chassis backplane. I’d need 2, as those cables break out into 2x 4-lane Mini HD SAS connectors. The motherboard has 2x 10 GbE connections which would be plenty for me, and I’d have 4 empty x16 PCIe x16 slots to play with, too! ---
**Author:** ![Rain](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/rain/32/686_2.png) [@Rain](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/Rain)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/2 "2023-11-13T21:44:32Z")
Looking forward to following your progress on the forum and checking out the video once it’s ready. Best of luck with the build, and please consider sharing more updates as you move forward! ---
**Author:** ![SpringerSpaniel](https://forum.45homelab.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/db5fbb/32.png) [@SpringerSpaniel](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/SpringerSpaniel)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2023, 9:52pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/3 "2023-11-13T21:52:20Z")
> [@geerlingguy](#): > > I plan on doing a video for it too Woot. Very much looking forward to this video! ---
**Author:** ![jacobnoori](https://forum.45homelab.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/5fc32e/32.png) [@jacobnoori](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/jacobnoori)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2023, 11:31pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/4 "2023-11-16T23:31:54Z")
I’m interested in the energy efficiency aspect of your build. Good luck and I look forward to the video! ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2023, 2:36am UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/5 "2023-11-21T02:36:28Z")
Just an update: almost beginning a move into the new office. Hoping to do some work on HL15 prior to the move but we’ll see… I just got word from ASRock Rack, motherboard should come sooner or later now. But now I’m thinking, what kind of cooler can I use? Would love something quiet (ish). Ideally a heat sink with fans, probably 120W TDP. ---
**Author:** ![Fossil](https://forum.45homelab.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/47e85d/32.png) [@Fossil](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/Fossil)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2023, 7:46pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/6 "2023-11-21T19:46:59Z")
I’m using this thing [https://noctua.at/en/nh-d12l](https://noctua.at/en/nh-d12l) ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2024, 4:45am UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/7 "2024-02-11T04:45:47Z")
Nice! And to follow-up, it’s been a while but I’m finally putting this thing in service (video coming this week!). Noctua’s actually released two new coolers specific to the Ampere Altra/Altra Max socket: - [NH-U14S AMP-4926](https://noctua.at/en/nh-u14s-amp-4926) (larger size for big desktop cases with top exhaust — this does not fit in HL15) - [NH-D9 AMP-4926 4U](https://noctua.at/en/nh-d9-amp-4926-4u) (fits nicely within the HL15) ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2024, 4:46am UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/8 "2024-02-11T04:46:39Z")
And a quick preview, for anyone following along on the forum… ![hl15-asrock-rack-motherboard-noctua-ampere-altra-fan](https://forum.45homelab.com/uploads/default/original/1X/9b21640742e2636372d7631ca61d3a384b990a5f.jpeg) And a closeup of the new CPU cooler: ![noctua-4u-ampere-altra-fan](https://forum.45homelab.com/uploads/default/original/1X/99214f1c4e43177c1fa282571a2ef4955c89e7d3.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2024, 4:47am UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/9 "2024-02-11T04:47:51Z")
I also wanted to note the SlimSAS connectors seem to be PCIe-only—AFAICT, they don’t support SATA/SAS, so I went with a Broadcom HBA that seems to chomp through 10-15W of power… ---
**Author:** ![Fossil](https://forum.45homelab.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/47e85d/32.png) [@Fossil](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/Fossil)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2024, 10:49am UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/10 "2024-02-11T10:49:29Z")
Yeah my Broadcom 9305-16i eat a bit of power too and gets \> 100C without any air blowing directly at it (idle) so I screwed a small fan onto the heatsink. It sits at about 60C now idle. ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2024, 7:05pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/11 "2024-02-11T19:05:39Z")
FYI the video is live today! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz5k5WgTkcc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hz5k5WgTkcc) And a blog post, for the textually-inclined: [Building an efficient server-grade Arm NAS | Jeff Geerling](https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2024/building-efficient-server-grade-arm-nas) ---
**Author:** ![SpringerSpaniel](https://forum.45homelab.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/db5fbb/32.png) [@SpringerSpaniel](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/SpringerSpaniel)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2024, 11:13pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/12 "2024-02-11T23:13:40Z")
> [@geerlingguy](#): > > live today Woot. Great video, I’ve been waiting for this one to come out! ---
**Author:** ![hakunamatata](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/hakunamatata/32/77_2.png) [@hakunamatata](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/hakunamatata)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2024, 6:16am UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/13 "2024-02-12T06:16:59Z")
Great video! But I suppose that in conclusion, the Arm powered HL15 doesn’t seem to be a whole lot more power efficient than the stock fully built version from 45drives? ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2024, 5:14pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/14 "2024-02-12T17:14:45Z")
Efficiency is hard to universally quantify—in terms of putting bits out at 10 Gbps, their build may be better at targeting that for simple NAS use cases (versus also running a bunch of virtualization workloads, or other processing). I plan on exploring that a bit more in my next video testing more on power and performance. ---
**Author:** ![gh0stee](https://forum.45homelab.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/439d5e/32.png) [@gh0stee](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/gh0stee)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2024, 7:18pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/15 "2024-02-12T19:18:03Z")
Does that mobo support vdc fan control? Because I assume those fans running at 100% constantly is a huge part of your power draw. I’d find a way to hook those fans into your system via pwm or vdc. ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2024, 9:23pm UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/16 "2024-02-19T21:23:39Z")
It seems like getting Houston to run natively on arm64 is a little bit burdensome, as only amd64 is currently ‘officially’ supported, and I ran into a number of little issues where I had to compile something here or there… enough papercuts I decided to forego a fancy UI for now and just set up things the old school way with Ansible. See: [Houston / Cockpit setup on arm64?](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/houston-cockpit-setup-on-arm64/1197) ---
**Author:** ![geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/user_avatar/forum.45homelab.com/geerlingguy/32/21_2.png) [@geerlingguy](https://forum.45homelab.com/u/geerlingguy)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2024, 2:21am UTC](https://forum.45homelab.com/t/arming-my-new-hl15/636/17 "2024-02-22T02:21:24Z")
Fan-swapped the whole thing, everything but the PSU fan is now Noctua, and it is _blissfully_ silent. Working out some issues with the ASRock Rack motherboard fan controls, but the CPU is still cool enough, and the fans are all working. Since there are no SATA connectors available from the PSU, I decided to put three fans through a Noctua fan controller into one motherboard fan plug, and three fans through a three-way adapter in another motherboard fan plug. ![noctua-fans-in-chassis](https://forum.45homelab.com/uploads/default/original/1X/caa1a5f84b1e96f1f19372b56c51ef28c72b0453.jpeg) Fingers crossed that keeps working. But the system went from 60 dBa to **34 dBa** (measured 1’ in front). It went from annoyingly-loud to almost silent. Now the loudest part of the system (besides the HDDs, once they spin up) is the PSU fan!