HP ML350e Gen8 Fan Noise

[dainjah]

just wanted to share my own experience, i feel i owe the internet this advice.

My ml350p g8 was purchased as a replacement for my failed g6 which was silent.

the new g8 has been so noisey it been painfull to live with (i have a server at home in my office)

any way .... rang hp to complain ran all the updates and provided a active health management diagnostics 

had removed the fans and refitted hp then sent me new ones, installed these and restarted and even installed the additional fan that does not come as standard still nothing 

rang hp again they sent me a new motherboard i installed this still high fan speeds

in the end my probem seemed to relate to my choice of 3rd party sas discs of which i only had 4 installed not the full 8 sff i was luckily given some g8 smart sas discs to transfer my data to today to resolve this problem.

was about to walk downstairs after sloting in the additional caddies/sas discs and all of a sudden the server fans all slowed down. so after all that it turns out that third party discs are ok as long as you have at least 1 HP Genuine Smart SAS Discs i wont be removing my 3rd party discs at all and all is now cool 

:}

[G_MacD]

I had the same problem as you. There is a workaround that I am surprised HP didn't inform you of. I had to set a couple of these up. They both emitted annoying "ramping" sounds from their system fans. I should add that both were new, fresh out of the box, Raid 1+0 on 3 10k sas drives, and the only addition was an extra 8 GB stick of HP RAM. 

If you are fine with a medium hum that is constant, not ramping continually. Go to the advanced system options in the BIOS. There you can choose between optimal cooling, increased cooling, and max cooling. Select the INCREASED COOLING option. This is a steady, less loud (still annoying) option that elliminates the ramping. The optimal cooling was checked by default on 2 of these that I set up. It's a shame because many of these floor model servers don't end up in data centers, but wind up in office environments. 

[G_MacD]

ANSWER: 

(for me)

Go and download the server service pack from HP for this machine. Install it, make sure your system updates are installed. Install all firmware updates and driveers, then reboot your system, enter the BIOS setup. Go to the thermal configuration page in the advanced power options, make sure the server is set to "Optimal Cooling".

No more ramping noise, no more loud fans! Thanks to HP for addressing this issue. 

[BetoVA]

Hi,

I was able to bring fan speeds down to 6%/6%/6% while using ubuntu on an ML350e Gen8 by following this procedure (THANKS!!!)

http://alinuxpassionate.com/computing/2014/08/ubuntu-on-proliant-dl320e-gen8-with-b120i-raid/

Without this driver my fan speeds are about 12% with no PCIe cards.  

Adding a PCIe NIC will increase fan speeds beyond 25% or more (it seems it depends on the slot in use)

The driver above is also needed to have storage status under iLO.  

HDD drive type seems to have no effect.  I have a genuine HP drive and a non-HP and I still see 6% fan speeds.

The genuine  HP Drive I got is a repackaged WD Enterprise drive.  I suspect it only has minor firmware tweaks if any.

Sorry but this is a home lab and I can't afford all HP genuine HDDs.  I'm using genuine HP memory though.

[charifdz]

hi there i fix this problim 

its esy so you must tak this 2 stepes 

1************ if you using LFF disk drive ********************

    *the drive must be 10K speed max  sas 300gb 10K LFF

    *the power must be 750w or more  

     ******* DON'T WORK WITH 460WAT YOU WILL STELL HAVE THE SAME PROBLIM 

2

i like this sloutin its more stable for this server 

i chenge all disk drive 

1 i bay SAS 300GB 15K SFF 2.5 without caddy .and i put this drive in caddy LFF .

in this sloution i have more speed in hard drive and i save power .

( you must bay adabtar from 3.5 to 2.5 

you are will came 

charif mohamed algeria

[Digo79]

3 years later and the issue is still unresolved.   This thread has 31261 views!! 

I've had a case open for a month now, and HP hasn't been able to come up with a solution... Come on HP, is anyone still in charge of the Gen8???

[CardinWest]

I ran SPP 2015.10 on two DL380p G8 servers and the fans started going nuts. Fan 5 and 6 (CPU1 Side) were running between 70 and 80% off and on. After checking the ROM Power Profile for Balanced and the Power Regulator for Dynamic I thought it could have been upgrading the firmware from P70 08/02/2014 to P70 07/01/2015 but the fans kept going after I swapped the ROM. 

To cut to the chase - it was the StarTech USB 3.0 card. I tried the 2 port and 4 port. Either way, once the card is removed the fans settle down.

One of the DL380pG8 servers is the dual CPU 25 SFF bay and the other is a single CPU 8 bay with a P420 for an additional 8 bay cage. I don't know if the extra heat on that side of the box make fan 5 and 6 rev up from the cards but I have a feeling it was the iLO upgrade from 2.20 to 2.30. That was the only thing I did not downgrade but I don't need the 3.0 ports that bad. I love HP and I love StarTech but in this case the two do not mix. Had no problem with the G7s in the stack.

This took me about 8 hours over two days to figure out so I hope I save someone some time and heartache

[Torsten.]

In such case it is always a good idea to connect to ILO, go to component status page and check the temperatures.

Some time ago one of the peers was testing something in hardware configuration - some minutes later the server powered off because of overheat. The reason was the opened cover, so the fans could not cool down the disks, the disks reported 62 degrees celsius - the server powered off 'randomly', depending on the temperature of the disks and made a lot of noise...

[PGTRI]

hi,

For those who are using 331 NIC. Try to downgrade the FW to following version:

Windows:

http://h20566.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_cbcf4954bd744f44977d2fa95d#tab3

ESXi:

http://h20566.www2.hpe.com/hpsc/swd/public/detail?swItemId=MTX_ef8b4a00061f46c188821fa9f5#tab4

Please share the result.

thanks,

[renefl]

My fan sppeds were constant until I upgraded to SSP 2016.04.

Downgrading the 331 NIC firmware to the one in the link solved the problem.

Thanks a lot!!