topic Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise in BladeSystem - General

Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ed Tse — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 06:54:06 GMT

Hi all,

We have a C3000 with 2 active blade. The fan noise it generates is absolutely unbearable. OA shows fans running at 56% and it already is a jet engine.

Just want to know if there are any things we can purchase or settings we can tweak to make the fan slower.

I've already upgraded all the firmware using the DEC-2010 firmware DVD, and OA is now showing firmware 3.2.1 and iLO2 is 2.05.

This is not a new piece of kit, we had it running at our old office and we dedicated the store room for it, next to the kitchen, and it has been running for 2 years. But now we have relocated, and the room where we are placing this kit has people working close to the room. Even with the door closed, workers outside are complaining about the noise.

Just wonder do others with C3000 find this thing super noisy? How do you cope? I can't see how HP can sell this thing as suitable for use in an open plan office.

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ali — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 18:01:57 GMT

Hi there,

how many fans are there and what is placement of these fans(slot no)

server slot number ?

or you just attach the show all report (generated from OA >> enclosure settings ) for us to check the configuration and advice you best an possible way to reduce the noice.

thanks,
Aftab

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ed Tse — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 22:07:23 GMT

We have 6 fans, and 4 blades sitting in the slot bay 1, 2, 5, 6 with only bay 1 and 5 switched on at the moment.

Power Mode: Redundant
Dynamic Power: Enabled
Set Power Limit: Not Set

Power Capacity: 2400 Watts DC
Power Available: 1388 Watts DC
Power Allocated: 1012 Watts DC
Present Power: 592 Watts AC
Power Limit: 2918 Watts AC

Enclosure:
Status: OK
Unit Identification LED: Off
Diagnostic Status:
Internal Data OK

Onboard Administrator:
Status: OK

Power Subsystem:
Status: OK
Power Mode: Redundant
Redundancy State: Redundant
Power Capacity: 2400 Watts DC
Power Available: 1388 Watts DC
Present Power: 584 Watts AC

Cooling Subsystem:
Status: OK
Fans Good/Wanted/Needed: 6/4/3
Fan 1: 9500 RPM (53%)
Fan 2: 7345 RPM (41%)
Fan 3: 9499 RPM (53%)
Fan 4: 9504 RPM (53%)
Fan 5: 7344 RPM (41%)
Fan 6: 9501 RPM (53%)

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ali — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 22:25:58 GMT

Hi Ed,

thanks for sharing the info.

Configuration looks absolutely fine..

I had observed the same issue some time back and what I did to isolate was to remove blade one by one to see if a particular blade is causing this... and we found out the issue with ILO firmware of one of blade server though it was the same level I had to downgrade and upgrade it again to fix the issue.

Also I guess you must have populated all the bays with a component or a blank.

also check the syslog for OA/server if any message is being generated.

thanks,
Aftab

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ed Tse — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 22:30:00 GMT

Thanks Aftab,

Just out of interest, what is the typical fan speed of your setup?

Cheers,

Ed

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ali — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 15:54:44 GMT

Hi Ed,

I have just two blade and fan speed is 39%

did you swap the fans or notice which fan is making more noice?

Reseat the OA. when OA is pullled out fans will go full speed this is normal , put it back in and all will go back to normal.

thanks,
Aftab

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Trygve Henriksen — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 07:47:34 GMT

What temperatures are you measuring?
both in the c3000 and in the room?

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ed Tse — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:24:37 GMT

It is currently just located inside a vacant enclosed office room.

Enclosure Ambient Temperature23Â°C / 73.4Â°F

Blade 1 BL460G1

System Zone 41Â°C
CPU Zone 30Â°C
CPU 1 30Â°C
CPU Zone 29Â°C
CPU 2 N/A
Memory Zone 56Â°C
Ambient Zone 23Â°C

Blade 2 BL460G2

System Zone 45Â°C
CPU Zone 30Â°C
CPU 1 30Â°C
CPU Zone 30Â°C
CPU 2 N/A
Memory Zone 60Â°C
Ambient Zone 24Â°C

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Trygve Henriksen — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:42:40 GMT

It may be that you need to get the ambient air temperature down a few notches.

We have 18 - 19 degrees air temp,
Enclosure Ambient 20,
and my fans are running at 31 - 34 % speed.
(I have a c7000, full of fans and PSUs, 2 x FC and 2 x Eth Switches, and 7 BL460c G6 servers, so )

As for HPs 'open plan office' suggestion, well...

Assuming that the office is located in a building where they habitually stress-test jet engines, it would be a possible use, yes...
(Had an incident with the old 1.80 ILO FW when it was new, which kicked the fan speed up to 79%... )

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ed Tse — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:50:45 GMT

Thanks Trygve,

Yeah our deployment is definitely what in the HP promotional video as the "non data center", I'll talk to the office manager to see if we can crank down the air con, but I suspect, human within the office will probably don't like that cold.

Funny thing is when I saw the C3000 at trade show, it wasn't as loud. I wonder are there special *undocumented* CLI commands to up the fan threshold?

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Trygve Henriksen — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 09:25:43 GMT

I would have tried some 'after hours' work, lowering the temperature when there's less people on site, to see what happens.

Also, the two servers not in use, could you remove those?
(And plug the holes, of course)

The fans furthest away from the active servers SHOULD have been idling(around 30%)

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

ChrisTan_1 — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:16:24 GMT

Hi Ed,

can you also share if you populate the 4 interconnect bays? The C3000 fans will run at higher speed if you populate interconnect bays 2 and 4 as all fans now need to work harder to cool the interconnect bays as well.

I also agree with the suggestion to lower the ambient temperature.

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ed Tse — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:56:19 GMT

Yep, looks like some "after hours" work will be happening this weekend, to test if the ambient will have any effect.

Only used 2 of the interconnects, bay 1 and 3 is populated.

Re: Any way to reduce C3000 noise

Ali — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 15:19:18 GMT

Hi Ed,

yeah... this testing will definately help.. please do share your observations once it is done.

Also what about reseating the OA and trying blades one by one to see if it makes any difference?

thanks,
Aftab