DL-560 Gen8 - PCI-E GPU Options?

[dewaard]

We have a HP ProLiant DL-560 Gen8 maxed out version. One of our applications requires an OpenGL compatible graphics adapter. It does't have to be a heavy card.. anything better then the onboard Matrox chipset would be sufficiant. Like any 50 dollar consumer graphics card would do.

We expirienced that the placement of any non-HP PCI-E card in the PCI-E slots will result in a continious crazy fan speed of like 75 % which makes an onacceptable level of noise. No mater the type of card (usb card, NVME SSD, non-HP ethernet card etc), the BIOS will see it as a "unknown" card, the card will work but there will be a terrible fan noise.

Appearantly this is by design, whenever a NON-HP PCI-e card is inserted the fan's started spinngin like a jetplain.

So the question remains... which possible PCI-E graphics card can we place in this server that the BIOS will accept as a "HP" qualified card.. so that it will keep the fan's on normal levels?

Please HP, help!

.

[TVVJ]

Hello,

Though the HPE ProLiant DL560 Gen8 server's QuickSpecs does not list a supported GPU, you may review the ones recommended for HPE ProLiant DL380p Gen8 server's QuickSpecs, section Core Options > HP Computation and Graphics Accelerators for more information.

Regards,

[dewaard]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply I appreciate it. According to the (by you suggested) DL380p Gen8 manual the machine should accept a NVIDIA Quadro K2000. Can you please elaborate on why you suggest to look at the DL380p specs? Does this machine have a similar check on the type of inserted PCI-E card vendors?

While my opinion is that a customer should be able to put in any (non-HP) PCI-E card wihout ILO deciding for me to put the fans at a crazy level. Your product offers PCI-E slots, which are generic extensions slots. Nowhere in the manual or product specs is mentioned that you enforce a crazy fan policy when third party hardware is used.. so don't enforce any unnecessary fan speed policies on your customers. Do you really need to turn up all the fans to a crazy loud level when there is a third party PCI-E card inserted? HPE come on guys... you call yourself Enterprise? Then at least.. give the customer an option in ILO/BIOS to continue at own risk and bypass this extraordinary behaviour. Or even a workaround/hack would be welcome. You guys are aware that people hacked ILO of the DL380 because they could not live with this issue right?

• https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/hix44v/silence_of_the_fans_pt_2_hp_ilo_4_273_now_with/
• https://github.com/kendallgoto/ilo4_unlock

It can not be that we have to hack the onboard software to let the system act normal. So we are trying the legit way..

That being said, my company really has no problems with buying a "supported" card if it solves the problem. But we need to be absolutely sure that the DL560 Gen8 will accept the Quadro K2000 as a genuine card and keep the fans at normal level.

So to be crystal clear, the question is not which Graphic Adapter works, because we have 5 different cards laying aroud that have already proven to work perfectly. The question is, which graphic adapter card is accepted by your software (BIOS/ILO) so that it will keep the fans working normaly. This was such an expensive machine, there should be an engineer at HPE who could look at the (ILO) code and being able to give a crystal clear answer if this card is accepted or not.  HPE can not expect us (the customer) to buy and test every card that might be accepted. You build the check.. your software engineers know the conditions and which cards are expected or not.

This whole issue cost our company enourmous amounts of time and money already. We really count on the suppport of HPE on this one.

Bastiaan

TMRRW MEDIA

[TVVJ]

Hello,

You may contact HPE Support, using the HPE Support Center portal for further assistance.

Regards,

[dewaard]

Listen I dont want to be rude or something, but we already contact HPE support 2 days ago and that sadly was a waste of time. The good fellow on the chat didn't have any further information than there is in the manual. We already read the complete manual and did an extensive amount of research on the subject before we reached out to you guys. The level of support for such an expensive (20K+€) enterprise product is really disappointing. He even mentioned that the fan speeds were caused by a "load" issue, which is total incorrect information. He was not aware of the vendor PCI-E fan policy. That's why we posted the question on this forum, as last resort.

We would really appreciate if one of the HPE engineers (non first line support) with knowledge on the subject could just supply the requested information. The question is really simple; Which graphic cards will be seen by ILO/BIOS as legit ones so that it will keep the system's fans working normally. We don't understand why this is such a difficult question for you guys, you engineered this inappropriate BIOS check/limitation. Someone in your organization should have this information.

We need this issue resolved a.s.a.p., we currently have inserted third party graphics adapter so our application works (this machine is a very important part of our production pipeline). But the noise that is now comming from our small server room is disturbing the office employees in the room next door (and there is concrete wall between it). Some of our employees are wearing earplugs at the moment because they get crazy by the fan noise.

Kind regards,

Bastiaan

TMRRW Media

[dewaard]

Update;

The situation has become even worse. We bought an official HP 516T 10Gb 2-Port Ethernet Adapter card (716591-B21-HIGH) which is mentioned in the HP560 Gen8 User Manual as being compatible, it runs the latest firmware. Also when this card is inserted the fan's will go crazy. Why does the card show status "Uknown" in ILO. This is an official HP product and cost a lot of money.

This is unacceptable HP, an urgent request to release an update for ILO to disable this fan behaviour.

ILO 2.79:

[BPSingh]

Hello

Greetings!

For DL560 Gen8, there is no supported video card mentioned.

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c03453797&docLocale=en_US#N10BAD 

https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/c04123206?jumpid=in_lit-psnow-red 

Yes you are right. iLO won't be able to read information for 3rd party cards/drives and as a result the fan RPMs will go high. 

For the Fan noise issue with HP 516T installed, you may check the following.

-> Check the Fan RPM that is being reported in iLO. 

-> Please verify System Inlet Temperature/Ambient temperature where the server is located. page# 53 https://www.hpe.com/psnow/doc/c04123206?jumpid=in_lit-psnow-red 

-> Verify that all air baffles and required blanks, such as drive blanks, processor heatsink blanks, power supply blanks, etc., are installed. to ensure proper air flow within server.

-> Please ensure iLO firmware/driver, system BIOS, 516T firmware/driver are up to date. 

-> Please check the thermal configuration set in RBSU. Test in optimal cooling and increased cooling to check the result. 

Page# 123 https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=c00191707 

Also the card may report unknown in iLO due to various reasons. 

-> Card driver/firmware. 
-> iLO firmware
-> Ensure HPE Agentless Management Service is installed and running at the OS level. 
-> Please connect to active network and check. 

Please refer below link to understand what "unknown" means in iLO for different OS flavours. 

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docId=sd00001038en_us&docLocale=en_US&page=GUID-202BB943-95C4-488A-869C-874ADD8242D2.html 

I understand that you have already opened a support ticket. I would advise you to update the ticket so that the issue could be troubleshooted further. 

Regards,