DL320e Gen8 v2 fan noise

[Erathiel]

Have there been any news on the progress recently? I think there must either have been none or I missed them entirely.

[Cyirak]

I have just purchased a DL320e for home and thought i would share my findings regarding noise and also look to the community for some advice.

Overall I’m happy with the server so far it consumes 30w of power (measured using a plug in power monitor) running HP ESXi 5.5 U2 with 5 or so idle VMs and 16GB of RAM.

Initially i found the server very noisy, i am running the latest BIOS (P80 2014.03.28) as well as iLO firmware (2.02).  The fans were running at fan 1:20% fan 2: 20% fan3:35% with the on-board storage controller in RAID.  I then established this was due to having a network card in the PCIe- x16 slot. This was a non-HP cheap NIC, upon removing this the server was nice and quiet with all the fans running at 6%, the PSU fan is still a little noisy but I can live with that.

So needing more NICs I added a HP NC360T dual port (this is an older card from around the gen 6 era) – fan problem returns as above. Placing it in the x8 slot meant fan 1 and 2 run at 22% fan 3 at 6% in the 16x slot I have the same problem as the non-HP NIC. So for the moment I’m making do with the two on board NICs which isn't ideal.

My question is does anyone have a HP Ethernet 1Gb 2-port 332T Adapter (615732-B21) installed in their DL320e V2 with the fans running at the lower speed?

I have attached screens with the fan speed and temperatures for info.

Edit: after a bit more research it does look like the pci card needs sea of sensors support which the 332T appears to have. if someone could confirm a working 332T at the  lower fan speeds that would be great. 

[T_1_6]

For god sake!

Can SOMEONE from HP confirm this stuff please?

Ive just bought 4 x NC365T and 4 x 361T Nics for these servers, but there is no mention of the sea of sensors capability.

IF a NIC card is insterted that does not have "sea of sensors" in the description, does that mean the fans run at higher speeds?

If so then I think HP need to offer some clarifcation here.

The 331T supports sea of sensors, as well as the 332T, but I bought Intel specifically for their reliability.

Have I just wasted my money?

[Cyirak]

hi T_1_6

Since posting I have actually purchased a HP 331T which is a quad port sea of sensors enabled NIC but not on the quick specs compatibility list and had the same problem.

Because of this I purchased a 332T which is a dual port sea of sensors compatible NIC listed on the quick specs as an optional NIC. To my frustration same problem...

I have currently got a support case open with HP so hopefully they are able to resolve this so far they have suggested I clear the NVRAM you can do this by switching switch 6 on the maintenance switches to on power the server on it will then inform you a maintenance switch is set to on. Power the machine down and switch this back to the original position. This may help you but I found it had no effect on mine.

i'll keep you informed as much as I can.

[T_1_6]

Ahh !

Thanks for this that saved me wasting any more money!

As it stands, my servers are running @ 29% fan speed with no add-in cards. This is with an older firmware revision, and the noise at 29% was reasonable, better at 26% though.

If the nc365T and the 361T  maintain the same fan speeds, I will be happy enough I think.

6% Fan speed would be a dream, it must be almost totally silent. However... with an addin card, I think 26% or thereabouts I would be happy with, its not that bad at 26%.

Wednesday I'll have them all up and running with the intel chipsetted NICs plus a P421 RAID Card, so I will post up my results and we can at least compare.

The main thing is though, that your PCI-e cards are reporting their temperatures to the ILO, and this can be checked. With the Sea of Senors support, I would imagine yours are reporting fine.

This being the case, what fan speeds are you seeing on average now, with the add in cards?

[Erathiel]

T_1_6, I run two units of DL320e Gen8 v2 -- one under Windows Server 2012 R2, the other under CentOS 6.6 with no add-in cards. The issue I had was with the FakeRAID controller which requires a proprietary driver to be loaded to function correctly. Without the driver fans run at ~33%. When the driver is loaded fan speed settles at ~6% under usual load and the servers are indeed hardly making any noise.

I haven't been aware that the issue had anything to do with add-in cards. If this is indeed the case then I need to reconsider my plans to buy another one of those servers and supply it with a Sangoma card, which, not being an HP-brand extensions, obviously does not support Sea of Sensors.

[Cyirak]

Without the Addin cards i get 6% fan speed across the board,

With the 332T card in i get 21%21% and 35%, the noise difference is very noticiable. 

The main problem i have is that the PCI-e cards arnt reporting the tempreture to iLO. HP have advised that the system board and PCI riser card need to be replaced so they will be sending an engineer out shortly to carry this out.

So yeah the fan speeds above are without the tempreture being reported at all. So presumably any non HP card or card without Sea of sensors support will have the same noise level.

[T_1_6]

Im struggling to believe that a brand new server has a faulty riser and motherboard!!

My hunch is that it will be exactly the same as before.

Having said that, the PCI-e temps should definitely be reported.

As soon as I can update my BIOS and ILO firmware I can test, but the site is down right now, which sucks.

Still, got 32GB of Kingston DDRL1600 working fine, so things are looking up.

[Cyirak]

I have the same feeling,

After speaking with HP they advised that the parts that would be fitted are refurbished. I know that refurbished parts are as good if not better than new but i cant bring my self to have a refurb board etc on a two week old server.

Server is going back for replacement will be interesting to see if the new one i recieve is the same. 

Yeah please let me know what happens with yours, i'd be interested to know if the PCI-e temps are being reported.

I went for 16GB of Crucial DDRL1600.  

I would love to know if anyone has this sever with the HP 332T NIC in and its reporting the temps.

[T_1_6]

Do you have any drives connected?

With the latest ILO firmware, my fans are running FASTER!

29, 29, and 35 continuously. Before with the older ILO they were on a constant 26%, I dont need any hard drives in these (esxi) so not happy with the increased fan speed for no reason!