DL380 G4 Fan Noise Very Loud

[Ryme]

Hello all, I have been scouring the internet for weeks and have found many posts, but no solutions for the aweful 100% fan speed noise on my DL380 G4. I am pulling my hair out trying to find a way to slow this rocket ship down!

Motherboard - 359251-001 (single core CPU's only)

OS - Server 2008 R2 (set up as a domain controller and DFS file share server)

Memory - Maxed out at 12GB (all slots populated)

CPU - Currently 3.4Ghz Xeon (2x 3.8Ghz Xeons in rout along with a second VRM)

Does anyone have a solution to this once and for all?

Things I have tried :

(All temps reporting very low)

Bios updated - P51 (2007 date)

Updated all management drivers & Software

All 8 fans are populated and green lit - there is no change in fan speed when removing any or all of the redundant fans.

Thoughts :

This machine only has one PSU installed. Could this cause the fans to run at 100%? It appears to only have been sold with one PSU. If anyone can help I would owe you lots of beers.

[Suman_1978]

Hi,

In some scenarios the fans spin at full speed if:

There are no hard drive blanks or power supply blanks in place.

Any un supported pci cards installed.

Un supported operating system like Win 2008 R2 on a G4 server.

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/windows/index.html

As a work around remove fans, clean them, remove any dust from the server, power supply, air vents.

If you have any spare fans, try with them.

Thank You!
I am a HP employee.

[Ryme]

Suman,

Do you know of any registry tricks to fake the system into thinking 2003 or 2008 non R2 is installed? The OS seems to function just fine and I was able to find all of the drivers I needed. This is a case between selling the machine or figuring out some way to make it work. I really would like to keep the machine but that's not an option with the noise level the way it is.

Thank you so much for your reply. Now that we know it has to be the os 2008 R2, we have a starting point.

(yes trolls, I know this is a rack mount server)

[Jimmy Vance]

Do you have the HP health driver installed? Some of the older ProLiants used the health driver to regulate fan speed.. Also check in System ROM that the fans are not set to provide maximum cooling

[Ryme]

Jimmy,

Yes I do have the health driver installed, but the management page says the fans are running at 30% which is definetly a false reading. As I mentioned in my first post there is no fan speed change between removing redundent fans or leaving them in place. It litterally sounds like they are going to take off. I tired the program fan speed to check, but it's not compatible.

As for the BIOS, there are no cooling related options which is one of the first things I checked. A quiet option would be my saving grace, but there is none to be foud.