DL380 G8 fans.

[Kusado]

Where is the sensor 30-PCI 2 located?

It shows pretty High temp all the time, around 75-78℃ on one server and 84-85 on another. Is it normal?

[Kusado]

One server cooler's started to spin at 100% for one to two second for once an hour, returning to 30%.

Running server w/o 420 controller makes coolers spin at 10-15%%.

Opened support case. HP ingeneeres changed raiser card, 420 controller, updated every firmware on server.

Nothing changed.

Case was elevated to L2.

Case was closed. 

The server still tries to fly away several times per day.

Older HP servers were not so shiny, but I've never seen a closed support ticket with no result achieved.

[Oscar A. Perez]

Please log a new case and then PM me the case number.

Also, do not accept hardware replacement when it is clear the issue is software or firmware related. It is a practice that has to end because, it makes everybody waste time and money.

Oscar

[fishy007]

Kusado - I'm having a similar problem!  The fan noise on my DL380e G8 is driving me crazy.  We have 380 G7s that are much, much quieter.

One thing I noticed with my server is that upon bootup, the 'inlet temperature' is always wrong. It's showing as 10c or 13c when the ambient temp in the room is aroudn 21c.  Do your servers also have that issue?

I also noticed the high temp for one of the sensors. Turns out that it's the P420 SAS adapter.   Have you tried removing that and booting the server without it? That's my next step.

[Kusado]

Oscar, I've opened new case and sent you the case number in PM.
fishy007, my servers also show extra low temperature during boot.
And yes, running with no P420 makes server as silent as my home PC.

[Oscar A. Perez]

Hi Kusado,

What is the ambient temperature in the room where this server is running?  I can see in the screenshot you attached that the Inlet Ambient sensor says 12ºC

[Kusado]

Air temperature in server room is about 12C.

The funny thing - when you start the DL380 it shows in console the status of that sensor.

There's a todays example: http: //pbrd.co/1eG6ZFb 

[Oscar A. Perez]

Update:

I have 2 DL380e Gen8 running their FANs contantly at 35% and I've been debugging it from the iLO side. What I found is that the P420 card is telling iLO not to use any fan speed lower than 90 PWM (~35%).  This 90 PWM value is coming from the FAN table and it is only there when the server comes with the 12x LFF drives backplane. if I swap the backplane for a different option, like the 8x SFF drives, the FAN table provides a lower PWM value.

I'm contacting the DL380e Gen8 team to get clarification on why the FAN table was setup this way for systems with 12x LFF drives backplanes.

[fishy007]

That's fantastic detective work Oscar. Thank you for doing that!

In another thread you asked me if I had the 12x LFF Drives Backlplane and the P420 card. I confirmed that I do have the P420 and my system can accomodate 25 SAS drives. 

Just putting my info in this thread so that it's all in one place for future visitors.

[fishy007]

I don't want to jump the gun, but I seem to have had some minor success with dealing with this issue.

Once Oscar and Kusado confirmed that the issue was related to the P420 card, I thought about either ditching it entirely or changing it.  I then opened up the system and decided to tinker

The P420 card was originally set in slot 2 of the PCI riser card. I moved it to slot 1 and the noise level from the fans has dropped significantly. It's still slightly louder than I'd like, but it's WAY better than it was before.

Previously, the lowest my fans would drop is to 38%, and even that was just a brief dip. Usually they would sit at about 45-50%  Now, fans 1-3 are at 21% and fans 3-6 are at 35% when sitting idle in ESXi with no VMs running.

I'm going to try moving the card to slot 3 and see what happens.  Will update later when I am able to do this.