ML 370 g5 Loud?

[robert pearman]

Hi,

we put in an ml370 g5 a few weeks ago, it was running fine for the first week, now all of a sudden the fans are running much louder than they were before, with no explanation. none of the insight diagnositcs report any problems and the office the server is in is quite cool.

any suggestions?

[~sesh]

The only thing(s) you can check under these conditions:

1. Firmware (use firmware maintenance cd 7.90 for latest).
2. Proliant Support Packs (PSP v7.90).

If these don't help, it could be an issue with fans / PSU, please try and locate the fan that is making more noise / running at high speed. It should indicate the fault.

PS. Locate the appropriate f/w maintenance cd & PSPs from the HP support & drivers home page. (I'd have done it if I knew which OS is installed on the server.)

[David Claypool]

With the G5 series, fan speed is under control of iLO2, so the presence of the PSP should not affect this at all.

On the Environment page in the Systems Management Homepage, does the fan speed get reported as Normal or High?

Also check clearance of the fan inlet and outlets to make sure there is plenty of room available.

[Brian_Murdoch]

Hi Robert,

I think you may find it's the power supply fans whining and not the system fans. In this case since they are controlled by thermal sensors in the G5 PSU's unlike preious generations you won't see any IML messages because the health driver has no control over them.

I had a customer with an ML370 G5 which had the PSU fans all full blast in the morning after a long tape backup ran. He could pull the power cable out of one power supply at a time (in a redundant configuration of course) and re-insert it. This restored each PSU to normal fan speed.

A number of replacement PSU's were sent by HP, all with different revision levels but to no avail. Finally the call was escalated to HP in Bangalore and new PSU's issued a few weeks later which fixed the problem 100% on this ML370 G5.

Details of these new PSU's are as follows:-
Spare Part 403781-001
Part Number on Label: 379123-001
Revision of PSU 06M

This version of the PSU (379123-001 Rev 06M)was the only one to solve this problem and it had been going on since the server had been installed.

Others that were supplied by HP had these details.

379123-001 Rev 03M
379123-001 Rev 04M
379124-001 Rev 0C
379124-001 Rev 0D
379124-001 Rev 0E

The G5 power supplies are a big headache for HP just now as they appear to be very unreliable. The above issue with the power supply fan speeds may only be related to ML370 G5 as I am not aware of this problem on other G5's like the DL380 G5 which have the same power supplies.

This was a tower system in an office environment however the office temperatures never reached a point where there would be any problem so the behaviour was unexpected.

I hope this helps.

Brian

[itauthority_rob]

Hi Guys,

Lost me login details....

How i wish i had checked back to this forum a bit sooner.

Thanks to you adric for the initial advice, but a big big big thankyou to brian.

Just unplugging one of the psu's instantly solved the issue, so we will wait for monday to request some new psu's.

Thanks for taking the time to give us all that invaluable info.

And a special thanks has come from my boss, who happens to be onsite right now, who found this post via google.

still, better late than never!

cheers.

[Brian_Murdoch]

Thanks for the praise but this only goes to show how valuable the forum is as a source of information and how it might hopefully prevent others from going through the same pain to identify the source of a problem.

The revision levels of the power supplies has changed a couple of times again but if possible try to get hold of REV 06M or above power supplies from HP. The HP Spare part number is 403781-001.

Regards,

Brian

[Dean_62]

Hi folks,

I'm facing a simplar problem with an ML370 G5 server. However, the fan I'm experieincing a problem with is Fan 5 on the CPU board. It seems like it is tryign to spin, but is unsuccessful. All other fans in the server are at a high speed, I assumed they were high because this fan has failed.

We replaced the fan, but still have the same problem. Does the same case apply to me and my server?

[Brian_Murdoch]

Hi Dean,

It's not likely to be the PSU in this case.
Does the server work OK with just the primary fans installed? (Fans 1,2,3)

Check the cable harness to make sure that the fan connector within the cage for fan 5 is seated correctly and all pins are visible and not bent or missing(compare it with another working fan socket).

The fan logic for the ML370 G5 is on the power supply backplane, unlike other models where it is on the system board.

Possible culprits are:-

Bad fan (you have eliminated this I believe)
Bad fan connector for fan 5 in the fan wiring harness or bad power supply backplane board.

Also, remove the complete fan chassis with power removed and verify that the fan wiring harness connector is fitted properly to the power supply backplane board beneath it.

I hope this helps,

Brian

[Dean_62]

Brian,

I've opened a new thread. It will help me identify my problem, especially if other analysts can relate to this issue, can also give you points on my posts.

New Post:
http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1342106

Thanks,

Dean

[Bobo_The_Admin]

Brian M you have saved me a massive chunk of time. I started to check the bios power settings and take the server apart then saw this thread. I pulled each power cable out in turn, then re-inserted. The PSU fans stopped, then came back on in a calmer state. I guess we need to replace the PSU, but in the short term it has really helped out. I will keep you updated to what happens next as the kit is so old we probably wont replace any parts.