ML110 Gen9 esxi 6 high fan speed

[Mike9]

Hi,

i have a brand new ML110 Gen9 without any HDD and installed VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-Update2-3620759-HPE-600.9.5.0.48-Apr2016 onto an internal SD-Card (tried it with an usb-stick too). The Problem is, that the fan wont go lower than 38-40%. If i go into the SSA (storage config) menu to configure HDDs the fan speed drops to 13%, but in esxi not. Is this a known problem, as i have the feeling that its not a hardware but software problem.

FirmwareInfo: I updated the server with the 2016.04 ServicePack and updated ilo to 2.44

thx in advance

Mike

[Jimmy Vance]

SSA forces the driver for the B140i to load.  Loading the HPE version of ESXi should also load the driver if it sees the correct PCI ID. There are a couple of scenarios where the driver won't load. If the embedded controller is set to AHCI SATA mode instead of B140i mode. or the system is set to Legacy boot mode which in affect disables B140i mode.  The driver provides information to iLO for drive temp, without the temp information iLO spins the fans faster

[Mike9]

Hi,

thx for the reply. i made sure, the b140i is active in the bios and the mode is set to uefi. what i think could be the problem is, that i dont have any hdds installed an so their wont be any report from anyone. but without sourcecode i cant verify it. any other ideas what it could be or is there any command i could set in esxi which tells ilo to get quiet?

thx

Mike

[Jimmy Vance]

Make sure the hpdsa driver is loaded, I think for ESXi it is called scsi-hpdsa. For the Linux version of the driver the ahci drvier must be blacklisted before hpdsa will load properly, not sure if this is the case for ESXi.  The driver provides the sensor informtion iLO is looking for

[Mike9]

Thx for the reply. I tried different scenarios and without an HDD installed the SSA fan speed is still high, with a HDD installed the SSA fan speed is at 6% and with HDD installed the esxi fan speed is at 6% too.

So it seems HP is forcing me to install an HDD without any need just to have a quiet server? Currently im in talk with HP support and lets see what they say. Any ideas to fake an installed hdd if HP calls this a feature?

thx

Mike

[Jimmy Vance]

Without an HDD installed, can you check and see if scsi-hpdsa is loaded?  I haven't worked with VMware in years so I don't even know if it is still possible to get to a command line.  If it isn't loaded, can you manually load or force the driver to load and see if the fan speed drops?  Without an HDD installed you said the fan drops when launching SSA.  SSA boots a Linux kernel and forces hpdsa to load

[Mike9]

Hi,

after todays test it showed that SSA wont lower fan speed without an HDD installed. therefore it seems to be more like a system but a driver problem