ML370 G3 fans stop working

[joe Miller_5]

I have a ML370 G3 that has had fans 1 through 4 stop running twice in the past week. The fans are clean and will work in slots 5 and 6 but I get an amber light when they are in slots 1 through 4. Last week, I took them out and cleaned them and they started working again. Today, they won't. Any ideas on things I can do??

[James ~ Happy Dude]

Hello Joe,

where is this amber light ? Is it the INTERNAL HEALTH led ?? Will the server boot ? or you get an error message ? How about the power connectors ?

Regards.

[Brian_Murdoch]

Hi Joe,

Unfortunately one of the most common faults on the Proliant ML370 G3 is fan failure caused by a fault in the fan logic circuit on the system board. If you don't have a genuine fan failure it will probably be the system board. The fan cable harness does fail occasionally so check each fan socket on the harness to make sure they are not pushed down too far or have become unclipped at the sides.

Spare part numbers for the system board depend on the original build but the newer one is backward compatible.

System Board 2.4Ghz to 2.8Ghz models (290559-001)
(This cannot be used with higher CPU speeds)

System Board 3.06Ghz and above (316864-001)
(This can be used in 2.4Ghz and 2.8Ghz systems without any problems)

I don't know if HP ever created a customer advisory on this fault but I know they modified the BIOS to set the default fan speed to high in later releases to compensate for the issue. Unfortunately if the fault is already present it's too late for any BIOS changes to have any effect.

Try Ebay for a system board if your server is out of warranty.

I hope this helps.

Brian

[Jim Gallott]

We are having the same issue, same model, replaced all the fans and fan #1 was green for a while, then went amber. Pull out fan #3 and fan #1 will start up, but stop when I push fan #3 in again.

My thought: put a stock 92 mm fan in one of the HP fan holders, but run the power to a Y off of the power going to the CD drive. Will the system freak if it can't find a fan? It seems to continue running with a malfunctioning one. At least I won't have to worry about the fan logic turning the cpu fan off.