MicroServer Gen8 is noisy

[VasiC]

UPDATE: At 22C ambient temp the fan is spinning at 7%, the box is dead silent.

Again, i am in non-RAID AHCI mode

So it is possible guys, just keep trying swaping between lower versions of ILO 1.32 and ILO 1.32 modified/hacked version.

Good luck.

[ad-d]

I'm surpised but very glad Vasic's posts are still here, previously any mention of the 'adjusted' ilo led to the posts being removed, hopefully HP have leant this is essential information for some people that needs to be left visible.  Anyone loading the 'adjusted' ilo firmware has clearly accepted responsibility for any potential problems and we don't need HP 'protecting' us by removing these sorts of posts.

Glad to hear of your experiences, your results exactly match the fan speed calculations I'd done so that's great :)  What are your drive temps like though after extended usage?  Can you set up some data copies between all the drives and see how drive temps look after a few hours at the lower fan speeds?  I don't tend to do disk transfers over extended periods like that and I do have cool running 5900rpm drives so sure I'd be fine but it's good information for people to have.  'CrystalDiskInfo' or similar programs will give the drive temps from within Windows.

I won't get a chance for at least the next month but sounds like I need to look into switching to AHCI with the modded ilo on the second Gen8 microserver I recently bought.  With 8GB ram, i3-3240T CPU upgrade and this adjusted ilo I'm really hoping to end up with the quiet, quick and well built server I always knew it could be.  Just wish I'd bought the cheap low TDP Xeon I came across a while back, would have preferred running the slower fan speeds with a cooler chip below the HDD cage but I'm sure the i3 will be OK, doesn't get that hot.  Just need to upgrade some of the 4TB to 8TB drives now...

[firefly2000uk]

Can anyone offer some advice?

Fans are spinning constantly at 70% I don't know the reason for this.
At what temperature threshold do the fans speed up? 

HP Microserver GEN8 running RAID (not AHCI) configuration.
No modifications (straight out the box) 2GB RAM, 2 x HDDs (Front Bays) and 1 x 2.5" off additional SATA connector.
Installation of Windows Server 2012 on the 2.5" HDD
Default BIOS settings.

Firmware Versions:

• HP Dynamic Smart Array B120i Controller 5.00 
• HP ProLiant System ROM 06/06/2014 
• HP ProLiant System ROM - Backup 06/06/2014 
• HP ProLiant System ROM Bootblock 02/04/2012 
• iLO 2.03 Nov 07 2014 
• Intelligent Provisioning 1.61.45 
• Server Platform Services (SPS) Firmware 2.2.0.31.2

Temperatures of the components:

• 01-Inlet Ambient  29C 
• 02-CPU  40C 
• 03-P1 DIMM 1-2  34C 
• 04-HD Max  54C 
• 05-Chipset  49C 
• 06-Chipset Zone  40C 
• 07-VR P1 Zone  42C 
• 08-Supercap Max  N/A 
• 09-iLO Zone  41C 
• 10-PCI 1  N/A 
• 11-PCI 1 Zone  34C 
• 12-Sys Exhaust  39C 
• 13-LOM  56C 

[ad-d]

70% is high, that's going to be very very loud!

29 degrees is a high ambient so that will certainly speed the fans up (for reference in AHCI with just one SSD attached for testing I was getting 13% fan speed at 23 degrees but a much louder 28% fan speed at 29 degrees - more than double).

There are a few things that will push up the fan speed so I'd concentrate on these areas and maybe remove some components when testing to find the cause:

1) Fan speeds seem to be linked to ambient temperature so the cooler you can keep the server the better, for example at the same ambient temperature of 24 degrees during testing I found the fan speed kept to exactly the same speed regardless of CPU load.  Sat idle at 24 degrees fan speed was 14%, after 50mins running Prime95 'in-place large FFTs' ambient was still 24 degrees fan speed was still 14%.  After 1 hour 40mins fan speed had increased to 15% but ambient had also raised to 25 degrees.  Coretemp showed the max temps for cpu cores had hit 55/56 during the testing but fan speed seems only bothered by ambient temperatures (oddly ilo sensor for CPU was shown as 40 degrees during the entire test - surprising but I'm not complaining, CPU easily kept cool enough).

2) Do you have any add in cards?  Apparently adding a pci-e card will push up temperatures (unless it's a supported HP card it can't read the temperatures so increases fan speed to ensure eveything stays cool)

3) What hard drives are you using in the server?  Would seem some hard drive temperature sensors do not report their temperature in a way that the HP ilo can read properly, these incompatible drives are read as having a really high temperature so the ilo ramps up the fan speed a lot thinking the drives need urgent cooling.  Your drive temps are listed as 54 degrees which seems rather high, good chance this is the problem.  Check the ilo and see which drive is reading so high, try removing that drive and power the server back on as a test, fan speed likely to be a lot less.  For example the 'Corsair Neutron 240GB GTX' is a drive that apparently does not work well with the Gen8 Microserver and gives a minimum 50% fan speed when used.

There could be other reasons for higher fan speeds I've forgotten but that high HDD temp reading and the high ambient temperature will definitely give you a very noisy server, I'd concentrate on those areas first.  If you're getting approx 50% fan speed due to incompatible HDD then adding a high ambient temperature which also vastly increases fan speed there's every chance that could equal 70%

Good luck.

[ad-d]

Where is that 2.5 inch drive located in the case?  If it's a normal HDD and it's up in the CD bay area there's very little cooling up there and drive will get very hot, maybe it really is reaching 54 degrees.  I'd only recommend an SSD up there that run a lot cooler.  Try moving the drive somewhere else eg next to the drive cage where there is airflow.

[firefly2000uk]

Many thanks for your detailed reply! Most appreciated!

After looking through your info I discovered this issue was related to the 2.5" drive being used. 

This was not reporting temperature back to the system and as a result the fans were going crazy at 70%

I replaced the 160GB (Hitachi) drive with a 120SSD to test and the fans were fine! (Currently running at 6%). The other factor which may have affected this is that the new drive was installed using the intelligent provisioning therefore probably included some additional HP drivers in the OS build.

I will be looking at other HDD manufacturer (which allow temp readings) as it's not recommended to run the SSD 24/7

Thanks for your help!

[ad-d]

OK great, glad that helped, for anyone else experiencing higher than expected fan speeds it's a good place to start as well.

Not sure why you say it's not recommended to run the SSD 24/7 though, newer SSDs are designed for such high data workloads that you should be OK running the SSD as the OS disk for many many years before ever experiencing any issues, in fact they should be more reliable than spinning disks.  Given how slow the Gen8 Microserver is to get through the BIOS startup and how long Server 2012 R2 takes to load I wouldn't dream of using anything but an SSD personally.

[ad-d]

Will not get a chance for weeks to do any proper tests with HDDs installed etc but I did quickly load the 'adjusted' ilo firmware on my second server over the weekend.  Very brief test if it responded as expected and it certainly seems to have dropped fan speeds to the values expected, for anyone interested:

Ambient:            Fan speed (ilo 1.40):           Fan speed (ilo 1.32 'adjusted' actual results):

23                                        13%                                             8%

24                                        14%                                             8%

25                                        15%                                             9%

To be honest 8% doesn't really sound much quieter than 13% but at these levels it's reasonably quiet, the biggest improvements would be at higher ambient temperatures:

Ambient:            Fan speed (ilo 1.40):           Fan speed (ilo 1.32 'adjusted' calculated results):

28                                        25%                                             15%

29                                        28%                                             16.8%

At 28/29 degrees the fan speed should be running 10% lower or more, that should be very noticeable.  Obviously if you do decide to try this out keep an eye on your HDD temperatures until you're happy they will stay at safe temperatures with the workload you subject your disks to and the reduced airflow.  If you have fast spinning 'hot' HDDs, constantly write to the drives 24/7 and have a high ambient temperature this may not be a sensible setup for you!

[markog]

Crazy thing happend to me and my HP Gen8. I have just refreshed my BIOS ROM with the acutal version and my FAN Speed dropped from 25% to 14%...

I am using AHCI with 2 x 3 TB Sata HDDs

[llaumgui]

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@ad-d wrote:
ilo 1.32 'adjusted'

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Where to find this version ? When I search on Google I find only chiness websites...