Thermal Messages

[Acxiom Unix Team]

We have a C7000 Enclosure with 10 fans in, all of which are functional and working (indicated with solid Green light). However we keep getting alerts about 1 of the fans becoming degraded/removed (fan 4) and 2 others being in an Improper Location (fan 3 and 8).

The attached document shows one of the alerts we got and the sequence they come in. Notice we never get alerts about the improper location, its just the degraded one.

Just from visually looking at the enclosure, all lights are green, all fans are kicking out air as i can feel it so just a little confused. So if anyone has any ideas i would be grateful as everything looks okay to me.

[Víctor Cespón]

If you have 10 fans, they cannot be in a improper location since all bays are filled.

Do you have the latest firmware on the onboard administrator? Because there's an advisory about this.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c00871795

[The Brit]

I would try (maybe you already have) physically removing and reseating the Fan. It may be just a bad connector. If that doesn't work, or if the problem continues, I would call HP for a replacement.

If the timeframes in the attachment are typical, and this is happening constantly, it might be a cracked circuit board flexing due to expansion.

Just a thought

Dave

[The Brit]

looking at the earlier post, it does look like your problem.

You didn't mention what version of OA you are running.

Dave

[Acxiom Unix Team]

We have Firmware Version 2.25 on both the Active and Standby OA Administrators. That advisory mentions about having version 2 so we should be okay as far as versions are concerned...

[Víctor Cespón]

The messages mention only bay 4
Can you try to swap the fan by another one in another bay?

[Acxiom Unix Team]

Can they be swapped while everything is up and running??? New to these enclosures hence possibly silly question...

If so i will go and try that. Guess we can see if the error message follows the fan unit or if it stays in location 4......

[Adrian Clint]

Fans 3&8 are not really required for operation. They are there to provide failover for the fans either side, and will be used if fitted.
So you can move/swop with those when debugging.

[David Claypool]

Adrian, that is incorrect. With more fans than are necessary in a configuration, they don't act as a failover. Rather, all of the fans will be spinning but at a lower speed to provide the appropriate CFM. If any fans fail, the remaining fans will all speed up to provide a consistent CFM.

An additional benefit to over-provisioning fans is that more, slower fans consume less power than fewer, faster fans.

[WFHC-WI]

True, but HP supports 10 blades while using only 8 fans (1,2,4,5 and 6,7,9,10). For testing purposes I think it is a good idea to remove either fan 3 or fan 8 and install it into fan bay 4. Moving a fan in this way will not shut any servers down.

Let us know where the errors show following the switch.

[Acxiom Unix Team]

I am closing this down as the messages have stopped happening. Since March 30th we have had no more alerts, all 10 fans are working, and everything seems okay with regards to the zones.

So i am going to leave it for now and see what happens, if it starts showing errors again i will then look at swapping fans around by testing a fan from bay 3 or 8 in bay 4 (if it is that one that errors)...

Thanks for help....