fan control DL160 on debian (lenny)

[Tom van de Zande]

Hello all,

I am running debian (lenny) on a HP Proliant DL160 G5. The problem is that the fans keep running at full speed. I figured the only way to fix this is to install HPASM. I just can't get it to work. HP seems to provide a deb package for etch but not for lenny.

All I care about is that the fans will run at lower speed when the server is cold and does not need to be cooled.

Thanks in advance,
Tom

[David Claypool]

The ProLiant Support Pack (including hpasm) is not available for ProLiant 100 series. The 100 series have IPMI-style manageability. That means that no software is necessary for fan speed regulation. Assuming you have the OpenIPMI driver loaded, you can use IPMItool to read the sensors and get fan status:

ipmitool -I open all

[Tom van de Zande]

I installed openipmi and ipmitool

ipmitool -I open all
gives:
Invalid command: all

ipmitool sensor
gives:
Could not open device at /dev/ipmi0 or /dev/ipmi/0 or /dev/ipmidev/0: No such file or directory
Get Device ID command failed
Unable to open SDR for reading

If I get this to work, how would i use it to slow down the fans?

Thanks,
Tom

[CABITS Alan]

I am experiencing exactly the same issue. Please advise

[Ivan V Petrov]

just install OpenIPMI

[bursam]

I got ipmi working, using modprobe on the following modules:

ipmi_msghandler
ipmi_devintf
ipmi_kcs_drv (2.4 kernels) or ipmi_si (2.6 kernels)

(ipmitool working, ipmiutil working even without the modules)

However, using the tools I can only read the sensor status. Is there any possibility to turn on the anutomatic fan control (temperature based)?

[Marco Wessel]

Did you check the bios settings? My Dl160s automatically turn the fans down even before loading an OS.

[bursam]

Sure,

after the BMC loads BIOS, it lowers the fan speed.

However, after loading lenny (etch, etchnhalf, Opensuse, Mandriva 2009.0 also) it starts running the fans at full speed.

[ethica]

I got the same problem .
The fans run at high speed on server2008 and
doesn't slow down .
Noise is very loud but the Hp support team
said that is "NORMAL" ...

[bursam]

No change even with MS Server 2003. According to our IT specialist, 1U and 2U servers usually have no fan controll and run full speed all the time.

Using IPMI i discovered no options to controll the fans. In the IPMI (?) section in the BIOS, there is a "Fan control" intem with setting locked to "Standard". Does anyone succeeded in changing the item?

m.

P.S.: Any success stories in IMPI over LAN connection? (using impitool -I lan or impitool -I lanplus)

[ctrul]

> ipmitool -I open bmc reset warm
or
> ipmitool -I open bmc reset cold

slows down the fans.

It works from LAN as well.

By the way, i would raise the problem:
on my DL160, the power on/off/cycle ipmi stuff doesn't work when invoked from ipmi clients on the lan.
Then i request a power cycle with ipmitool from the console, it works; from remote over lan, it doesn't.
Any hint on this as well ?

[bursam]

Hi,

just noticed, that 'ipmitool bmc reset ' lowers fan speed, however (according to 'impitool sdr' and 'ipmitool sensor list') it disables temperature monitoring/fan control.

The readings Cpu[01] Dmn [01] Temp are N/A and fans stay about 3.000 RPM.

After reboot the fan went up to 15.000 RPM (instead of usual 6.000 RPM (which were thought being noisy :) -- now i know 15.000 is noisy)).

Any hint on re-enabling temperature-driven RPM?

thanks,

mira

[ianbowler]

I have a new DL160, same issue noisey fans. I had read you can remove the 6th fan as it cools a PCIE slot, which if empty is pointless... anyway you can't lol server just cycles reboot complaining of insufficient fans.

My fan speed starts at around 8,000RPM, i've had it up to over 15,000RPM, i have sound proofed my rack cabinet but it is impossible to work with. I phone the warranty line and have 6 new fans comming my way, they said it could be one of three things, old firmware, faulty fans or fault sensor.... i have updated the firmware to no avail so fans next!

I will post an update in the next couple of days as to the benifits of the new fans, i'm not holding my breath.

I will try the IMPI cold command too and see if i can get any joy.

On a hardware note, i opened the server to find a reasonable chunk of the intake was blocked by SATA power and ribbon cable so hoping i can help the air flow out by tidying this.

Anyone found a sure fire solution to this yet?
Also anyone know whether there are temp sensors in the fans? There is an awful lot of cores comming from a dual blade fan to just be speed and power control???

[Tom van de Zande]

Hi all,

Thank you all for your replies. Clearly i'm not the only one with this problem. However, still no one seems to know the solution. That is, how to configure the system such that it will turn down the fans when possible and turn them back up when necessary.

Is there really no one (hp?) who can help us out here? I truly don't feel like this is an unreasonable question. This should not be such a big problem, should it?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Once again, thanks in advance.

Tom

[ianbowler]

Well i can update on the warranty fan situation, they sent me one fan, which i haven't bothered to install, because i ran the server with the lid off and tested each fan with a sound meter, and all fans were outputting the same decibels.

Havn't got around to running the IPMI command, partly due to not having a dual boot drive handy, and i'm running windows 2008 server and all the IPMI tools seem to be linux based? Anyone knoe of an IPMI tool i can use on a windows machine?

I've got creative with the server installation in the rack, which basically means its at the bottom (cool) so my fans dont tend to get above 9,000RPM but ideally i'd like it a lot quieter than that! Liveable... JUST! I'm begining to think i've got it as good as i can get it and the rest of the changes are all going to be environmental to dampen the sound.

I'm not looking forward to summer.

[Alessandro Asti]

Hello all,
i'm using Linux on a Proliant DL160 G5, and with OpenIPMI and ipmitool i can get the fan status.
I low them with command "ipmitool bmc reset warm", but this lower the fan from about 8000 rpm to 3200 rpm... In this case the temperature of the PCI Ambient and the Rear Ambient grow up from 15° to about 40°...

It isn't possible to modify the IPMI settings, and modify the fan speed after the warm reset from 3200 rpm to 4000 or 4500 rpm ????
Fans will be a little more noisy (but not as they go at 8000rpm...), and the temperature will be a little more lower...

Thanks for your help!!!!
Alessandro