Dell PowerEdge T130 Fan issue

Hello.

The T130 does not support GPU cards and when the system detects this 3rd party PCIe card, its fan speed will automatically increase as you have observed. This is also applicable to other Dell 13th generation servers with 3rd part PCIe cards installed. However, if you think that your card does not need additional cooling because it has its own fan; there is IPMI command you can run to stop this default fan response.

Hello,

I have exactly the same issue with a Nvidia NVS 310 PNY.

Can you explan what is a IPMI command and how to execute it ?

Regards,

I have this issue (I have added a single port Broadcom NIC to a brand new T130). Since adding the NIC  the fan speed does not settle down after boot.

My problem is that I am using Linux (OpenSuse Leap42.1) - the solution above assumes a Microsoft OS.

Any ideas on how to fix this problem using an OS other than M$ ?

Thanks.

The commands are the same for Linux OS. Ensure that the system BIOS, iDRAC8 and NIC firmware and drivers (if supported) is up to date and observe the fans' response. If not drain the system flea power by disconnecting AC power cables and then press and hold the power button for about 15 seconds. Reboot the server. When the fans' RPM does not decrease, run the commands as suggested before.

Dear Robert, thanks for taking the time to reply.

There is a gap in my knowledge. When you say the commands are the same in Linux are you suggesting that I can download the Dell OpenManage BMC utility to my running Linux OS ("install" somehow) and then carry out the modifications suggested ? Or is this download done somehow in iDRAC (this level of intelligence in the BIOS/Boot Phase is rather new to me).

I see within the iDRAC I can access a section called "thermal" but this looks as though it lets me _increase_ the fan speed rather than forcing "normal" behaviour of adapting the fan speed to real thermal feedback as opposed to simply increasing the baseline speed if an "unknown" card is installed. My card is a Broadcom supplied by Dell - a simple PCIe x1 card (5722) - I cannot believe it draws much power (try as I have I cannot find the power rating)

As far as I can determine the BIOS/iDRAC is fully up to date.

Hi Robert,

OK. I have now partially filled the gap in my knowledge and have the ipmitool installed on my linux based system (via the software installer in YaST).

After some experimenting I now am able to execute the tool and recover some printable reports using the commands "sdr", "sensor" and "fru". I've tried these as they seem to be simple read only type commands that will not alter anything.

BTW the command line on OpensSUSE Leap 42.1 that appears to work is as follows:

ipmitool -I open -U root -P calvin -H

where has so far been one of  sdr sensor fru

Now, I'm a little nervous about sending "raw" commands to the firmware without understanding what they mean ...... try as I may I cannot track down the precise meaning of the data byte pattern you give in your earlier reply. The first byte (0x30) looks to be "vendor specific netfn" followed by a command "0x30" and then (I'm guessing) the next byte is a length value (0x01) followed by 0x00 and(0x02) followed by 0xff and 0x46.

Can you give me any further info on what these byte strings are actually doing please and where they are documented ?

Thanks,

Alan

Unfortunately, we do not have the documentation for these commands. They are used as walk around on issues to do with fan's RPM hike with third party PCIe cards. There is another command which will revert the fans to the default response.

Can these raw commands be sent from PC? I tried send them from windows 10 machine and get error: Unable to establish IPMI v2

Hi,

Ensure you set the Username and password after -U and -P 

Do you have the command to reset back to default please? 

Yes, to revert to the default fan response:                                                                                               run, raw 0x30 0xce 0x00 0x16 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 . And to check the status run, raw 0x30 0xce 0x01 0x16 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 command.                                                                  The response to the fan status should either be 16 05 00 00 00 05 00 01 00 00 when default behavior is Disabled or 16 05 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 00 when Enabled

Don't forget to enable IPMI Management over LAN inside the DRAC web UI. It appears to be disabled by default.

I have used these commands (from Ubuntu 16.04 Desktop edition) on the actual device as follows:

sudo ipmitool -I open raw 0x30 0x30 0x01 0x00

sudo ipmitool -I open raw 0x30 0x30 0x02 0xff 0x46

While the fan speed lowers, it is still certainly quite loud. Is there anything I can do to reduce the fan speed? I'm fairly certain that at no load the fans should be running very slowly.

I get an error of "invalid parameter given or out of range for -L"

Suggestions?

And also, can this command be run without the server actually plugged into an Ethernet connection? I'm still setting it up and don't have access to a cable yet.