R420 chassis heating due raid controller card

Hello Rajesh

Where are you getting the temperature reading from? Go into your iDRAC and take a screenshot of the temperatures. Post the picture here. Overview>Server>Power/Thermal>Temperatures(Tab). There is a Temperature Probes section. Take a screenshot of that section.

Thanks

hi

the dset report displays normal temperatures since it measures the inlet temperature (26-28 deg C) and the cpu temperature (57-62 degC).

what i refer to is the temperature of the chasis just above the raid controller card and this is not monitored by the drac.

dell india is trying to resolve this for the past 30 days but still there is no resolution and they have set up a test server in their lab and are experiencing exactly the same issue.

to replicate the issue you will need two servers to be placed in a datacenter rack.

create an exactly same setup as below and load windows 2008 r2 OS

R420 - single hexcore processor 2.2 ghz, with 4 X 600 gb 15000 rpm drives
(configured as 2 drives in raid 1 (c: drive with OS ) + 2 drives in raid 1 (d: drive) )

place 2 such servers like this one above the other in the rack.

to create load situation on the drives  simply copy some data between the drives ie from c: to d: which will last for around 1 hour (simply copy/paste the c:\windows folder to d: drive around 15 times from the c drive to d drive). This has to be done on both the servers.

After around 45 mins check temperature of the chassis of the "bottom server"  just above the raid controller card and you will note that the temperature goes to around 45 deg c and this will increase to over 50 degrees if the multiple servers are placed together and the servers are continously under production.

IMPORTANT : you need to use a contact thermometer to measure the temperature and not a Infra-Red thermometer.

can you please check from your side and revert

i could not post the dset report or screenshots of temperature readings because i could not see any option to select a file and attach to this message

personally i feel it is design level issue because the alignment of the heatsink fins on top the raid-controller card is perpendicular to the air-flow and nor parallel to the airflow -- which pretty illogical. The same heatsink in the R620 server is correctly aligned with the fins being parallel to the air flow.

rajesh

daniel

it is not the cpu temp that i am worried about.

i measured the temperature one of my servers in the middle of the rack again by placing the probe of the contact thermometer on the chasis of the server over the raid controller card at the back to the left of the smps.

one of the servers in the middle measured 57.4 deg celcius which can actually give your a severe burn.

the datacenter i host in has several R620, 520, 720 servers -- none  ever heats up to such a high temperature. I seriously doubt as to why only the R420 model heats up so much.

raid controller card is the most critical component and it is totally closetted from all sides and there is a hot-air pocket being trapped between the chassis on top and the raid-controller heat sink.

Iincreasing the thermal offset to 50 % inceases the fan rpm to 7500 rpm. Will such an increase cause any harm to the fans in the long run since they normally run at around 2000 rpm ?

how much does the power consumption increase -- where do i view this ?

rajesh

Iincreasing the thermal offset to 50 % inceases the fan rpm to 7500 rpm. Will such an increase cause any harm to the fans in the long run since they normally run at around 2000 rpm ?

It will likely reduce the life span of the fans.

how much does the power consumption increase -- where do i view this ?

You can compare the wattage by checking the power consumption under the power/thermal section of the iDRAC web interface. You can check before and after turning the fans up to see what the wattage difference is.

daniel

This heating issue is prevalent on all my 6 servers

the temperatures ranges from over 50 - 57 deg C on the body of the chassis, only on top of the raid card.

all other dell server models' chasis is less than 40 deg c

if your 12 G servers have been thermally optimized then definitely the chassis should not become so hot.

is it possible for you inform your engineering team and try to duplicate thisheating issue ?

rajesh

is it possible for you inform your engineering team and try to duplicate thisheating issue ?

The information I provided in my previous post has not changed. There is not an issue with the server.  We are aware that the servers can get hot to the touch at the top rear of the server, this is not a defect. If you don't like that the server gets hot then I have explained how you can increase the fan speeds to reduce the temperature.

all other dell server models' chasis is less than 40 deg c

Just because something does not work exactly like something else does not mean there is a problem. The 12th generation servers are designed differently than our previous servers.

daniel

57 degrees on top of the chassis can burn your hand. and this is happening in in an 18 deg celicius datacenter

it is very hard to believe that this is planned .... !!!

further i am comparing with your 12 generation servers only ie especially the 620 server where the raid raid card in behind on the cpu on the right -- temperature over the chassis is less than 40 deg celcius.

also increasing fan rpm from the normal rpm of around 1500 - 2000 to 7500 ie close to 5 times more is not a solution especially when there is no additional hardware

also there is no explanation as to why the heat sink fins are aligned perpendicular to the air flow in the R420 server instead of being parallel to the air flow as in case of the R620 which is the way it should be.

can you pass on this message to your engineering team to look into.

i am sure DELL is always on the look out for making things better especially from the thermal side

rajesh

NOTE:

to replicate this issue you will need 3 nos r420 servers with configuration mentioned above with windows server loaded in them.

the server in the middle will get heated to around 55- 57 deg c

rajesh

"the server in the middle will get heated to around 55- 57 deg c"

temp is too high

55-57 c for the CPU temp is just within limits, but for a case temperature ?,  it is beyond earthly engineering specs... according to the manual I see 45C being the absolute highest ( and that would be the highest it should go in any area of the server.... any higher and you could rate the server for outer space use ). Personally I would be drilling holes in the case cover or adding  fans .

hi

does anybody in this forum has an experience using R420 server with a Raid configuration in a datacenter rack ie 3 or more R420 servers together with 4 drives in raid 1 for each pair ?

rajesh

hi daniel

we checked out everything but the heating issue is not yet resolved. either i have 57 deg with fans at 2000 rpm or i have excessive cooling at 7500 rpm

in the thermal offset there are only 2 settings ie 50% and 100% which gives an rpm of 7500 and 15000 rpm per fan respectively

can the drac be modifed to have more control over thermal offset ?

ie have options from 20 percent (around 3000 rpm) to 100 percent with increments of 10 percent.

if possible can this be suggested as feature on the drac

rajesh

Hello,

Last time we buy many R320 and R420 and there is a problem with temp. of RAID. Its not good when radiator on RAID is with wrong side. Our solution is remove RAISER near RAID. I know server call's there are errors but temp is lower.

And other thing is with this high temp RAID battery broke regulary. Battery on H710 mini cant work with high temperatures.

hi

thanks for your feedback.

May i know your server configuration -- could you post it online please.

You are absoutely right. The radiator (heatsink) is placed wrongly ).

My servers are heating up so badly -- ie at 57 deg celcius in an 18 deg datacenter, and all i keep getting the same response from dell saying that such high temperatures are normal -- ie temperature that can burn your hand is normal.

This is not some factory equipment we are talking about.

Also if such temperatures are normal then how come the other 1 U models 620 and 2u models 520 and 720 is not heating up at all ?

also while selling these servers they do not disclose that that chassis can get heated to such a high temperature.

everything about this server seems to be wrong -- raid card too far way from the fans, direction of heatsink fins are wrong and there is too less space between the heatsink and the chassis of the server

there are asking me to turn the fans to 8000 rpm ie 5 times more speed - which will reduce the life of these fans -- and each one costs close to 100 usd -- as soona there warranty is over i will be spending that kind of money.

also they can easily control the speed of the fans via drac -- ie increase rpm of fans 2A and 2B which are directly in line with the raid card or provide some midleve control of thermal offset at around 25 / 30 percent, but no response yet.

i am absolutely disappointed with dell ........

rajesh