T410 Fan Speed control?

Question

Hello,

I have a Poweredge T410 that runs just fine. I have it in a separate room in my apartment and the noise isn't that bad. There is only one source of noise and that is the 120mm fan in the back. I'm reading the values from iDRAC6 Express that the fan RPM is 2.640 and the temperature on the motherboard is 27 degrees Celcius, that seems pretty normal, right? The BIOS setting for the Power Management is set to OS Controlled, with minimum power except for memory performance.

Now, I know that the room temperature is vital when it comes to fan RPM's, if the outside air is cool, that means lower RPM's.
My question is if it's possible to lower the fan speed even more, perhaps down to 2.000 RPMs or lower. I'm running Windows Server 2008 R2 straight out-of-the-box.

Are the default drivers taking care of power and fan management in an optimized way? Should I download the Dell drivers, will they make a difference for the fan RPM? I don't see anything mentioned about what drivers controls the system fans.

Thanks!

smoothmove · Answer

Sorry, Tagging along. I bought the T410 for a file server and the fan on the back is annoying. It ramps up and down to the point that it is disturbing. I am trying to find a way to turn it down. The CPU's Temps are low, so the turbine should spin down.

I am going to research this a bit and post if I find an answer.

Thanks, Stan

sbs4000 · Answer

Hello,   did you find a solution? I'm having the same fan noise problem with a brand new T410.   Best regards

widen76_eab469 · Answer

No, I haven't found a solution. The fan is operating within specifications and the fan speed is adjusted by the system according to room temperature. I have the server in a separate small room, like a closet, so the noise isn't too disturbing. Due to the automatic fan control, it's essential to keep the room temperatures down to avoid high fan speeds. That was a minor problem this warm summer, with fan speeds up to 4.000 RPM due to high room temps. That was quite annoying. The normal speed lies around 2.500 RPM which isn't that bad. So the only real 'solution' is to adjust room temperature and perhaps install an air conditioner to keep temperatures down.

sbs4000 · Answer

Ok thanks for the reply. I just contacted Dell who recommends indeed to put in in a cool environment and not to place the fan close to a wall nor in front of a window.

They will also send me some software that supposedly fixes the problem.

Best regards

Faulco · Answer

Hi There,

Did the Software that dell sent you make any difference? I have the same issue and am interested to hear if it worked. Also, did they send you a link to the software or did they send it to you?

Sorry - one last one, what was the software called, so that i can phone up and request it? (if it work, that is)

Cheers

EDIT: Sorry - I must have hit "Suggest an Answer" by mistake. My mistake.

sbs4000 · Answer

Hello,

no it did not help. What helped was:

1/ Free up the space behind the server so the fan can work in ideal conditions with no obstacles

2/ Ensure the temperature is not too high (normal room temparture is fine) and certainly avoid putting the server near a window or direct sun light

3/ Fine tune the server parameters for energy savings

There is a great white paper that explains everything.

http://content.dell.com/us/en/enterprise/d/business~solutions~whitepapers~en/Documents~HPC_Dell_11g_BIOS_Options.pdf.aspx

I set the parameters to Energy efficiency and it worked out ok. The fan is now at 2080 RPM which is acceptable.

Hope this helps.

widen76_eab469 · Answer

Really? I will have to try that! I'm still on BIOS 1.3.9 and FW 1.4.1. I''m off to upgrade...*Crossing fingers*

sbs4000 · Answer

Hello, upgrading BIOS to 1.5.3 and idrac6 FW to 1.54 totally fixed the fan issue. It is now spinning at 1540rpm, very acceptable noise. Best

widen76_eab469 · Answer

Upgrade complete. The fan speed actually is a bit lower, from 2580 down to 2280, for a total of -300 RPM reduction. Also, the fan seem less 'jittery' and keeps it speed more constant than before when it used to speed up then slow down, speed up, slow down, and so on. That's a step in the right direction and considering that I have the server fully loaded with six harddrives, the fan speed is reasonable considering the cooling needs (currently at 27C degrees). The update also brought a new graphical user interface for iDRAC 6, it's very sleek looking, nice!

widen76_eab469 · Answer

Well, the iDrac update has brought some problems. Now I loose connection to the LAN IP adress after a while, it doesn't respond to ping and the web interface is unavailable...I tried shutting the server down, connected it to a keyboard and monitor to check the setting with CTRL-E at startup. The IP address is correct, static and after connecting a network cable it responds to ping and web interface is OK. But after a couple of minutes it loses connection again...I'll troubleshoot some more..

widen76_eab469 · Answer

My fan speeds have significantly lowered after installing the update iDRAC6 Monolithic Release 1.98. I have set the Power Management to Custom in BIOS and everything set at 'minimum' settings. After the iDrac update the fan went from 2.220 RPM to 1.440 RPM. The temperature is 24 degrees Celsius. The fan noise is now absolutely tolerable and the server would be appropriate for any small office environment.

widen76_eab469 · Answer

Update: The noisy fan is back after shutting down the server and restarting it. It's at 1920 RPM at 24 degrees celcius.

The strange thing is that if I run the iDrac firmware update again the fan settles back down to 1440 RPM. After a restart the fans spin up, then lowers down to 1440 RPM in stages. However, after the POST the iDrac seems to notice the low RPM and spins the fan up to 1920 RPM again...this holds steady for the entire duration of the server uptime.

I've tried installing the iDrac firmware in Windows as well as in the iDrac web GUI, same result.

So the option here is to update the firmware and then not to restart the server for the fan to hold it's low RPM...

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T410 Fan Speed control?

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