Dell ENG is taking away fan speed control away from users ( iDrac >= 3.34.34.34)

I just tried 4.00.00.00 and the Fan speed stabilized around 3700rpm (sounded like a jet engine).

I went back to 3.30.30.30 (the last version which accepted 'ipmitool' commands).

That's quite painful and there is -nothing- that justifies this kind of throttling:

With Fan1 forcibly set to 1080/1200 rpm, the sensors in my T440 report:

- Avg power around 110W

- CPU 1&2 (Xeon 4110*2) idle temp between 27C-33C (room temp: 20C)

- SSD (Samsung 860 * 2Tb) temp: 22C

- HDD (WD Red 8Tb) temp: 32C

- PERC H730P temp: 72C

There is nothing in that machine that provides -any- reason why it's a good idea to set the fan to 3700rpm other than Dell wishing to sell me 'Enterprise SSD's and HDD's'.

Can't you just please reconsider? Please let us control the fans in the machines (I'll gladly accept the risks).

I am in the same boat.

I also have a T440 and this has caused me problems.

Not everyone has an isolated place to put the server. In our small business, the T440 runs in the same room that we use to serve our customers.

Please return control of the fans via IPMI. Or at least show us how to use racadm to remedy this situation.

We just bought a Dell PowerEdge T 640, and are experiencing same issue. Fans are so loud it cannot be kept on same floor.

Temporary solution was to downgrade iDrac to 3.30.30.30. Of course in the future we will not be able to buy Dell again. Full control on a given machine should be responsibility of whomever professional is in charge of servers.

That business logic could make sense to some, but it could prevent some others to buy more servers.

I would be happy if Dell would at least allow the customer:

1. To pay a premium for silent cooling option,

2. Optionally to waive his right to warranty but allow full control on his machines,

3. To show some warning at order time, something like "Warning, this configuration is VERY NOISY. It will need to be hosted in proper server room."

In regards to:

> Just put of curiosity, why is the noise an issue for you?

Noise is not an issue for me per se, but for staff in offices on this floor. There is no room on the floor occupied by the company that has walls thick enough to shield the high screeching noise the fans are making, even with server temperature is quite cool.

If your company uses proper server room it is not a problem of course. But not all companies are of that kind.

I have a T440 and my server is whisper quiet? Are you guys sure there isn't something else wrong with the server? Such as 3rd party hardware installed?

Experiencing the same issues as above: T440 with 1100W PSUs and dual fans. Interestingly we only get aircraft noise from fans when the nvidia GPU is installed. Solution as mentioned before - roll back to 3.30 idrac.

I'll raised this with our Dell account manager and tech teams.

Hello,

thanks to share this information, that maybe can be useful for other users.

As you already raised the issue, let me know if you need help on this and we are available to follow up.

Thanks

Marco

Hi, yes, I think you might be able to help ---

Put it back.

Thanks!

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Dell actually instructs users to use this feature for certain issues arising from Dell's poor integration with other hardware.

https://www.dell.com/community/PowerEdge-Hardware-General/r730xd-excessive-fan-speed/td-p/4586254

So, dell says to do something and takes away the ability to do it? This is a very poor business practice.

BUMP.

I'm running into the same problem. We've picked up a PE 740xd that unfortunately has no isolated room I can put this in, and it's way too loud with 6 fans running min ~6500RPM.

Has anyone found any alternatives?

What other brands have people started moving to where the OOBM isn't irrationally restricted?

Thanks,

CC

Hi Marco,

When I raised the issue with Dell, an escalation manager reached out to me and said Dell will never put the feature back because it shouldn't have been there in the first place. He also recommended I get Precisions instead of PowerEdges (sure, I'll do so when they come with iDRAC).

I guess that as long as Dell isn't willing to listen, this $topic isn't going to get revisited.

Regards,

Vincent (working for but not speaking for RedHat/IBM).

@dkforshort  a écrit :  I have a T440 and my server is whisper quiet? Are you guys sure there isn't something else wrong with the server? Such as 3rd party hardware installed?

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Mine was whisper quiet, until I added DELL parts that are recommended in the T440 manual. Hence the situation.

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@ElCoyote_  In 14g Dell changed the way we did the thermal algorithms and the iDRAC privilege access was not removed until 3.34. Going forward access is not going to be allowed as it affects the thermal algorithms and cooling the system. The options will be to use fan offset options and racadm commands to adjust the fan speed as IPMI commands will no longer work.

Can someone from DELL tell us what RACADM commands should be used to lower the fan speed?

I have a T440 that was very quiet, until I added a DELL BOSS-S1 & replaced the PERC750P with a HBA330. All DELL hardware, no 3rd party.

It suddenly went from quiet to noisy, with regular bursts where the fan goes crazy for a few seconds. That's what I get from "getsensorinfo" in racadm:

Sensor Type : FAN
                
System Board Fan1  Ok       2280RPM   240RPM  NA    35%      Standard Performance

Here are my settings:

racadm>>get system.thermalsettings
[Key=system.Embedded.1#ThermalSettings.1]
#AirExhaustTempSupport=Not Supported
#AirTemperatureRiseLimitSupport=Not Supported
#CurrentSystemProfileValue=Minimum Power
#FanSpeedHighOffsetVal=75
#FanSpeedLowOffsetVal=25
#FanSpeedMaxOffsetVal=100
#FanSpeedMediumOffsetVal=50
FanSpeedOffset=Off
#MaximumPCIeInletTemperatureLimitSupport=Not Supported
#MFSMaximumLimit=100
#MFSMinimumLimit=5
MinimumFanSpeed=5
#PCIeSlotLFMSupport=Not Supported
SetMaximumExhaustTemperatureLimit=Disabled
#SystemCFMSupport=Not Supported
#SystemExhaustTemperature=0
#SystemInletTemperature=24
#SystemInletTemperatureSupportLimitPerConfiguration=35
#TargetExhaustTemperatureLimit=70
ThermalProfile=Minimum Power

Server load is 0, disk I/O is 0, the OS has been freshly installed and does nothing. Again, it was silent without BOSS-S1 & HBA330, with the same disks on. 

Please help, as I absolutely cannot work next to a vacuum cleaner.

unfortunately the only solution seems to be downgrading iDRAC9 to 3.30.30.30

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@vovanxxx  : unfortunately the only solution seems to be downgrading iDRAC9 to 3.30.30.30

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That really seems unacceptable! A couple DELL workers hinted at RACADM commands being an option, so I'm hoping for a follow-up…