Supermicro X11 & fan speeds

[rpdubz]

Hi folks,

I'm having a heck of a time slowing down the fans on my new FreeNAS build. Initially they were spooling up and down every few seconds, so I searched and found these threads, then used ipmitool to set some appropriate thresholds and selected "optimal" fan mode.

This stopped the spooling up & down behavior but unfortunately seems to have fixed the fans at 100% duty cycle. I have tried all 4 fan modes and none of them make any difference. When changing modes the fans do spin down for a moment, then jump back up to 100% and stay there.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Configuration:
Supermicro X11SSL-CF motherboard
(1) Generic CPU fan (came with my E3-1240 V6 CPU) connected to FAN1
(4) Fractal Design Venturi HP FDB PWM case fans connected to FAN2, FAN3, FAN4 and FANA

Commands I've issued:

Code:

ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN1" lower 300 500 700
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN2" lower 200 300 400
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN3" lower 200 300 400
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN4" lower 200 300 400
ipmitool sensor thresh "FANA" lower 200 300 400
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN1" upper 3200 3500 3800
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN2" upper 1900 2000 2100
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN3" upper 1900 2000 2100
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN4" upper 1900 2000 2100
ipmitool sensor thresh "FANA" upper 1900 2000 2100
ipmitool raw 0x30 0x45 0x1 0x2

Current sensor list:

Code:

CPU Temp		 | 33.000	 | degrees C  | ok	| 0.000	 | 0.000	 | 0.000	 | 95.000	| 100.000   | 100.000  
PCH Temp		 | 31.000	 | degrees C  | ok	| 0.000	 | 5.000	 | 16.000	| 90.000	| 95.000	| 100.000  
System Temp	  | 34.000	 | degrees C  | ok	| -10.000   | -5.000	| 0.000	 | 80.000	| 85.000	| 90.000	
Peripheral Temp  | 37.000	 | degrees C  | ok	| -10.000   | -5.000	| 0.000	 | 80.000	| 85.000	| 90.000	
VcpuVRM Temp	 | 30.000	 | degrees C  | ok	| -5.000	| 0.000	 | 5.000	 | 95.000	| 100.000   | 105.000  
DIMMA1 Temp	  | na		 |			| na	| na		| na		| na		| na		| na		| na		
DIMMA2 Temp	  | 28.000	 | degrees C  | ok	| -5.000	| 0.000	 | 5.000	 | 80.000	| 85.000	| 90.000	
DIMMB1 Temp	  | na		 |			| na	| na		| na		| na		| na		| na		| na		
DIMMB2 Temp	  | 27.000	 | degrees C  | ok	| -5.000	| 0.000	 | 5.000	 | 80.000	| 85.000	| 90.000	
FAN1			 | 3100.000   | RPM		| ok	| 300.000   | 500.000   | 700.000   | 3200.000  | 3500.000  | 3800.000
FAN2			 | 1700.000   | RPM		| ok	| 200.000   | 300.000   | 400.000   | 1900.000  | 2000.000  | 2100.000
FAN3			 | 1700.000   | RPM		| ok	| 200.000   | 300.000   | 400.000   | 1900.000  | 2000.000  | 2100.000
FAN4			 | 1800.000   | RPM		| ok	| 200.000   | 300.000   | 400.000   | 1900.000  | 2000.000  | 2100.000
FANA			 | 1700.000   | RPM		| ok	| 200.000   | 300.000   | 400.000   | 1900.000  | 2000.000  | 2100.000
12V			  | 12.128	 | Volts	  | ok	| 10.144	| 10.272	| 10.784	| 12.960	| 13.280	| 13.408	
5VCC			 | 4.948	  | Volts	  | ok	| 4.246	 | 4.298	 | 4.480	 | 5.390	 | 5.546	 | 5.598	
3.3VCC		   | 3.333	  | Volts	  | ok	| 2.789	 | 2.823	 | 2.959	 | 3.554	 | 3.656	 | 3.690	
VBAT			 | 2.972	  | Volts	  | ok	| 2.384	 | 2.496	 | 2.580	 | 3.476	 | 3.588	 | 3.672	
Vcpu			 | 0.796	  | Volts	  | ok	| 0.085	 | 0.085	 | 0.085	 | 1.588	 | 1.750	 | 1.768	
VDIMMAB		  | 1.200	  | Volts	  | ok	| 0.948	 | 0.975	 | 1.047	 | 1.344	 | 1.425	 | 1.443	
5VSB			 | 5.026	  | Volts	  | ok	| 4.246	 | 4.376	 | 4.480	 | 5.390	 | 5.546	 | 5.598	
3.3VSB		   | 3.265	  | Volts	  | ok	| 2.755	 | 2.840	 | 2.908	 | 3.503	 | 3.605	 | 3.639	
VPCH 1.5V		| 1.050	  | Volts	  | ok	| 0.825	 | 0.852	 | 0.915	 | 1.176	 | 1.239	 | 1.266	
Chassis Intru	| 0x0		| discrete   | 0x0000| na		| na		| na		| na		| na		| na	  

Everything has been left at the defaults with the exception of the fan thresholds.

Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide!

 

[rpdubz]

I've resolved my own problem. Figures... I only worked on it for several hours over 2 days, then magically figured it out half an hour after pleading for help.

I'm leaving the solution here for anyone else who runs into this:

1. Reset the BMC. I rebooted the server several times, but actually logging into the web interface and resetting the BMC from there brought the fans back down.

2. Watch fan speed and set appropriate thresholds. While my fans did slow down after the BMC reset, they also went back to the initial behavior of spooling up briefly every few seconds. I issued the following command in an ssh session to keep an eye on fan speed:

while sleep 1; do clear; ipmitool sensor list all; done

I noticed my fans were actually dropping to 300rpm, therefore hitting my lower critical threshold and triggering the BMC to spool them back up. I reset those thresholds to 200rpm:

Code:

ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN2" lower 100 200 200
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN3" lower 100 200 200
ipmitool sensor thresh "FAN4" lower 100 200 200
ipmitool sensor thresh "FANA" lower 100 200 200

... and the issue completely resolved itself. My system is practically silent now. I'll run some burn in tests and make sure temperatures don't exceed tolerances, but otherwise I think I'm in good shape.

Sorry for wasting the bandwidth here. Hope this is useful to others.

 

[sretalla]

You would do well to look at this thread: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/script-hybrid-cpu-hd-fan-zone-controller.46159/

Quiet is one thing, disks too hot is another.

 

[rpdubz]

Just got this script up and running. So nice!! I know I hit the "thank you" button already but I had to say it again, huge thank you for pointing me at this.

I'm using a Fractal Node 804 case so the drives are in their own compartment. I moved the fans on the drive side all to FANA and the script is working great at managing things. This server build is getting better by the minute.

 

[sretalla]

Just got this script up and running. So nice!! I know I hit the "thank you" button already but I had to say it again, huge thank you for pointing me at this.

I'm using a Fractal Node 804 case so the drives are in their own compartment. I moved the fans on the drive side all to FANA and the script is working great at managing things. This server build is getting better by the minute.

Not sure if you managed to find the spinpid version of the script that was moved to github. That's where the really awesome stuff starts to happen.

 

[rpdubz]

I did and have just started to play with it. Thank you again!

 

[icsy7867]

I had a similar issue on my Supermicro X10SDV (Xeon-D 1528).

I reset the BMC from the server:
# ipmitool bmc reset cold

So far the fans haven't spun up like they did before. and the temperatures are staying under 50C

 

[Hydrad]

Hi, I know this is an old thread, but I have exactly the same problem on a Supermicro 7049A-T workstation. I understand the cause, but I don't know how to implement your solution, although I see what you are doing. I just recently used IPMI for the first time, but I don't know how to use it to send commands to BMC. How do you send the threshold change commands to the BMC? Is that through the IPMI interface? I am using Windows 10 pro and have been going into IPMI through the browser interface.