Hi everyone,
Just FYI, on 14th Gen PowerEdge, with iDrac v3.34.34.34 and above, Dell
Engineering knowingly removed the possibilty to control fan speed beyond
what the iDRAC considers 'the right thing to do' for your machine (as of
3.34.34.34 and above, you no longer have a say in the matter).
Please allow me to explain by giving an example:
I own a nice T440 with dual 4110 Xeon silver and with mostly low-power
components:
- 384Gb RAM in 32Gb LRDIMM sticks.
- PERC H730P with 2 * 2Tb Samsung 860, 1* 8Tb WD Red
- NVidia 1660 GTX Ti
- a quad-1G NIC
- a NVMe drive on a Supermicro PCI-E adapter.
- The box is running RHEL7 with a moderately conservative power profile.
This box is somewhat low-power (110-154W under light load and 250W under
heavy).
I usually force the system fan to 1080rpm:
# /usr/bin/ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x01 0x00
# /usr/bin/ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x02 0xff 0x0b
..unless the cpu temperatures go above 65C at which case the systems goes
back to 'auto' on its own (thanks to a daemon):
# /usr/bin/ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x01 0x01
This works well and the cpus are usually between 32C and 35C on light
load. I've never had any problem on either of my T440, T430 or T630 doing
this. The script is here: [1]
..but because I'm using 3rd party components, the iDRAC -thinks- it -must-
set the fan to the highest rpms possible to cool my system. When left to
'auto', the fan goes to 3700-4300rpm and I feel like I'm standing on the
bridge of an aircraft carrier.
Dell support has been unable to help with my '3rd party components' to
take the fans down (we've tried every BIOS setting).
With 3.34.34.34 and above, the 'manual' fan speed is ignored and reports
this:
# /usr/bin/ipmitool -I open raw 0x30 0x30 0x01 0x00
Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0x30 rsp=0xd4):
Insufficient privilege level
# /usr/bin/ipmitool -I open raw 0x30 0x30 0x02 0xff 0x0b
Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0x30 rsp=0xd4):
Insufficient privilege level
When contacted, an escalation manager at Dell suggested that I stopped
using 3rd party components and that I should buy Workstations instead. He
also confirmed that the removal of the 'ipmitool' 'feature' in iDRAC
3.34.34.34 was intentionnal because they 'had had many escalations because
of this'.
Other users on the Dell Community forums have reported similar issues with
T340 and T640 systems.
Consequently, I will probably be staying on 3.30.30.30 (the last working
version) for as long as I can.
Here is more information:
[1], script (adjust for your machines):
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ElCoyote27/krynn-tools/master/dellfanctl
[2]: discussions:
https://www.dell.com/community/Systems-Management-General/iDRAC9-Unable-to-set-manual-fan-response-after-iDrac-v3-34-34-34/m-p/7339941
https://www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/d0422n/to_anyone_considering_or_using_dell_14th_gen_for
I used to be a big fan of Dell systems but this T440 will probably be my
last.
I hope this helps others.
Regards,
Vincent (Working but not speaking for RedHat/IBM)
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