topic Re: Fan Speed Issue in Intel® Xeon® Processor and Server Products

Fan Speed Issue

AHenk2 — Fri, 23 May 2014 07:42:55 GMT

I bought a new Intel R2208GZ4GC with 2 E5 2680V2 CPU.

As a result of a high workload, the CPUs are getting very hot with about 75°C, but the fans are still very low with about 2.418 rpm.

My actual bios configuration:

Set Fan Profile: performance

Fan PWM Offset: 100

Altitude: 300-900m

Set Throttling Mode: auto

OS: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS

What should I have to do to tell the fans to increase the speed?

Thanks,

Bikearni

Re: Fan Speed Issue

Edward_Z_Intel — Sat, 24 May 2014 03:01:33 GMT

Normally you don't have to worry about it - the BMC monitors all temperature sensors and calculate the fan speed. What's your BIOS/FW version, and how did you get the CPU temperature reading?

On this board the CPU thermal sensor will report "Thermal Margin", which should usually be a negative value.

Re: Fan Speed Issue

AHenk2 — Sat, 24 May 2014 07:03:01 GMT

Thanks for your response.

The IPMI says:

P1 Therm MarginNormalOK-33 degrees C

Ubuntu Sensors says:

coretemp-isa-0000

Adapter: ISA adapter

Physical id 0: +60.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 0: +58.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 1: +57.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 2: +60.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 3: +54.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 4: +59.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 8: +54.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 9: +56.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 10: +56.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 11: +57.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 12: +56.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

coretemp-isa-0001

Adapter: ISA adapter

Physical id 1: +41.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 0: +36.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 1: +41.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 2: +41.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 3: +39.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 4: +40.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 8: +39.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 9: +32.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 10: +41.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 11: +37.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

Core 12: +39.0Â°C (high = +85.0Â°C, crit = +95.0Â°C)

I think the differences between CPU1 and CPU2 are because of different tasks, running on the System.

Bios Version:

Build Stamp : SE5C600.86B.02.02.0002.122320131210

Build Date : December 23, 2013

I noticed, that the Fans increase their speed at Term Margins higher than about -15 degree C. This is about 80 degree C. The Server is placed in a data center, so the volume does not matter. Other Systems have got a CPU Temperature from about 30 degree C and the Fans are working with about 7.000 rpm.

Thanks,

Arndt

Re: Fan Speed Issue

Edward_Z_Intel — Mon, 26 May 2014 06:18:53 GMT

Current sensor readings look perfectly OK to me. Why would you want the fans to run faster? It will consume more power.

Re: Fan Speed Issue

AHenk2 — Mon, 26 May 2014 06:28:49 GMT

Thanks for your reply. I thought the fans should run faster, because of our other servers where the cpu temperature don't increase more than 40 degree C peak.

Re: Fan Speed Issue

AHenk2 — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:21:24 GMT

Today, we got some Kernel Messages. The Temperature was >85 degree C and the Fans were still running at the slowest Speet of about 2418 rpm.

Is there a Bios Update or an other way to increase the fan Speed?

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586473] CPU17: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586475] CPU37: Core temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586477] CPU13: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586479] CPU34: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586480] CPU33: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586482] CPU14: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586484] CPU38: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586486] CPU15: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586487] CPU35: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586490] CPU39: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586492] CPU12: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Jun 14 13:32:44 easy5 kernel: [1920005.586493] CPU32: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled (total events = 1)

Re: Fan Speed Issue

DSilv11 — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 01:06:58 GMT

Couple things.

The CPU clock throttle events are normal events. (as long as the total events stay low)

The Fan boost should starts with a Therm margin of about ~ -10 and the fans with then ramp to hold the -10 margin temperature.

If you have a very high momentary stress application, the CPU may touch the 0 margin point faster than the fan ramps to cool and get logged in the kernel messages.

The fans will spike up in this case, the cpu does a very brief throttle and you should see the Total Events be a very small number.

There is not any measurable performanceloss when the occurs, (I did a bunch of testing on this before i would believe the Thermal guys on this)

If the power bill and noise is not a issue, you can raise the PWM offset set value to about 20% - 40% which starts the fans ramping at a faster speed. (raises the floor speed)

The Altitude setting can play a part as well. The higher the alattitude, the thinner the air so the faster the fans need to ramp.

Setting the Altitude higher will make the fans ramp faster.

I question the Fan PWM Offset: 100 (at 100% the fans should all be running 100% all the time)

If this is the setting, you may need to load the FRUSDR for the system to tell it what fans are connected so it can drive them.