4 ms·

I don't think it is true: I have an almost silent gen8 and I'm not using the built-in raid

ggeorgovassilis 6y ago
I think there is some spread of the fans (case and power supply) used in the gen8. My gen8 is ok for an office or a large room, but too loud for a study room. Unfortunately the fan has a special pinout and cannot be replaced easily with a quieter piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPn8tXP-ZjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPn8tXP-ZjI
- justoreply 6y ago
  ah ok, because I can barely hear my fan (and I never changed it)
vbezhenar 6y ago
I checked with iLO and fan rotates at much lower speed with RAID configuration. I would be happy to run it without RAID, but it's too loud. I've found that solution on homeservers forum, so I guess, I'm not the only one.
- ggeorgovassilis 6y ago
  I think they fixed that in a firmware upgrade.
  - shock 6y ago
    Can you please post(or send me over email) your BIOS/iLO versions? I plan do do a NAS build with a Gen8 and it would greatly help me to know what versions don't have the fan noise issue. Thank you in advance!
    - ggeorgovassilis 6y ago
      J06 04/04/2019
- shock 6y ago
  I think there's been some work on the fan speen in recent BIOS/iLO versions. AFAIK HP currently recommend you put the controller in AHCI mode for use with linux nowadays. I haven't seen versions of their Linux fake-raid driver for a few years now. I think it's been retired. Another issue I've seen people report as a reason for the increased fan speed were hdds which didn't report temperature properly to the controller so the controller didn't know whether the drives were cool or hot. What BIOS/iLO versions are you running?
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    My BIOS is J06 04/04/2019, iLO firmware 2.70 May 07 2019. Latest B120i driver was released at 30 Apr 2020. I don't think it's retired yet, but they don't support RHEL 8, so I'm forced to stay on RHEL 7. I can see that iLO firmware is not latest, but it's BIOS who's responsible for fan speed control and I think that I'm running latest BIOS. That's not really about BIOS versions. When HDD runs under B120i fakeraid mode, server is aware about HDD temperature which is displayed in iLO. As long as this temperature is low, fans stay low. When HDD runs under AHCI mode, server is not aware about HDD temperature anymore, so it uses high fan speed to ensure that cooling is good enough even if drives are hot. That's how I interpret this whole situation.
    - shock 6y ago
      > Latest B120i driver was released at 30 Apr 2020. I don't think it's retired yet Ok, I might have misunderstood the info posted at: http://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/project/ubuntu-hpdsa/ http://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/project/ubuntu-hpdsa/ which states: "NOTICE! The hpdsa driver is no longer being developed past the versions indicated. Do not upgrade the Ubuntu kernel or try to use this binary driver with Xenial. If you have a B-series Smart Array, it is advised to use the Linux md (software raid) driver, or upgrade to an H or P series hardware-based host bus adapter." I thought the hpdsa driver was the same across distros, not unique to Ubuntu. Based on what you're telling me it seems that only the Ubuntu version was discontinued.
louwrentius 6y ago
I have 3x Microservers Gen8 and they are all dead silent.
- ggeorgovassilis 6y ago
  You're _that_ louwrentius? I read your posts when I tried to replace the case fan!
  - louwrentius 6y ago
    I guess so...

I think there is some spread of the fans (case and power supply) used in the gen8. My gen8 is ok for an office or a large room, but too loud for a study room. Unfortunately the fan has a special pinout and cannot be replaced easily with a quieter piece: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPn8tXP-ZjI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPn8tXP-ZjI

justoreply 6y ago
ah ok, because I can barely hear my fan (and I never changed it)

vbezhenar 6y ago

I checked with iLO and fan rotates at much lower speed with RAID configuration. I would be happy to run it without RAID, but it's too loud. I've found that solution on homeservers forum, so I guess, I'm not the only one.

ggeorgovassilis 6y ago
I think they fixed that in a firmware upgrade.
- shock 6y ago
  Can you please post(or send me over email) your BIOS/iLO versions? I plan do do a NAS build with a Gen8 and it would greatly help me to know what versions don't have the fan noise issue. Thank you in advance!
  - ggeorgovassilis 6y ago
    J06 04/04/2019
shock 6y ago
I think there's been some work on the fan speen in recent BIOS/iLO versions. AFAIK HP currently recommend you put the controller in AHCI mode for use with linux nowadays. I haven't seen versions of their Linux fake-raid driver for a few years now. I think it's been retired. Another issue I've seen people report as a reason for the increased fan speed were hdds which didn't report temperature properly to the controller so the controller didn't know whether the drives were cool or hot. What BIOS/iLO versions are you running?
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  My BIOS is J06 04/04/2019, iLO firmware 2.70 May 07 2019. Latest B120i driver was released at 30 Apr 2020. I don't think it's retired yet, but they don't support RHEL 8, so I'm forced to stay on RHEL 7. I can see that iLO firmware is not latest, but it's BIOS who's responsible for fan speed control and I think that I'm running latest BIOS. That's not really about BIOS versions. When HDD runs under B120i fakeraid mode, server is aware about HDD temperature which is displayed in iLO. As long as this temperature is low, fans stay low. When HDD runs under AHCI mode, server is not aware about HDD temperature anymore, so it uses high fan speed to ensure that cooling is good enough even if drives are hot. That's how I interpret this whole situation.
  - shock 6y ago
    > Latest B120i driver was released at 30 Apr 2020. I don't think it's retired yet Ok, I might have misunderstood the info posted at: http://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/project/ubuntu-hpdsa/ http://downloads.linux.hpe.com/SDR/project/ubuntu-hpdsa/ which states: "NOTICE! The hpdsa driver is no longer being developed past the versions indicated. Do not upgrade the Ubuntu kernel or try to use this binary driver with Xenial. If you have a B-series Smart Array, it is advised to use the Linux md (software raid) driver, or upgrade to an H or P series hardware-based host bus adapter." I thought the hpdsa driver was the same across distros, not unique to Ubuntu. Based on what you're telling me it seems that only the Ubuntu version was discontinued.

louwrentius 6y ago

I have 3x Microservers Gen8 and they are all dead silent.

ggeorgovassilis 6y ago
You're _that_ louwrentius? I read your posts when I tried to replace the case fan!
- louwrentius 6y ago
  I guess so...