fans at 100% !!! ESXi + HPE DL20 Gen10

[lblecoyote]

Hello,

I've just bought a server for home tests.

It's a HPE DL20 Gen10 (https://www.hpe.com/fr/fr/product-catalog/servers/proliant-servers/pip.specifications.hpe-proliant-dl20-gen10-server.101… )

I've added a SATA 2"5 SSD drive (kingston sv300s37a60g).

I tried to install ESXi 6.7u2 and 6.7u3 both with VMware ISO images and HPE custom images.

In each case, i have the fans blowing at 100% when ESXi has finished to boot, with no VM started.

There is no temperature problem.

I've tested with a live Ubuntu, even in charge the fans don't run at more than 35%.

Why do my fans run at 100% with ESXi and what can i do to avoid this ?

Thank you

[lblecoyote]

Hello,

More than 100 people who read and no answer :smileysad:

Any idea ?

Yesterday i've tested with Hyper-V.

I format my SSD and installed Hyper-V in place of ESXi => no problem !

I think there is something missing in my ESXi installation (driver ?), but no idea which one i need to install.

[diegodco31]

Did you try to update firmware?

[lblecoyote]

Hi Diego,

Thank you for you answer.

I've updated the firmware, ILO,... According to HPE support, my server is up to date.

HPE support says it's because my SSD is not HPE branded and they don't want to investigate further.

But i guess in that case, i would have the same issue when running HyperV or Ubuntu, right ?

[Tibmeister]

Yeah, I've had that experience with HPe support as well, but it's a bogus line because they don't sell every server with an HPe branded drive in them.  If you have an active support contract, they must provide support and definitely request the ticket get escalated.

When I came across this, there was something in the iLO that was bad and HPe replaced the entire motherboard.  They never told me the exact nature of what was bad, but the replaced motherboard rectified my issue, which was on a Gen9 system.  I don't remember the exact model, but I do remember that it was an Intel based DL.

[wila]

Hi,

HPE support says it's because my SSD is not HPE branded and they don't want to investigate further.

Pull the drives and install vSphere on a USB stick...

The same problem will occur and they cannot use that line anymore.

--

Wil

[Dave_the_Wave]

Wow.

I did not know that!

May I assume the same if we use that internal SD Card slot inside some of the G6/G7s?

Didn't many ProLiants also have internal USB female sockets?

I know there are a lot of freenas folks out there that would boot ProLiants by ESXi on flash only, and then 10Gbe the rest.

[wila]

Hi,

Yes the internal SD card is fine too.

For read/write level wear you probably should make sure the log/debug partition is elsewhere.

--

Wil

[lblecoyote]

Hi

Thank you to all of you for your contributions.

Before i read your suggestions, i've done some other tests last weekend with other OS :

Win 10 Pro : no problem

Proxmox : no problem

In both cases, fans were at around 30%

Then i read your post about removing the SSD and i just did it.

I've installed ESXi on a USB stick plugged into a rear port

The fans are at 6% only !

To summarize :

-with the SSD, it's working fine with every OS i've tested except ESXi

-without the SSD, it's OK with ESXi

That sounds to be a driver controller with ESXi, right ?

But now i have the choice :

-push HPE support to deliver a solution to have ESXi working on the SSD

-keep working with a USB stick

Do you think it would be a good option to work on a USB stick ? It's getting somehow warm.

If yes i'll try to get a bigger one, i don't have anything bigger than 32 Gb, it will probably be to small to host my VMs

An other option would be to put my SSD in a USB case

Thank you for your thoughts

[Dave_the_Wave]

Any spindle drive will still be better than the fastest USB stick.

And it's not like the SAS drive will be painfully slow.

I have G5/G6/G7's running on SAS and they're fine.

[wila]

Hi,

The USB stick is only suitable to boot your ESXi host from, you should not put any VMs on there.

Multiple reasons.

- it won't live long as the USB stick isn't really designed for a lot of read/write operations

- it will perform really bad (yes even the so called very fast usb sticks)

- the USB link itself is not a great match with running VMs from either. You wouldn't want to run VMs from USB on ESXi for both performance reasons as well as for it being too fragile. If your external disk gets disconnected by accident then chances are pretty high that your VM is corrupted. As the VM lives on a proprietary VMFS file system reparations are difficult and likely would need a specialist.

So I concur with the other poster that SAS or even Sata would be better.

You might also want to look into the firmware upgrades of those SSDs as well as available firmware upgrades of the controller or even your motherboard.

--

Wil

[lblecoyote]

Hello dear helpers

As suggested, I now have installed ESXi on a USB stick

For the datastore, i have put an old hard disk drive in the HPE Server and the fans are OK.

So, ok, no SSD... fantastic new technology :smileygrin:

But another question comes now : how about the backup ?

ESXi is not compatible with the software raid controller of the HPE, adding another HDD is useless

I think my best option is to remove the old HDD and keep only the USB stick for boot and configure an iSCSI target to my Synology NAS (raid 1) for the datastore.

Does it make sense ?

Thank you again !

[EricRS96]

I had a fan problem with my Dell servers, and I ended up using there software (IPMITool) to lower the speed manually, maybe HP has a software like that?

For backup, Veeam has a free version (Community Edition), you could try it.

Eric.

[larstr]

You should also be able to use IPMITool on HPE servers:

Lars

[Dave_the_Wave]

Ever since the G5's came out with the 2.5" sleds, folks have been trying to stuff low-cost SATA drives in them instead of Hpe SAS enterprise drives.

Part of the reason for the runaway fans is that the consumer drives are missing temp sensors, or has temp sensors that Hpe doesn't like.

Nevertheless, the Smart Array card doesn't get a temp reading. Since it can't tell if the drive is cool or cooking, it runs the fans as a fail-safe.

There is the conspiracy idea of the cards being allergic to non-Hpe drives, only Hpe can answer that. I can tell you some drives do work fine, and has to do with the reasons above with iLO sensor infos being there.

Just recently I was able to use a WD Purple 6Tb on a P812 controller, and it's a SATA drive, not SAS. iLO loved it.

Doesn't mean that drive will work on all controllers. It's a very 1:1 "gotta test it first" kind of thing.

I'm leaning towards the fact that if the controller can support Hpe's LFF (large form factor) mid-line (= economy) drives, that's a good bet.

You may want to buy drives from a vendor that allows returns and refunds. But I do hear that Jeff Bezos will ban you if you return too much stuff.

I'm rather surprised this isn't happening at the hardware level for you, yet the above is still all true.

If you were able to get Ubuntu and HyperV working, perhaps you may want to try the non-Hpe generic ESXi, but that opens another set of headaches.

You mentioned this was for home lab learning. I would just get whatever "pre-owned" Hpe spindle drives from any source to get things going.