Fan RPM threshold in vsphere 6.5?

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
So I have a new vsphere server. It's in a full-ATX case, with 4 case fans (front, back, top and door). All but the front fan are large (140mm) and run relatively slowly (700 RPM - this is by design - the supermicro IPMI thinks this is fine - these all show up as green status). Unfortunately, 700 RPM seems to be 'too low' for ESXi, as the health information shows those 3 fans as low non-critical.) I've been looking like crazy online, but I can't seem to find anywhere that you can adjust these thresholds. Any tips appreciated
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
So did I, but when I go to the IPMI sensors page, all 6 fans show a green block to the left of the fan name, and the status shows as 'Normal'. If vsphere 6.5 had an ipmitool installed, I'd double-check there, but it doesn't :(
 

vinceflynow

New Member
May 3, 2017
29
5
3
Vmware pulls the fan sensor from BMC/IPMI CIM.

You can set the lower non-critical threshold using ipmitool. For example:

Code:
$ ipmitool -I lanplus -U ADMIN -H 192.168.1.2 sensor thresh FAN1
Password:
sensor thresh <id> <threshold> <setting>
   id        : name of the sensor for which threshold is to be set
   threshold : which threshold to set
                 unr = upper non-recoverable
                 ucr = upper critical
                 unc = upper non-critical
                 lnc = lower non-critical
                 lcr = lower critical
                 lnr = lower non-recoverable
   setting   : the value to set the threshold to

sensor thresh <id> lower <lnr> <lcr> <lnc>
   Set all lower thresholds at the same time

sensor thresh <id> upper <unc> <ucr> <unr>
   Set all upper thresholds at the same time
This post has some examples.
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
I'm very confused now. I saw a button in the sensors screen in the IPMI web page. When I enable showing thresholds, it shows Low NR as 300 and Low CT as 500. The 3 fans in question are spinning at 700. Sadly, the page doesn't seem to show the Low non-crit - I'm guessing it's above 700 :) My 6.5 install doesn't seem to have ipmitool, and the one I get on a typical linux distro doesn't seem to want to talk to my SM motherboard :(
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
6,626
1,767
113
So did I, but when I go to the IPMI sensors page, all 6 fans show a green block to the left of the fan name, and the status shows as 'Normal'. If vsphere 6.5 had an ipmitool installed, I'd double-check there, but it doesn't :(
ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/utility/IPMICFG/

the linux version should run on esx (meaning the slightly older version i use works fine, have not tested that newer release)
 

vinceflynow

New Member
May 3, 2017
29
5
3
Strange the ipmitool is not recognizing your SM Board. (Perhaps, the BMC firmware needs update ?) I'm not doing anything anything special to get ipmitool. On Unbuntu 17.04:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ipmitool
$ sudo modprobe ipmi_devintf
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
It's some weird SM thing. I found a statically linked ipmitool some guy on github ginned up - it seems to work. Digging into it now...
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
That did the trick! All green now. Thanks guys! I dunno why the IPMI sensors page was showing normal status, but whatever... :)
 

vinceflynow

New Member
May 3, 2017
29
5
3
I also noticed that my SM IPMI Web UI (X10DRG-Q motherboard), does not show the Lower Non-Critical (
LNC) fan values. So, got curious, and looked at what the default value for lnc was for my motherboard.

Code:
ipmitool -I lan -U ADMIN -H 192.168.1.2 sensor get FAN1
Password:
Locating sensor record...
Sensor ID              : FAN1 (0x41)
 Entity ID             : 29.1
 Sensor Type (Threshold)  : Fan
 Sensor Reading        : 1700 (+/- 0) RPM
 Status                : ok
 Lower Non-Recoverable : 300.000
 Lower Critical        : 500.000
 Lower Non-Critical    : 700.000
 Upper Non-Critical    : 25300.000
 Upper Critical        : 25400.000
 Upper Non-Recoverable : 25500.000
 Positive Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Negative Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Assertion Events      :
 Assertions Enabled    : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+
 Deassertions Enabled  : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+
Looks like the LNC is right at 700 (atleast for my SM motherboard). :p
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
Strange the ipmitool is not recognizing your SM Board. (Perhaps, the BMC firmware needs update ?) I'm not doing anything anything special to get ipmitool. On Unbuntu 17.04:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ipmitool
$ sudo modprobe ipmi_devintf
I just realized I was unclear on something earlier. When I said linux ipmitool wasn't working, I meant over the LAN. All kinds of weird error messages. Running it on the host itself might very well have worked, I dunno. Just glad it's good to go now. Thanks for the help, all...
 

dswartz

Active Member
Jul 14, 2011
610
79
28
I also noticed that my SM IPMI Web UI (X10DRG-Q motherboard), does not show the Lower Non-Critical (
LNC) fan values. So, got curious, and looked at what the default value for lnc was for my motherboard.

Code:
ipmitool -I lan -U ADMIN -H 192.168.1.2 sensor get FAN1
Password:
Locating sensor record...
Sensor ID              : FAN1 (0x41)
 Entity ID             : 29.1
 Sensor Type (Threshold)  : Fan
 Sensor Reading        : 1700 (+/- 0) RPM
 Status                : ok
 Lower Non-Recoverable : 300.000
 Lower Critical        : 500.000
 Lower Non-Critical    : 700.000
 Upper Non-Critical    : 25300.000
 Upper Critical        : 25400.000
 Upper Non-Recoverable : 25500.000
 Positive Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Negative Hysteresis   : Unspecified
 Assertion Events      :
 Assertions Enabled    : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+
 Deassertions Enabled  : lcr- lnr- ucr+ unr+
Looks like the LNC is right at 700 (atleast for my SM motherboard). :p
I just checked. Same here lol...