Intel S2400GP2 problems: Fan Reduntancy

[scobar]

OK, here is the skinny. I have two of these boards, both were bought from ebay. One is in my san, totally a happy camper. The other is in my VM box, and totally a pissed off camper.

Link for the board: ARK | Intel Server Board S2400GP2

Huge pic of the BMC log here

The error that I cannot solve:
Fan Redundancy reports redundancy has been lost reports redundancy has been lost and there are insufficient resources to maintain normal operation

And a new error I just saw(and in pic):
BMC FW Health sensor has failed and may not be providing a valid reading

The problem this provides:
Because the motherboard is pissed, it gets vocal and spins the fans at full tilt. I hear it, its vocal. Those nidecs are hungry for some fingers, I can tell.

Actions I've taken:
Swapped out all fans to other known good fans
Moved fans around
Reset the bios
Reflashed the latest firmware
Pulled out my hair
Pulled CPU fans and swapped with known good fans
Populated every damned fan header

The full specs of the evil twin:
S2400gp2 board
E5-2440's
48gb ram
HP 212
HP 420
Intel 10gbe XF SR (don't have the PN handy)
Intel i340-t4
Corsair AX760
13 450gb 10k sas disks
512gb ssd for OS
Server 2012r2

The full specs of the good twin:
S2400gp2
E5-2448l (I believe)
24gb ram
M1015
WD 160gb OS
Intel 530 200gb for caching
a few external shelfs
OI w/ napp-it

Currently I have a 4-1 PWM harness that is powering the chassis fans from a volt-modded molex. Not how I want to roll.

Its sister used to rock these CPUs and this ram w/o issue, and I believe even this particular PSU. Bios settings are identical up to where things cannot be identical (boot devices, IP, etc). The sister is in an Intel chassis with only two chassis fans.

I've been up and down the motherboard manual. I don't find anything that outlines how to disable the fan redundancy, or anything of use. From what I gather the fan redundancy is a feature which requires hardware to somehow piggyback the primary fans, or are hot swap fans. Neither are my case here.

At this point I am considering this board may be better suited for a DC project since it wants to run the fans full tilt, or perhaps for someone who will home it in a DC.

 

[britinpdx]

I had a similar issue when I purchased an Intel S2600CP motherboard. Installed it into a supermicro chassis and the fans would run at 100% no matter what I did.

I don't have any notes for what I did, but I did determine that Intel are smart enough to allow their motherboards to be deployed in different chassis, and they provide a utility that effectively allows you to specify which fan headers are expected to be operational and which can be ignored. Once I ran this utility I was able to specify the fan header to use (as well as input data for chassis identification) and suddenly all was well and the fans ran at expected levels. Remove a fan that the motherboard "expects" to be there and you are back to fail safe 100% fan speed.

I'm not at all sure if the same thing applies to the S2400 family, but its something to consider.

 

[scobar]

I think that is helpful. I spent a few hours on google and Inte's site. It looks like there is an ISO you can boot from that may be able to set the fan headers. Looked at the board again and it is set for Chassis type 3. I could not find nothing on Chassis type 3, but the ISO did finish. Going to make some coffee and give it a whirl. if it works I could kiss you

 

[britinpdx]

look at this thread on the intel community forum. It's a little fuzzy but I seem to remember that setting fan setting utility was part of the firmware file download.

Also look at this video ... I seem to remember its the FRUSDR utility that you need to run.

 

[scobar]

Ok, so when flashing the firmware you are given an option to change the chassis information. I was able to update it with the FRUSDR utility, and follow on-screen prompts. The server is near-silent at this moment. There are errors present for fans or chassis. My coffee is now empty

The IDA iso does not give any options whatsoever to run or update fans period which is disappointing. Now to power the hoss down and move it back to its hidey hole.

 

[scobar]

And now it appears it is only seeing one cpu. I've swapped them around, issue still persists, each node has one stick of ram from the one node that it sees the CPU from.

 

[scobar]

You'll need to twist my arm hard to get me to buy another Intel board. Cleared BIOS, then sees the second CPU. It appears to be happy....On the flip side it looks like 1356 boards are <$120 on ebay for an Asus or Tyan. One only had 6 mem slots total though Also did find my RMM4LITE, it was tapped to the front of the HDD cage on the san unit woot!

Everything is green on both boards, everything is quiet, now don't touch it!