Supermicro X9/X10/X11 Fan Speed Control

[PigLover]

PigLover submitted a new resource:

Supermicro X9/X10/X11 Fan Speed Control - Supermicro fan speed control

Reference material regarding fan speed control on SuperMicro X9/X10/X11 motherboards. This has been pieced together over some time and I finally got that "aha!" moment yesterday where it all came together. A bit of testing confirmed that this is effectively correct (even if SM might disagree on some fine details).

Fans on these boards are controlled in two zones:

• CPU or System fans, labelled with a number (e.g., FAN1, FAN2, etc.) - zone 0
• Peripheral zone fans, labelled...

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[SomeGuyInTexas]

PigLover submitted a new resource:

Supermicro X9/X10/X11 Fan Speed Control - Supermicro fan speed control



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Awesome, thanks for posting this! I literally put this on my "go figure out" list yesterday, you saved me an ocean of time.

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[PigLover]

I've literally been looking for this info for several years now. I was so happy when I found the last missing info yesterday and all the pieces fell into place.

Sent from my SM-G925V using Tapatalk

 

[leonroy]

I have parts coming tomorrow to convert my Supermicro chassis from 3 pin to 4 pin PWM fans so this info is super timely - Thanks a lot!

 

[Doppelbauer]

I have have a X10DAX, which is non-IPMI, so it seems that I am left out from this. The bios-settings for fan control are not fitting my needs. Any other hints for a more fine grained fan control for this board (except for external fan control)?

 

[PigLover]

Unfortunately I don't know of any way to override/modify the BIOS-based fan speed controls. The method I've noted works for IPMI based systems only.

 

[leonroy]

I have have a X10DAX, which is non-IPMI, so it seems that I am left out from this. The bios-settings for fan control are not fitting my needs. Any other hints for a more fine grained fan control for this board (except for external fan control)?

Yeah I faced this issue with my X9 boards. There is a solution, although not one which will make your system whisper quiet.

On the Supermicro boards you should see 4-5 fan headers. There will be 4x FAN headers marked Fan1, Fan2, Fan3, Fan4 and one chassis fan header marked FanA.

FanA runs at a lower speed than the numbered fans. Using a PWM Fan splitter like this:
Akasa Thermal Solution

You can hookup all your chassis fans and benefit from reduced noise and (basic) fan control as temperatures change.

Alternatively to further quieten down your chassis you can check Supermicro's fan matrix for their SuperQuiet fans (marked SQ). Provided they're the same size as the fans you already have you can swap the caddies as necessary. It's a bit fiddly though and the fans are pretty expensive (£15/$20 each).

Finally in my case the biggest change I made was to swap the power supplies with the SuperQuiet versions. They're expensive, but it made a very big difference.

 

[Doppelbauer]

Yeah I faced this issue with my X9 boards. There is a solution, although not one which will make your system whisper quiet.

On the Supermicro boards you should see 4-5 fan headers. There will be 4x FAN headers marked Fan1, Fan2, Fan3, Fan4 and one chassis fan header marked FanA.

FanA runs at a lower speed than the numbered fans. Using a PWM Fan splitter like this:
Akasa Thermal Solution

You can hookup all your chassis fans and benefit from reduced noise and (basic) fan control as temperatures change.

Alternatively to further quieten down your chassis you can check Supermicro's fan matrix for their SuperQuiet fans (marked SQ). Provided they're the same size as the fans you already have you can swap the caddies as necessary. It's a bit fiddly though and the fans are pretty expensive (£15/$20 each).

Finally in my case the biggest change I made was to swap the power supplies with the SuperQuiet versions. They're expensive, but it made a very big difference.

Thank you. I have already swaped the psu for a quieter one, made a big difference.
Will follow your other suggestions.
Nonetheless, Supermicro should expand the options for fan control. SM support told me that they are well aware of the issue.

 

[PigLover]

...Nonetheless, Supermicro should expand the options for fan control. SM support told me that they are well aware of the issue.

Supermicro will do something about it if/when their major customers demand it. Unfortunately, 95+% of their sales go to enterprise operators who really don't care all that much about doing their own fan speed control for living-room quiet operation.

 

[Doppelbauer]

Supermicro will do something about it if/when their major customers demand it. Unfortunately, 95+% of their sales go to enterprise operators who really don't care all that much about doing their own fan speed control for living-room quiet operation.

Too bad. SM support wrote something similar.

 

[FozzieBear]

Anyone had any luck getting this working on a X9DRD-7LN4F-JBOD? Control of the mode works, which is what I'm using now. Trying to manipulate a zone to a specific speed returns an error though.

root@hyperion:~# ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x66 0x01 0x00 0x32
Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0x70 rsp=0xcc): Invalid data field in request

 

[littleredwagen]

Thanks for this, worked like a champ on my X10DRC-T4+ board and 2U supermicro chassis. i used SM's ipmicfg tool since my system runs windows on the bare metal hardware

 

[vanfawx]

Thank you so much! Used on a X10SRH-CF to silence the CPU fan.

 

[zer0sum]

Anyone had any luck getting this working on a X9DRD-7LN4F-JBOD? Control of the mode works, which is what I'm using now. Trying to manipulate a zone to a specific speed returns an error though.

root@hyperion:~# ipmitool raw 0x30 0x70 0x66 0x01 0x00 0x32
Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0x70 rsp=0xcc): Invalid data field in request

I just ran into the same issue but on an X9SCM-F...did you manage to solve it?
Or does anyone know how to adjust the fan speed on the X9 boards?

 

[vanfawx]

Do you have the ipmi kernel drivers loaded?

lsmod | grep ipmi
ipmi_devintf 17572 2
ipmi_si 53524 1
ipmi_msghandler 46609 2 ipmi_devintf,ipmi_si

That's the only thing I need on my x10 board for this to work.

Hope that helps!

 

[zer0sum]

Do you have the ipmi kernel drivers loaded?

lsmod | grep ipmi
ipmi_devintf 17572 2
ipmi_si 53524 1
ipmi_msghandler 46609 2 ipmi_devintf,ipmi_si

That's the only thing I need on my x10 board for this to work.

Hope that helps!

I'm trying to do it remotely from a Linux host using ipmitool:

> ipmitool -I lan -U ADMIN -P ADMIN -H x.x.x.x raw 0x30 0x70 0x66 0x01 0x00 0x29

Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0x70 rsp=0xcc): Invalid data field in request

 

[leonroy]

I just ran into the same issue but on an X9SCM-F...did you manage to solve it?
Or does anyone know how to adjust the fan speed on the X9 boards?

I have a similar board took a while to realize but I'm pretty sure this functionality doesn't work with Intel C202, 204 etc. chipset based boards. You require Intel's vPro for it to work.

Here's the listing for your board's chipset:
Intel® C204 Chipset Product Specifications

My solution to achieving quiet was to run a powered 4 pin PWM splitter off the 4th fan header which controls fans for the IO cards. That runs at a lower RPM and results in a much lower noise level.

I used the Akasa FLEXA FP5 adapter to achieve that. Believe there's a SATA powered version too.

 

[K D]

PigLover submitted a new resource:

Supermicro X9/X10/X11 Fan Speed Control - Supermicro fan speed control



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Many Thanks. The write up helped me a lot with 2 new builds.

 

[edo1]

• Standard: BMC control of both fan zones, with CPU zone based on CPU temp (target speed 50%)

Is there any information how it works?

1. 50% PWM is used while CPU is cold?
2. At what point temperature FAN speed is increased? 40°C or something like that?
3. How fast speed is increased when temperature rises? When 100% speed is achieved?

 

[Rand__]

I got this as reply once when I asked SM about the 'how does it work'


"
Basically when a measured item’s value is below or above the set threshold’s the fan speed will rev up until the value is again within the thresholds.
To clarify regarding CPU measurements the value is DTS not in Celcius

CPU temperature displays with numerical formats, i.e. DTS mode are recommended.
For DTS mode, the numerical value of the CPU temperature is acquired through the sum of an average DTS reading and TEMPERATURE_TARGET, i.e. Tjmax/Tprochot. CPU DTS readings are negative values and can be retrieved through PECI command GetTemp(). TEMPERATURE_TARGET (Tjmax/Tprochot) represents the maximum CPU junction/die temperature defined by Intel. Each CPU may have different factory pre-defined maximum junction/die temperature. TEMPERATURE_TARGET (Tjmax/Tprochot) can be retrieved through PECI command RdPkgConfig() index value 16. For detail software implementations to display the numerical CPU temperature, please refer to Intel external design specifications (EDS).
In summary, numerical CPU temperature readouts can be expressed through below equation.

CPU Temperature = GetTemp() + RdPkgConfig(), Index Value 16
Please note that the numerical CPU temperature mentioned above is NOT equal to the CPU case temperature.
These numerical CPU temperature data represent CPU junction/die temperatures. In addition, the CPU overheating alarm (COA) temperature threshold is only based on a designated DTS reading mentioned in Section ...

"