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I have several refurbished HP ProLiant DL360 G6 servers and several of the systems are reporting fan failures - possibly incorrectly - on fan #2.

When running:

hpasmcli -s 'SHOW FANS'

I get the following result on 8 out of 14 servers:

Fan  Location        Present Speed  of max  Redundant  Partner  Hot-pluggable
---  --------        ------- -----  ------  ---------  -------  -------------
#1   SYSTEM          Yes     NORMAL  27%     Yes        0        No            
#2   SYSTEM          No      -       N/A     N/A        0        No            
#3   SYSTEM          Yes     NORMAL  27%     Yes        0        No            
#4   SYSTEM          Yes     NORMAL  27%     Yes        0        No            

All 8 systems show that fan #2 is missing. I've tried opening a couple of the boxes and moving the fans around, but it still reports the same thing.

Is there a common problem with reporting fan status on these servers? Is there something I can do to fix the issue?

2 Answers 2

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Are you receiving an error, or are you just concerned that there's no fan present in slot #2?

The HP ProLiant DL360 G6 server uses three or four dual-fan block modules, depending on if the system is equipped with dual CPUs or a single CPU. (The extra fan module comes in the kit with the single processor option kit). Do you have a full fan block in the slot or a blank? On single-CPU models, there's a plastic blank in fan location #2 (empty in the photo below).

enter image description here

  • What are the specs of the systems you've purchased?
  • A dual-CPU DL360 G6 will not boot with a missing fan module.
  • How are you receiving alerts about the fan failures?
  • If these are dual-CPU units, make sure the fan connector for slot #2 on the motherboard is fully engaged.

Since these are Linux and you have the HP agents installed, quickly post the output of the following commands:

hplog -v # This will show the HP IML log and the alerts tied to the fan failures.

hplog -t # This will show the temperature zones.

hplog -f # This will show the fan ID and status.

I'd like to see if these are consistent with what you're seeing from hpasmcli.

Post the server firmware and CPU configuration if you can. You can get a concise summary of both with:

dmidecode -t 1 | egrep '(Manufacturer|Product|Serial)'; dmidecode -t processor| egrep '(Socket|Version)'

e.g.

[root@LAS ~]# dmidecode -t 1 | egrep '(Manufacturer|Product|Serial)'; dmidecode -t 0 | egrep '(Version|Release)'; dmidecode  -t processor| egrep '(Socket|Version)'
        Manufacturer: HP
        Product Name: ProLiant DL380 G6
        Serial Number: 2UXxxxx6KT      
        Version: P62
        Release Date: 05/05/2011
        Socket Designation: Proc 1
        Version: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz            
        Upgrade: Socket LGA1366
        Socket Designation: Proc 2
        Version: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU X5570 @ 2.93GHz            
        Upgrade: Socket LGA1366

All else, if your firmware version (Release Date) is older than the output I posted above, update the firmware for the server.

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  • All of the servers have all four fans. However - I never made this connection - the 8 that are reporting that the fan is not "Present" are the 8 with only one CPU. The remaining 5 servers all have two CPUs.
    – Doug Kress
    May 6, 2012 at 23:18
  • Also, there's noting relating to fans in hplog -v, -t reports everything is 'Normal' and -f reflects what hpasmcli shows - that fan #2 is 'Absent' - I guess that the 2nd fan is not used at all if the CPU isn't installed. Strange that I have the fan in the first place. Free spare fans!
    – Doug Kress
    May 6, 2012 at 23:23
  • Yep. You got it. The dual CPU setup needs the fan while the single CPU does not. The server won't boot with two CPUs and three fans. Since these are refurbs, check to see if you have plastic CPU blanks in the second CPU slot on the single CPU servers.
    – ewwhite
    May 7, 2012 at 2:13
1

According to the HP DL360 G6 User Guide, the fan 2 is only necessary when the second processor is present:

enter image description here

The User Guide of the HP DL380 Gen8 goes into a little more detail in the extra-fan-issue and suggest that installing the additional fan without a second processor is not going to work:

For a single-processor configuration, four fans and two blanks are required in specific fan bays for redundancy. A fan failure or missing fan causes a loss of redundancy. A second fan failure or missing fan causes an orderly shutdown of the server. Installing more than the required number of fans in a single-processor configuration is not a supported configuration. For a dual-processor configuration, six fans are required for redundancy. A fan failure or missing fan causes a loss of redundancy. A second fan failure or missing fan causes an orderly shutdown of the server.

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