Excessive fan noise/speed on new R450

Not a single reply?  Surely there must be a single R450 owner out there, please.

Still working through this issue, and was told again that the fan speeds of 36% to 46% with no load were 'as designed'.  Then today in Performance BIOS mode the machine hit 70% to 100% fan speed with the same low workload (nothing but ESXi in maintenance mode).

Thanks for posting the solution. I have the exact same symptoms on a brand new R450 just received. The minimum fan speed is 46%. Won't go or allow me to set any lower no matter how much I tune the system profile or cooling settings. The server even has just 1 CPU and a meager 8 x 2 GB RAM. CPU seats at 0-3% doing nothing. Only 3 disk bays are populated with 10K HDDs.

However, the server came with only 5 fans and is in my office where the ambient temperature is 75-77F. I wonder if the number of fans and the air temperature could be the culprit in my case. Did you have yours in a cooled room?

Ambient temperature plays a significant role in fan speed. If there are more ambient temperature FAN speed will increase. The number of fans on the config depends on configuration like number of CPU and whether PSU is cabled or redundant.

Thanks, but you are stating the obvious.

I was never really able to get the server to be quiet.  The server is in a small air-conditioned room dedicated to IT and phone equipment, about 68 degrees normally.

Dell did replace the heatsinks, which did help to lower the operating temperature and stop some very high fan noise.  However, I was never able to get it as quiet as my R440, no matter what BIOS settings I implemented.  I continued my discussion with Dell, and their final comment (after testing it on an R450 of their own) was that the R450 simply didn't allow you to lower the minimum speed to the same degree that the R440 did (I think my minimum was in the 36%-46% range, but can't remember or check right now).

So the end result is my server is still loud, just not aircraft loud anymore.  It irks me every time I walk into the server room.

Hi I understand this isn't the solution you want, just a humble comment for understanding maybe for everyone who might experience the same issue: but it's unfair to compare a 1U and a 2U server. The smaller the fan is, louder and faster it spins.

As a test I left the temperature in the room slowly drop to 64 and the fans only went down to 37%.

I acquired the server to keep in an office. Dell states on the R450 Technical Guide that although the server was designed with acoustics for a datacenter  "the minimum configuration of R450 is quiet enough for typical office environment." My server has a config even lower than the lowest suggested on the document, but still at 75 ambient temp. the 46% PWM of the fans make it sound like a powerful vacuum running next to you. Even 37% PWM it is too noisy for an office.

Yesterday a Dell tech spent the morning working on it but the fans just won't go slower. I'm getting a replacement. If the new unit is also as loud, I'll return it and instead purchase a 2U.

The replacement behaves exactly the same. Ended up returning the server. Will get a different 1U model not as noisy or a 2U.

In my very humble opinion, the only Office-rated servers from Dell are their Towers (T550, T640, T440, etc..).. They can be racked as 5U systems and are a lot quieter than the rack versions.

I am having the exact same issue. I have 1 CPU, 32gb RAM. The server is racked in a cool room. The noise level is going to be unacceptable for us. 

The takeaway for me is that Dell wanted this server to be quiet enough for an office, but the server was not built or didn't turn out as such.

Agreed.  My takeaway from speaking with Dell support, was that the fans simply spin at a high rate, and you can not configure the BIOS for speeds as low as was possible on the R440 model.

I cringe every time I walk into the server room, fearing not only the noise but the implications of reduced lifetime on those fans.

Just received a new R450 server.  Initial boot up process is fine, goes through the noisy process and then the noise disappears and then load Windows 2022.  When you reboot the server from Windows, the noise level stays very loud and never goes away even after it has booted to Windows

Hello, could the noise be from the fan? We need to figure our where the noise comes from.

Respectfully,