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How Do I Disable The Third-Party PCIe Card Default Cooling Response On PowerEdge T140 Servers?
We recently bought a batch of Dell T140 servers to install as in-office servers. We chose the T140 because Dell's product description matches our intended use case; i.e. we need small on-premise servers to connect our POS terminals to our main servers. Typical servers are too big and loud for our small single-room locations.
When we installed our new servers, we quickly noticed that the servers were generating a lot of noise. Upon further investigation, we found that this noise was caused by excessive cooling due to the presence of third-party PCIe cards. These PCIe cards are required to control our equipment.
Searching online, I found this article that details a method for disabling the default automatic cooling response on PowerEdge 13G server for third-party PCIe cards. To my understanding, this method would configure the system to allow normal automatic cooling response to remain intact while preventing excessive cooling.
Does a similar method exist for the T140?
I tried the 13G method on one of our T140 servers but got the following response:
Unable to send RAW command (channel=0x0 netfn=0x30 lun=0x0 cmd=0xce rsp=0xc1): Invalid command
Kindly note that I am very inexperienced with Dell servers (we're a new customer and that this is our first order) so apologies if I overlooked something that should be obvious.
Service tags for all purchased servers are available if needed.
DELL-Erman O
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November 28th, 2021 23:00
Hello,
When iDRAC unsupported hardware is installed, it will run cautiously and its fans high as a cooling measure. In 14G, can you try the following commands;
Also you can review this article "PCIe Card Cooling with Dell EMC
PowerEdge Servers" https://dell.to/3lgCwHr
Hope that helps!
Sam Adam
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December 1st, 2021 23:00
Good morning Erman!
I've skimmed through the whitepaper linked to in your last post ("PCIe Card Cooling with Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers" ) and noticed that PCIe cooling for idrac-unsupported cards may be also configured on a per-slot basis using idrac's web interface. From the paper, the relevant configuration UI seems to be located under "PCIe Airflow Settings".
However, I am having difficulty locating these configuration controls on any of my T140s. I've tried manually searching for them in the UI and using the search function (by searching for "PCIe Airflow Settings") but I was not able to find them. The closest controls I could find were general cooling controls under System Settings > Hardware Settings > Cooling Configuration (See attached screenshot), but these can only be used to increase the cooling response and not decrease it.
Can the cooling response for idrac-unsupported PCIe cards be configured via idrac's web interface on the T140, or is configuration limited to only racadm?
Sam Adam
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December 2nd, 2021 00:00
Turns out this won't be necessary. I've managed to log into idrac/racadm via ssh and am happy to report that setting the value of system.PCIeSlotLFM.*.LFMMode to 1 did in fact disable the default cooling response. The T140s are now quiet with the PCI cards installed.
Thank you Erman for your help and have a great day!
DELL-Erman O
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December 2nd, 2021 00:00
I'm glad to hear that, Have a good one!
DELL-Erman O
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December 2nd, 2021 00:00
Good morning Sam,
I wanted to enter the lab and check it myself, but due to a technical problem, I do not have access to the lab at the moment. This may be due to the version difference. But frankly, if it was not removed at some point, I think it could be accessed from the iDRAC interface, as far as I can see from the link here. https://dell.to/31msf5N
Could you please update and check your current version of iDRAC via the link here. https://dell.to/3rIQ02T
In the iDRAC update, the server will not restart, only iDRAC access will be interrupted for a moment and will come later.