PowerEdge R720 fans losing communication

Hello Mark,

I would say that that would be a pretty big coincidence.

All fans happen at the same time. Does it happen on all three servers at the same time?

Are there other R720 in the environment that do not have the issue?

You mention it has no pattern. Does that mean it does not happen every day or certain time of day?

Did it start when OMSA was updated?

Did previous version report the fan error?

What was the previous OMSA version you were on?

Is the BIOS 2.9.0 up to date also?

When OMSA reports the fan issue is there also report in the iDRAC System Event Log (SEL)?

Have you had a direct look at the fans see if they are stopped?

Try reseat all fans, they are hot pluggable. Confirm they seat good and you don't see any damage in the connectors or the fans. You may try this on one first and monitor or do it on all three.

Hello Mark,

If it does not report in the SEL and only OMSA it may be a software issue.

You might monitor to see if it becomes more frequent. If it does you might try the previous version.

OMSA  v.10.1

https://dell.to/3O5A02m

Thanks Charles!

All fans happen at the same time. Does it happen on all three servers at the same time?

No, it's happened twice one one server (6/21/22 and 6/30/22) and once each on the other 2 servers (7/3/22 and 7/7/22).

Are there other R720 in the environment that do not have the issue?

No. These are the only R720's we have. We have an R710 and a couple of R730s that have not had the problem.

You mention it has no pattern. Does that mean it does not happen every day or certain time of day?

It's only happened the 4 times. The days of the week are all different, but all 4 occurrences have been shortly after midnight (12:42 am, 12:26 am, 1:33 am, 12:00 am)

Did it start when OMSA was updated?

OMSA was updated on 5/21/22 and the first fan issues was on 6/21/22, so it wasn't immediately after the update, but that's the only related thing that was changed.

Did previous version report the fan error?

No

What was the previous OMSA version you were on?

9.5.0

Is the BIOS 2.9.0 up to date also?

Yes

When OMSA reports the fan issue is there also report in the iDRAC System Event Log (SEL)?

No, this only shows in OMSA. Nothing in the iDRAC System log or Lifecycle log.

Have you had a direct look at the fans see if they are stopped?

No. Since it's random and only lasts for 30 seconds, checking while it occurs would be tough (plus the servers are not on site). If the fans were actually stopped for any length of time, I would expect to see spikes in temp (or a fried server).

Try reseat all fans, they are hot pluggable. Confirm they seat good and you don't see any damage in the connectors or the fans. You may try this on one first and monitor or do it on all three.

Not really feasible at the moment since the servers are offsite, plus we're back in the "pretty big coincidence" area if the fans on all 3 servers came unseated within a few weeks of each other.

Thanks Charles.

I'll monitor it to see what happens.