How to Quiet a Loud Dell Server Using the Dell OpenManage BMC Utility

I have been working on upgrading and building out my lab to support my videos. In the process of doing so, I purchased 2 Intel X520-DA2 10Gb Network cards for my Dell R720 and Dell R730 VMware hosts. These cards will connect my hosts to my storage network. Unfortunately, adding these cards to my hosts made the systems almost unbearable noise-wise. Both Dell's ramped their fans up, not to full speed, but much louder than normal. Enough where I was highly frustrated and debated why I even had servers in my office. Their normal noise output does not bother me, but full jet-engine, that's a different story.
Upon investigating, there is a solution. This should work with all 12th and 13Generation Dell Servers. I tested it on both my R720 and R730 with identical results. When adding in a third party card, such as a network card or graphics card, if it is not a Dell branded card, it will cause the fans to ramp.
In my case, I added an Intel X520-DA2 10Gb network card to each of my hosts. I could have bought a Dell branded card and avoided this, but I got a good price on the Intel cards.
Also, if you haven't checked out my brand new Instagram, @ach_sysadmin, please give it a follow. I have lots of pictures of my lab and hardware that I am working on. I will also post a writeup on this on my blog, achubbard.com
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[@thecybersecuritymindset]

Command Summary: Checking the current third party/non-Dell cooling profile: .\ipmitool -I lanplus -H ipaddress -U root -P password raw 0x30 0xce 0x01 0x16 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 Disabled Output (Quiet Fans) 16 05 00 00 00 05 00 01 00 00 Enabled Output (Noisy Fans) 16 05 00 00 00 05 00 00 00 00 Disable the third party/non-Dell cooling profile: .\ipmitool -I lanplus -H ipaddress -U root -P password raw 0x30 0xce 0x00 0x16 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x05 0x00 0x01 0x00 0x00 Enable the third party/non-Dell cooling profile: .\ipmitool -I lanplus -H ipaddress -U root -P password raw 0x30 0xce 0x00 0x16 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 0x00 Instagram: instagram.com/ach_sysadmin/ Check Out My Personal Blog Site: achubbard.com

[@camaycama7479]

Hi, thx for sharing, quick and interesting. Do you know if that Dell's sofware is available for Promox hypervisor?

[@roger24865]

What is the command to change to cooling profile?.

[@ThangCao-mb3ik]

Hi good man :) My Dell R730XD has the same fan loud error. And I can't remote (or direct) login to iDrac via web browser. I had reset iDrac but still can't remote (or direct) access iDrac via web browser. And I can't run command line frome remote latop to edit fan speed. Can you tell me the way run these command directly from local server (my R730XD with windows server 2019 on it)? Thank you very much!

[@Athispointwhocares]

@@ThangCao-mb3ikfor me Dirac has its own dedicated Ethernet port as well as its own network settings in LLC try checking in there

[@MetroidMayhem]

Absolutely incredible, thank you so much.. I thought I was going to go insane if I had to hear this literal jet engine 24/7 in my tight home office space. Worked with T630 and installed Intel X520-DA2 10Gb network card. How is this issue not more thoroughly documented?

[@falconx211]

Thanks man! Awesome tutorial. I just installed a GPU for running analytics in a R730XD and the fans went from 5000-ish to 16K. This fixed it. I can hear myself think again.

[@thecybersecuritymindset]

Glad it helped!

[@MrGregAndo]

Don't forget to turn of IPMI when you're done! Thanks this is chill.

[@AurelioOsorio]

your video still like a spotlight, thanks!

[@dennisyi5658]

hi alex, thanks for making the video. i just picked up an r720. know if these ipmi commands will work with the latest bios/idrac/bmc versions (that i could find as of today)? Dell Server BIOS PowerEdge R720/R720-xd Version 2.9.0 iDRAC with Lifecycle Controller v. 2.65.65.65 Dell OpenManage BMC Utility,v9.2.0

[@garfielddouglas2268]

Thanks, I also added 2 old Chelsio T320 10gig cards and this solution helped.

[@thecybersecuritymindset]

Glad it helped

[@drcemdede]

Hi Alexander, thank you very much for the video. However, I have a quick question; after you activate the quite fan hex, does the fans automatically ramp up when the GPU temp rises or does it fix the rpm of the fans only? In other words, are the fan speed still adaptive to the temprteture fluctuation?

[@kylefox8822]

the system fans are only able to adjust based on CPU load and system temps. iDRAC has no mechanism to know when a plugged-in GPU has a load and is generating heat. Hopefully you have found a GPU that fits that has its own fan that can ramp up when it needs additional cooling.

[@drcemdede]

Thank you for your reply,@@kylefox8822. I ended up generating a script that kicks in as a service during Linux Ubuntu startup. It checks fanless GPU and 2xCPU temperatures and exhaust sensor temperature and ramps up the fans according to a sigmoid curve I estimated.

[@S.S.S.]

Thank you for the tutorial! Will the fans after this procedure increase speed when temp goes up?

[@JodyCrow]

Do you film the KZbin videos in the same room as your servers? Definitely cant notice the sound on the audio. Do you have to do any post processing or noise cancelling?

[@R1PPA-C]

THANK YOU!!! I took 2x Gpus from my R720s ( both Quadro) put them in my shiny new R730 which was almost silent even with huge CPU loads...and blammm Jet Engines R US

[@sbiris124]

I think Command is not working in R750.

[@rdaigre1216]

I have never worked with IDRAC or set things by command prompt or powershell. I tried powershell and couldn't seem to get the syntax correct, but using command prompt was easier. I don't understand most of this, but hope to learn more. Many thanks.

[@rdaigre1216]

Oh, I added a video card to my R730xd Camera Server so it would output a 1920 x 1080 resolution so when I remote in the display was sized properly. Then the fans went to jet take off sound level. This corrected my issue. Thanks again.

[@JuanmaCapote]

Muchas Gracias!! 👏👏 Funciona incluso después de cortar corriente. Ahora mis ventiladores han disminuido un 30% 👌

[@rdaigre1216]

Awesome job, worked great. Many thanks.

[@CineTechGeek]

I am finding the setting does not survive a reboot. How do you make the setting pertinent and work over turning the power of and on?

[@thecybersecuritymindset]

I did not run into that issue unfortunately, mine seemed to stay after a reboot.

[@austintaylor360]

Solved my problem, thanks for this video.

[@ozanbaskara8841]

This did not do anything to my server (T630) unfortunately. It used to be so quiet, until my friend went into ESXI settings and made changes to performance. After undoing what he did, rebooting ESXI and iDRAC, I could not get the fans to ramp down. Super bummed.

[@scuzzynate11]

"The term 'ipmitool' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program". Running as admin, in current directory. Copy and pasted exact syntax as used with changing to correct user and password, etc. Any solution for this?

[@Joeron79]

Hi. I’m from Golombia. I have Dell R730XD server. Is it possible the R730XD model with OpenManage BMC utility? It works?

[@realjohnmonarch]

Trying to do this on a Dell R730xd running TrueNAS SCALE (Debian) - doing it locally under sudo, but getting a weird response: input: ipmitool raw 0x30 0xce 0x01 0x16 0x05 0x00 0x00 0x00 IANA PEN registry open failed: No such file or directory 16 05 00 00 00 05 00 01 00 00 What am I doing wrong here? Thank you. I ran the third party disable, it shows it's disabled - but my fans are staying at 8500rpm idle speed.

[@Alex.Golvin]

Thank you so much!

[@thecybersecuritymindset]

You're welcome!

[@OogaMaga]

THANK YOU!!!

[@thecybersecuritymindset]

You're welcome!

[@slurp50s]

Thank you man!

[@JackCorreaPE]

Hola buen video muy buen video, pero como puedo monitorear la temperatura para que no se queme mi server?

[@MchalesNavy]

Thankyou... very much thankyou.

[@Magicairsoft9]

I have this exact same issue- Dell Poweredge R330 with Lenovo Broadcom 10Gbit NIC and the fans runs about 12000rpms (max for this machine is 16000) but you cannot hear anybody speaking when around the server. Where you get the hex value for cooling profile? I was trying to achieve the same but havent found anybody who can tell me what I should do.

[@thecybersecuritymindset]

I believe found the hex value in a forum, but cannot remember which one.

[@jamesbarnette4350]

does this apply to non dell drives bing in the system as well?

[@andrewcheng9722]

Yes

[@danjones4002]

When i try to do this i get unable to send raw commands

[@SpookyLurker]

First off, how'd you get that auto complete? My PowerShell is yelling at me cause (x86) isn't a valid function.

[@SpookyLurker]

Ok, so the blue text comes after ". The command doesn't work on my R720XD. I get the 01 output, but it still sounds like a jet. It's the loudest server in my rack, and it needs to simmer down.

[@Dafoxx-1]

@@SpookyLurkerPower shell as admin - cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Dell\SysMgt\bmc"

[@深夜酒吧]

why dont just buy ear plug?

[@arthurmack6723]

I know this is late but I'm new to the server world. Can someone help me. Do I need to set up the idrac and have it plugged in with its one Rj45 to do this? It's not working and says something along the likes that it can't reach it or no response. Please I beg you all any info would be great!