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    High Fan Speed Issue on Lenovo ThinkSystem Servers

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    • olivierlambertO Offline
      olivierlambert Vates πŸͺ Co-Founder CEO
      last edited by

      I wonder what's missing exactly and where so we can bundle it (or not if it's not possible, but since it seems to work in a 4.18 kernel…)

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      • olivierlambertO Offline
        olivierlambert Vates πŸͺ Co-Founder CEO
        last edited by

        Adding @gduperrey in the conversation

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        • L Offline
          LennertvdBerg @olivierlambert
          last edited by

          @olivierlambert ; as it's a clean install I can see if I can provide you access to the server with Xclarity Controller 2 so you have full access to a system for testing? Would that help?

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          • RIX_ITR Offline
            RIX_IT
            last edited by

            Hey,

            Just wanted to provide an update from our end as well.

            We've conducted tests with various versions of the xClarity Controller firmware / UEFI.
            Lenovo seems to be onto something, as they recently released a new version with the following changelog: (XClarity Controller Firmware 2.40 KAX326G).

            87c5ce24-fa6a-498d-857b-554b0ef4a2e1-image.png

            They've also released a new UEFI in the meantime. However, the fan speed issue persists despite these updates.

            We attempted to consolidate support from Lenovo, but they were unable to escalate the ticket due to XCP-ng being considered unsupported.

            What seems to be working for us, as suggested by @rmaclachlan , is the UEFI version 1.41 (Build ID: KAE110K).
            With this version, the fan speeds have decreased to around 9k RPMs, which, while still slightly high, is within acceptable sound levels.
            That's really not the best option as they have adressed a few CVE's since this release, but at least we can start setting up the Server without getting angry calls all the time.. πŸ˜„
            The XClarity Controller firmware doesn't have an impact on the fan speed at all as it seems.

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            • L Offline
              LennertvdBerg @RIX_IT
              last edited by

              @RIX_IT said in High Fan Speed Issue on Lenovo ThinkSystem Servers:

              XClarity Controller Firmware 2.40 KAX326G

              On our system we are running XClarity Controller Firmware 2.40 KAX326G, having similar issues.

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              • RIX_ITR Offline
                RIX_IT @LennertvdBerg
                last edited by

                @LennertvdBerg As mentioned, XCC firmware doesn't seem to change anything regarding the fan speed. So we're sticking with the latest version for now. You could try rolling back to UEFI 1.41 (Build ID: KAE110K) as well and see if it makes a difference.

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                • olivierlambertO Offline
                  olivierlambert Vates πŸͺ Co-Founder CEO
                  last edited by

                  Please keep us posted, more details we have, more chances we can find what's missing in XCP-ng to make it work correctly πŸ™‚

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                  • bleaderB Offline
                    bleader Vates πŸͺ XCP-ng Team
                    last edited by bleader

                    Could one of you try the kernel-alt package? It is not meant for production as it is not fully tested and supported, but if a higher patch level of the 4.19 helps, it could give us more idea of what's happening.

                    EDIT: it should be updated to a new patch level soon-ish, so if current one does not fix, we should soon have another shot with a more recent update.

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                    • L Offline
                      LennertvdBerg @bleader
                      last edited by

                      @bleader ; do you have somewhere the instructions how to do this procedure?

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                      • gduperreyG Offline
                        gduperrey Vates πŸͺ XCP-ng Team
                        last edited by

                        You can find information about kernel-alt here: https://docs.xcp-ng.org/installation/hardware/#-alternate-kernel

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                        • RIX_ITR Offline
                          RIX_IT @bleader
                          last edited by

                          @bleader

                          Just did that on 8.2 (kernel-alt.x86_64 0:4.19.265-1.xcpng8.2), not the testing one yet.

                          Got a few errors on startup, not related afaik, but still fyi:
                          ab1830d1-ca13-4f4a-8805-2d78058889c3-image.png

                          That didn't make a difference as it seems:
                          05da9d95-b548-4a77-a6d4-2871c3ae3432-image.png

                          I'm on UEFI 1.41, could try the most recent somewhat later once people leave their offices.

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                          • L Offline
                            LennertvdBerg @gduperrey
                            last edited by LennertvdBerg

                            @gduperrey said in High Fan Speed Issue on Lenovo ThinkSystem Servers:

                            https://docs.xcp-ng.org/installation/hardware/#-alternate-kernel

                            I tried installing the kernel-alt using

                            yum install kernel-alt
                            

                            However I receive the following error;

                            python: can't open file '/opt/xensource/bin/updategrub.py': [Errno 2] No such file or directory
                            warning: %postun(kernel-alt-4.19.227-5.xcpng8.3.x86_64) scriptlet failed, exit status 2
                            

                            kernel-alt failure.png

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                            • R Offline
                              rmaclachlan @RIX_IT
                              last edited by

                              @RIX_IT I tried kernel-alt before rolling back the uefi and it didn't help. Also tried the new Xen beta stormi posted (4.19 was it?) in case something was added but that didn't fix it either.

                              Thanks for trying the new Lenovo fw - I saw it come out and was going to test when I had time but now I don't need to!

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                              • GheppyG Offline
                                Gheppy
                                last edited by

                                Did it come fully equipped?
                                Did you install Lenovo signed HDD in it? Or you have compatibles HDD.
                                If you have compatibility, try to put a HDD with (original) Lenovo firmware.
                                I had the same problem with an Lenovo ThinkSystem SR630, I had installed a Lenovo non-firmware HDD, all of them. I bought one with Lenovo firmware, I installed and the problem disappeared.

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                                • R Offline
                                  rmaclachlan @Gheppy
                                  last edited by

                                  @Gheppy Our SR635v3 are running factory installed Lenovo hardware, although I did test swapping out the Broadcom 57504 OCP NIC with Intel X710 but the fan issue persisted. Thanks for the suggestion!

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                                  • L Offline
                                    LennertvdBerg @Gheppy
                                    last edited by

                                    @Gheppy I just installed Ubuntu 22.044 LTS with kernel 5.15.0-102-generic just to test if there could be anything like a 'vendor lock'. Using Ubuntu I just see my memory temperatures and all my fan speeds are around 6000 rpm. So it really seems to be something with XCP and Lenovo.

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                                    • GheppyG Offline
                                      Gheppy
                                      last edited by Gheppy

                                      Try to install lm-sensors and see what it detects.
                                      It seems to me that the kernel it does not have drivers for IPMI BMC KCS.
                                      My fans have 8000 - 8100 rpm

                                      yum -y install lm_sensors
                                      sensors -v
                                      sensors-detect
                                      sensors
                                      
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                                      • L Offline
                                        LennertvdBerg @Gheppy
                                        last edited by

                                        @Gheppy I've just reinstalled xcp-ng-8.3.0-beta2 after my Ubuntu experiment and installed lm_sensors. The output is indeed:

                                        Driver `to-be-written':
                                          * ISA bus, address 0xcc0
                                            Chip `IPMI BMC KCS' (confidence: 8)
                                        
                                        Note: there is no driver for IPMI BMC KCS yet.
                                        Check http://www.lm-sensors.org/wiki/Devices for updates.
                                        
                                        No modules to load, skipping modules configuration.
                                        
                                        Unloading i2c-dev... OK
                                        Unloading cpuid... OK
                                        

                                        The complete output is:
                                        Screenshot 2024-04-09 at 11.57.06.png
                                        Screenshot 2024-04-09 at 11.57.21.png

                                        What will be the solution for this?

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                                        • GheppyG Offline
                                          Gheppy
                                          last edited by

                                          We need to talk to the XCP-ng team and see if they can provide the module for the xen kernel.

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                                          • L Offline
                                            LennertvdBerg @olivierlambert
                                            last edited by

                                            @olivierlambert can you help us with providing the module for the xen kernel, which @Gheppy is talking about?

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