On Sun, 06 Feb 2011 12:09:12 +0000 Ned Slider wrote:
On 06/02/11 07:00, Chuck Munro wrote:
Hello folks,
I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out why the CPU cooling fans run at full speed on my Supermicro X8DAL-3 motherboard. There doesn't seem to be any variable speed (the fans are PWM compatible) ... they either idle at almost nothing, or suddenly burst into a high-pitched scream that gets my ears bleeding after a few seconds. Once they jump to warp-10, they remain there.
The "Super-I/O" chip on this board is a Winbond W83627DHG which does the temperature and voltage monitoring.
Is anyone aware of which driver or kernel module I need for that chip in order to get control of the fans? The Supermicro web site and the board's manual aren't any help. Fresh installs of CentOS-5.5 and RHEL-6 don't exert any control by default. Installing the lm_sensors package and probing with the 'sensors' command didn't help either.
Slowly going deaf .......
Chuck
Hi Chuck,
The correct kernel module for your chipset is w83627ehf.ko. I'm not sure the driver actually controls fan speed, I thought it was more for monitoring (fan speeds, temps, voltages) but I could be wrong. My current system (not a Supermicro) controls variable fan speed from options within the BIOS. I can enable/disable fan speed control and select either voltage or PWM based control.
The stock w83627ehf driver in RHEL5.5 is oldish (they were updated in 5.5 I think but are still over a year old now). ELRepo.org have an updated driver available (kmod-w83627ehf) based on a backport from kernel-2.6.34. I've just checked upstream and a few more patches have been committed since kernel-2.6.34 and the current kernel-2.6.37 so I'll look at updating the elrepo driver with those latest patches.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Ned! I did go through the board's BIOS menus several times and could find only one fan control option, which ranges from always-fast for maximum performance to almost-silent for workstation use. No matter what the setting, the fans may start out slow but eventually jump to high speed. Updating the BIOS to the latest version made no difference. I also noticed that at all times the BIOS reports the CPU temperatures as "Low" no matter what the fan speed. The coolers are always cold to the touch.
I sure hope I don't have a defective board ... it's a royal pain to have to remove one from a large server. I booted Ubuntu but the live-CD version doesn't have a working 'fancontrol' utility. I'd be tempted to install Ubuntu Server but I much prefer staying with CentOS and KVM to match all of the guest virtual machines it'll be running.
Time to go through the mobo manual with a fine-tooth comb. :-)
Chuck
On 06/02/11 17:15, Chuck Munro wrote:
On Sun, 06 Feb 2011 12:09:12 +0000 Ned Slider wrote:
On 06/02/11 07:00, Chuck Munro wrote:
Hello folks,
I'm having a difficult time trying to figure out why the CPU cooling fans run at full speed on my Supermicro X8DAL-3 motherboard. There doesn't seem to be any variable speed (the fans are PWM compatible) ... they either idle at almost nothing, or suddenly burst into a high-pitched scream that gets my ears bleeding after a few seconds. Once they jump to warp-10, they remain there.
The "Super-I/O" chip on this board is a Winbond W83627DHG which does the temperature and voltage monitoring.
Is anyone aware of which driver or kernel module I need for that chip in order to get control of the fans? The Supermicro web site and the board's manual aren't any help. Fresh installs of CentOS-5.5 and RHEL-6 don't exert any control by default. Installing the lm_sensors package and probing with the 'sensors' command didn't help either.
Slowly going deaf .......
Chuck
Hi Chuck,
The correct kernel module for your chipset is w83627ehf.ko. I'm not sure the driver actually controls fan speed, I thought it was more for monitoring (fan speeds, temps, voltages) but I could be wrong. My current system (not a Supermicro) controls variable fan speed from options within the BIOS. I can enable/disable fan speed control and select either voltage or PWM based control.
The stock w83627ehf driver in RHEL5.5 is oldish (they were updated in 5.5 I think but are still over a year old now). ELRepo.org have an updated driver available (kmod-w83627ehf) based on a backport from kernel-2.6.34. I've just checked upstream and a few more patches have been committed since kernel-2.6.34 and the current kernel-2.6.37 so I'll look at updating the elrepo driver with those latest patches.
Hope that helps.
Thanks Ned! I did go through the board's BIOS menus several times and could find only one fan control option, which ranges from always-fast for maximum performance to almost-silent for workstation use. No matter what the setting, the fans may start out slow but eventually jump to high speed. Updating the BIOS to the latest version made no difference. I also noticed that at all times the BIOS reports the CPU temperatures as "Low" no matter what the fan speed. The coolers are always cold to the touch.
I sure hope I don't have a defective board ... it's a royal pain to have to remove one from a large server. I booted Ubuntu but the live-CD version doesn't have a working 'fancontrol' utility. I'd be tempted to install Ubuntu Server but I much prefer staying with CentOS and KVM to match all of the guest virtual machines it'll be running.
Time to go through the mobo manual with a fine-tooth comb. :-)
Chuck
You're welcome Chuck.
Your question prompted me to update the elrepo kmod-w83627ehf driver package to the latest upstream source (kernel-2.6.37):
http://lists.elrepo.org/pipermail/elrepo/2011-February/000488.html
By all means give that package a try, but I'm not convinced it will address your problem in this case. Either way, it should be relatively quick and painless to test - updated packages should be available shortly.
Maybe someone with more experience of this particular Supermicro M/B will pop up on the list :-)
Regards,
Ned
On 02/06/11 18:48, Ned Slider wrote:
You're welcome Chuck.
Your question prompted me to update the elrepo kmod-w83627ehf driver package to the latest upstream source (kernel-2.6.37):
http://lists.elrepo.org/pipermail/elrepo/2011-February/000488.html
By all means give that package a try, but I'm not convinced it will address your problem in this case. Either way, it should be relatively quick and painless to test - updated packages should be available shortly.
Maybe someone with more experience of this particular Supermicro M/B will pop up on the list :-)
Regards,
Ned
Actually it's possible a hardware monitoring module is interfering with the FAN speed control duties. Try preventing any hardware monitoring related modules get modprobed. See modprobe.conf how to blacklist modules.
Glenn
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Chuck Munro -
Ned Slider -
RedShift