On Tue, July 11, 2017 14:16, m.roth@5-cent.us wrote:

Fred Smith wrote:

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On Tue, Jul 11, 2017 at 12:05:55PM +0100, Gary Stainburn wrote:

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I have just installed CentOS 6 i386 onto an old rack server (it's gonna be a Bacula storeage server and is a 1U 1/2 depth chassis)

I did a minimum netinstall and so far so good. However, I have one problem. The CPU fan is going at full speed constantly. Not a real problem apart from (a) it will affect the fan's lifespan and (b) it's noisy.

I used to have a HP 320 generation 2 server that I used as a desktop. it had a bunch of tiny fans that screamed like a banshee.

it turns out that one of the RPMs they shipped with it (on CD, not actually installed) contained a driver that toned down the fans to a soft roar. I'm sorry to say I have no memory of what the driver was.

but if this system is from a vendor that supports Linux, they might have some suitable driver.

That's in the firmware. You may, or may not, be able to do something with ipmitool, but I don't think so. Reboot, and look in system setup. It may be under performance settings.

If this is a SuperMicro box then you can contact their support to if there is a BIOS update that deals with this issue. After an update to one our SM rack units its fans sounded like a jet taking off. This turned out to be a known problem and the final fix was a BIOS update from SM.