Unsolved
8 Posts
0
28
February 29th, 2024 03:08
M6220 blade switch requesting 84% max fan speed
I recently replaced the ethernet passthrough with a M6220 blade switch on my M1000e enclosure. Making this change has resulted in a huge increase in fan speed, even when all of the blades are powered off. I used racadm to verify that the new switch is requesting 84% max fan speed. I was also able to determine that the switch temperature is only 37 C. Following a bit of online advice, I updated the switch to the latest firmware (5.1.18.1). This had no effect, even after power cycling the enclosure. I could not find precise data for the M6220 switch, but I found that other blade switches should not call for increased fan speed until the temperature rises above about 60 C. Is the M6220 switch different? Should I try to verify that there is good airflow to the switch and ensure that all air passages are not blocked? Anything else to try?
DELL-Erman O
Moderator
•
2.8K Posts
0
February 29th, 2024 08:02
Hello, of course, good airflow is crucial. Verify that there are no obstructions, and ensure proper ventilation around the switch. If you have multiple M6220 switches stacked, ensure proper stacking and cabling. But I think the most important thing is checking configuration. You need to review the switch configuration to ensure there are no settings causing excessive fan speed. I didn't encountered FW release note for a known issue for that. At first these steps came to my mind.
Hope that helps!
boulderlund
8 Posts
0
March 1st, 2024 05:18
I am not exactly sure how, but I was able to fix this problem. Today I removed the M6220 switch from the M1000e enclosure in order to check the airflow passages. Seeing no problems with the passages I re-installed the switch, this time in a different slot on the odd chance that this would have some effect. Once I re-powered the enclosure, the fans remained at 30% even though the M6220 switch temperature climbed up to about 45 C. The first time I connected to the switch CLI it asked me if I wanted to run the setup wizard. I had never seen this message before, even after the switch reboot following the firmware update. Thus something obviously changed when I removed and replaced the switch. Perhaps either the switch or the chassis controller was remembering the old settings even after the switch firmware was updated. I suspect that the firmware upgrade did indeed fix the errant fan speed issue, but apparently simply rebooting the switch and power cycling the enclosure (only from online to low power suspend state) was not sufficient to update all of the settings. Later I moved the switch back to its original location in the enclosure and still had no fan issues. If anyone else is trying to resolve a similar fan issue, I would certainly suggest physically removing and re-installing the switch (or perhaps completely cutting power from the enclosure) after the firmware update. By the way, I updated the firmware from 1.1.0.10 to 5.1.18.1 and used the instructions for updating from v2.x.x.x to v5.1.18.1 via the CLI (instructions are contained in the firmware update download zip file). Other posts will lead you to believe that a serial cable is necessary in order to update from v1.x.x.x firmware but this is not the case.