B200 M4 - Processor 2 Running very hot with E5-2699 CPUs

[wsanders]

We've got some newly-purchased B200 M4s with E5-2699 (145W) CPUs.

The blades at the end of the chassis (slot 7 and 8) are throwing temperature alerts for CPU2, which is running as hot as 80 deg C on one of the blades. At the same time, CPU1 is only mazing out at 52 or so.

It would seem that the thermal design for this chassis with this blade and CPU is deficient. Only blades in slots 7 and 8 go over the 80 deg alert threshold. CPU2 in slows 1 and 3 run at more normal temps, max 67 deg C or so.

There is also a 15 to 20 deg difference between CPU1 and CPU2 on all our 2699-equipped blades.

Are we missing a baffle upgrade for the 145W CPUs? A heat sink upgrade? Perhaps there is a BIOS upgrade to run the fans at full speed? Has anyone else had this problem?

I have not yet pulled a blade for physical inspection - I've seen this problem before; it was when an incompetent FSE swapped front and back heat sinks on some HP servers that, like the B200s, had different size heat sinks for CPU1 (front) and CPU2 (rear). This caused a 25 degree delta between CPU temps. When the heat sinks were swapped back to their normal configuration, the CPUs ran at the same temperature.

[eldiego]

Yup, I agree regarding the fan speed. Would be good to be able to set your own thresholds to some degree. 

Might be a slight improvement if you installed them in slots 2,3,5,7,8. And make sure that the blanks covers are present in the other slots. 

That way every fan in the chassis has at least one server in front. The way you have it now there is no server in front of fans 7 & 8 so they are not contributing much to the cooling. 

Also might be worth opening a TAC case and ask them to send an FE to clean the heatsinks on CPU2 of the worst affected servers, reapply the thermal paste and make sure that the plastic DIMM covers are seated correctly. I've seen where this can drop the temps by another 5-10 degrees on average.