Compaq DL380: Fan speed

[KevinO]

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Alan Dayley wrote:
> We have inherited a Compaq Proliant DL380 server.  I'll not go into all
> it's specs at the moment but suffice to say that it appears to work.
> 
> It had Windows NT 4.0 on it.  When first powered up, the fans were full
> blast and loud.  By the time the login screen was displayed, the fans had
> down shifted to a much quiter level.  Fine.
> 
> I installed OpenSUSE 10.1 from CDs, formating the hard drives in the
> process.  Not that I am married to OpenSUSE for this server, it was just
> handy and recent.  It went relatively well with the fans screaming at full
> speed the entire time.  Now, SUSE boots to a text login and appears to be
> working fine but the fans don't downshift.
> 
> I found that it needs a health monitor driver from HP which several Google
> search hits indicate are closed source (Ugh!).  To add insult, the driver
> download page for the system,
> http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/family/model/1122.html?lang=en&cc=us&prodSeriesId=254889
> lists support for "Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1" or "UnitedLinux 1.0/SUSE
> Linux Enterprise Server 8" as the newest version distros.
> 
> So finally we reach my questions for you enterpise admin types:
> 1. Is there any other source for the "hpasm" health program for a more
> modern distro or kernel?
I don't know. You could ask HP.

> 2. Is there a different program somewhere that can provide this same
> functionality on a recent Linux?
> 3. If the answer is negative to the above, must one then run the older
> supported distro on the hardware?
Not necessarily...

> 3a. If so, how is such a distro made secure and fully maintained (patches,
> fixes, etc.)?
> 3b. If so, is it a given that this system should not be used as an
> Internet facing server?
> 
> I have other small issues with the server but the fan speed noise control,
> along with the associated questions above, could make or break it's
> current intended use.
> 
About two years ago I ran into this situation with one of these boxes. I was able
to get hpasm to work okay with a Mandrake install, but I has to tweak things a
bit (symbolic link(s) for the kernel source, if I remember right). I couldn't run
the latest distribution (at that time) either because of the kernel version.

- --
KevinO
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