IPMI fan control with Supermicro motherboards

[prongATO]

I ran into an issue with the plug-in IPMI Support fan control and figured out how to resolve it.

 

I replaced my Supermicro X10SL7-F with an X10SRL-F and the fan speed wasn’t working properly.  Every time the plug-in would poll the temperatures and adjust the fans, it would adjust them then would immediately ramp back up to full speed.  I tried everything, reconfiguring the fans and what headers they were plugged into, checking and double checking the BIOS, etc.  

 

SOLUTION: Log into the Supermicro IPMI web interface.  You need to log into the BMC/IPMI web interface and choose Maintenance > Unit Reset > Reset (click on the reset button to reboot the IPMI device).  After I performed that reset, all of the PWM fans responded properly to the IPMI Support/Fan Control configuration.  

 

Additionally, most tell you how to use impitool (nerd tools) to define the low and high for the fans.  I highly recommend using the IPMI Support plug-in to edit the sensors file (Settings > IPMI > Config Editor > Sensors).  Put in your values that match the fans you’re using.  If you’re using lower spinning fans, the default values will start throwing errors for the fans going low.  For instance, my Noctua PWM fans can run as low as 300 RPM but with the default values of the sensors file, it would cause errors for the fans going low non critical and critical because the low values are set too high by default.