Dell Poweredge T430: Silent configuration

When unpacking the new Dell T430 server and plugging it in, I was a bit surprised about the noise level, given many people commented on forums about the silent operation of the tower. After installing VMware ESXi I dug through a few documents and online posts and found the tricks:

• Consider a non-low-power CPU on purchase. As per the Acoustical Performance PDF referenced below, “Configurations with low-power processors (which have lower temperature limits than standard processors), e.g., Intel Xeon E5-2650L v3/E5-2630L v3 processors at 65W/55W, under moderate or heavy utilization, will be about twice as loud as typical configurations.”
• The CPU is initially, at least in my machine, in the full performance setting without any state change to a lower setting. Fix this via: System BIOS -> System Profile Settings -> System profile set to “Performance per watt”. Alternatively set a custom profile of Performance + C-States/C1E enabled.
• Adjust the iDRAC fan profile accordingly, in the iDRAC web-interface: Hardware -> Fans -> Setup (tab) -> set the thermal profile to minimum power.
• Ensure the iDRAC is updated to the latest version, with that comes at times some fine-tuning in terms of fan and thermal control.
• Consider removing the redundant fan.
• If all of this does not help, you may want to investigate if you want to replace the loud but also high air volume fans with some quieter ones, e.g. the Noctua industrial range (link). One of the fan connectors on the motherboard is a standard PWM connector and I just used this for the Noctua in the outside optional chassis and used the other connector for the previously external Sunon fan.

The sources:

1. Dell PDF file “Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation Server System Profiles” by Bruce Wagner, 2014
2. Dell PDF file “BIOS Performance and Power Tuning Guidelines for Dell PowerEdge 12th Generation Servers” by John Beckett, 2012
3. Dell PDF file “Dell 13G PowerEdge Acoustical Performance & Dependencies”, Victor Chen et. al., 2015
4. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/956/t/19638760
5. http://serverfault.com/questions/631204/dell-poweredge-r220-fan-speed-high-when-idle-low-under-stress
6. http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/956/t/19647301