Hi,  I was wondering if you actually found a solution to all that. We have a T710 here in our office and it is way too noisy, so it was locked up in the closet, which only results in a even hotter environment and even more noise...   Anything I can do to make it actually quite enough to have it in the 20 degrees office environment again?  What does DELL say about this?  EDIT: I actually have a T320 standing next to me, which is even under high load not at all noisy! How can there be such a huge difference?
Hello! Having used HP servers before when I needed a new server for a project I decided to try a Dell PowerEdge instead. So I went ahead and ordered a brand new PE T710 tower server in lightweight configuration (1x XEON E5506, 4GB RAM, 1x 250GB SATA hot-plug, PERC H200 controller, 1 PSU). The server arrived 6 weeks ago, but due to my workload I have only recently found enough time to test it and set it up. The main problem is that this server has a really poorly designed cooling system which is deafening loud. I really have a low-end config, but even in idle the four Delta AFC0912DE fans (6000 rpm max, pushing a staggering 160 cfm and producing an insane 63db(A) noise level) run at 2040 and 2400 rpm in a room that is at 20 deg C, blowing a huge mass of cold air out of the back end and producing a nerve-wrecking noise. Had I bought a rack server (which is meant to sit in rack in a data center together with dozens of other servers) then I would not complain. However, I have bought a tower server which is meant to be placed in a standard office environment, something which is not possible with this thing. We have a few HP ProLiant tower servers (ML350 G5 and G6, ML370 G6), and even our much better spec'd ML370 G6 does not produce such an amount of noise even when under load. Since designing electronic components (aerospace) is part of my job, I had a closer look. Obviously the BMC is meant to be checking the temperature levels and adjusting fan rpm in accordance with heat levels. It seems to be badly done, though, as the exiting air temperature is the same as the intake air, which means there is very little heat transfer. A proper cooling design would keep the airflow just high enough to allow sufficient heat transfer from the components, which for this server with such a low end config would be at less than half the airflow (with the fans rotating at less than 1000rpm). Having the fans run at 2400rpm is not conservative, it is simply poor engineering, as the unnecessary high airflow not only creates noise but also increases fan wear and dust accumulation. This aside, I wonder why a two socket server like the T710 needs to have four 160 cfm fans @ 6000 rpm screaming at 63db(A) when a maxed out config (two fas 6-core XEONs, 144GB RAM, 8x 15k SAS HDDs) can be easily cooled with fans with much lower cfm rating like the AVC DS09238B12HPFAF (104 cfm @ 5000 rpm and 51 db(A)) or even the Delta T92E12BMA7-07 (83 cfm @ 4000 rpm and 43db(A)). And because for some reason Dell has decided to set the fan alarm threshold at 1080 rpm it's close to impossible to use other fans without triggering the low fan alarm. Overall I have to say I think this is a really poor design, especially for a device which is used in a noise conscious environment.  And before someone asks: yes, latest BIOS is installed, as is the latest firmware for the BMC. Yes, I tried various fan performance settings in the BIOS without luck. And yes, I called Dell support, they looked into the problem but confirmed that the fan rpms are normal for this server. Unfortunately I'm over the 30 days return period, else I would have sent the thing back and bought HP instead.  Does anyone know if there is a fix in form of a firmware/BIOS update in the works? Maybe not now that they're probably focussing on their new 12G servers due for Q1/2012.  Any chance that someone from Dell reads this? 
New PowerEdge T710 extremely loud