System fan speeds?

[darren_g]

Hi.

I've recently implemented a new monitoring system (see thread in the devcentre forums) called Observium, and one of the things it does is read *all* the SNMP sensors out of the Palo Alto devices.

I noticed that it was reporting the fan speeds on my PA as really, really high - like, 12000 RPM and above - and I figured it was a bug.

But I just did a direct query of the device via SNMP (and via the CLI with 'show system environmentals'), and it appears that the fans *are* actually running this fast - 12-13 THOUSAND RPM on all four fans.

Is this normal? I'm used to server/PC fans running at 3-5 thousand RPM, maybe as high as 8 thousand - but I've never seen a device with fans that run at 12 thousand under normal operating conditions (startup surges excluded).

Does anyone else see this on their devices?

Cheers.

[HULK]

Hi,

Could you please let me know which model of PA firewall you have.

I have tested the same into my LAB firewall ( PA-5060, sw-version: 5.0.5) and received below mentioned output.

Slot   Description                         Alarm      RPMs

S1    Fan #1 RPM                          False      6318

S1    Fan #2 RPM                          False      5562

S1    Fan #3 RPM                          False      6428

S1    Fan #4 RPM                          False      5578

S1    Fan #5 RPM                          False      6269

S1    Fan #6 RPM                          False      5562

S1    Fan #7 RPM                          False      6510

S1    Fan #8 RPM                          False      5616

S1    Fan #9 RPM                          False      6459

S1    Fan #10 RPM                         False      5680

The fan speed of a firewall will be depending upon  CPU utilization and surrounding environment also.

[darren_g]

My devices are 2020's. They're located in a secure data centre, which is under normal DC conditions for environmentals (air conditioning, temperature etc.).

Output from the device shows

----Thermal----

Slot   Description                         Alarm      Degrees C

S0    Temperature at 3830 [U85]           False      34.00

S0    Temperature at LION [U86]           False      34.00

S0    Temperature at Phy [U87]            False      34.00

S0    Temperature at CPLD [U88]           False      37.00

----Fans----

Slot   Description                         Alarm      RPMs

S0    Fan #1 RPM                          False      12735

S0    Fan #2 RPM                          False      12738

S0    Fan #3 RPM                          False      12735

S0    Fan #4 RPM                          False      12656

The data plane CPU averages maybe 8%, and the management CPU (now that things have settled after a recent software upgrade) averages around 6-8%.

Cheers.

[HULK · Accepted solution]

Hi,

I think, it would be an expected result from PA-2020. I did the same test into my LAB PA-2020 ( without any load)  device and received below mentioned result.

Slot   Description                         Alarm      Degrees C

S0    Temperature at 3830 [U85]           False      27.67

S0    Temperature at LION [U86]           False      29.00

S0    Temperature at Phy [U87]            False      31.33

S0    Temperature at CPLD [U88]           False      30.00

----Fans----

Slot   Description                         Alarm      RPMs

S0    Fan #1 RPM                          False      11505

S0    Fan #2 RPM                          False      11376

S0    Fan #3 RPM                          False      10888

S0    Fan #4 RPM                          False      11313

@ Management CPU= 8%

    Data plane CPU=0%

My Best

Subhankar

[jvalentine]

My 2020 shows similar things:

admin@pa2k1(active-primary)> show system environmentals thermal

----Thermal----
Slot   Description                         Alarm      Degrees C
S0    Temperature at 3830 [U85]           False      33.00
S0    Temperature at LION [U86]           False      31.50
S0    Temperature at Phy [U87]            False      28.50
S0    Temperature at CPLD [U88]           False      32.00

admin@pa2k1(active-primary)> show system environmentals fans

----Fans----
Slot   Description                         Alarm      RPMs
S0    Fan #1 RPM                          False      12424
S0    Fan #2 RPM                          False      12348
S0    Fan #3 RPM                          False      12348
S0    Fan #4 RPM                          False      12199

[darren_g]

Fair enough. That's all I wanted to know - if others were seeing the same situation.

Thanks and Cheers

[darren_g]

Thanks. Sounds like what I am seeing is perfectly normal.

Appreciate your input.

Cheers.