p410i BBWC battery pack failure on dl380 g6

[john1237]

DL380 G6

Smartarray p410i

BBWC Battery Module

memory 013224-002 (462975-001 sp)
battery 460499-001 (462976-001 sp)  

cable 458943-003 (488138-001 sp)

BIOS 2013.07.02 (A)14 Aug 2013       SP63007.exe
SMART ARRAY 6.609 Sep 2014    CP023869.scexe

Battery LED pattern

Power: always off

Aux Power: on

Batt: rapid blinking amber

BBWC: rapikd blinking green

Batt and BBWC rapidly alternate with each blinking more that once per second

Post error:

1748 Drive array unsupported arra accelerator battery. Please install battery pack(s) with correct part number. Array accelerator is disabled.

Battery and other compontes appear to me to be correct and firmware is updated.

Any thoughts?

Regards,

John

P.S. This thread has been moevd from ProLiant Servers - Netservers to ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL). - Hp Forum moderator

[john1237]

What struck me as odd is that the power led is off but the aux power led is on. It aslo seems notable to me that the the blinking pattern was so rapid.

The pattern of course does not fit with any of the LED meaning descriptions I can find.

I aslo wonder if it might be the cable.

Does anyone know where there is a wiring diagram for the cable and/or a more complete explanation of possible LED patterns?

Thanks,

John

[waaronb]

I'd guess it might be the cable, but it sounds more like something happened to the little logic board on the battery module.

This isn't a new battery you just installed, is it?  This is a module that's been in the server already and was working fine until just recently?

If it's a new module, even if it has the correct part # stamped on it, the logic board (where the cable plugs in) might be the wrong one... like someone took it from a module for the P400, thinking it would work (been there, done that).

Otherwise, if that's the same module that's been in the server and it just started failing, I suppose it could have been corrupted in some way so that the P410 no longer thinks it's the right part, like it's not returning the data or signals it's expecting.

Either way, you should try replacing with a new one, or maybe borrow one from another server just to see if that works before ordering a replacement.  That will let you know if it's a problem with the array controller and not the battery module.

[john1237]

Hi,

Thanks for info.

When first encountered had 250MB memory module and a dead battery.

Got error indicating dead battery, but nothing indicating incompatibility.

Replaced battery module with a new one.

Got 1748 incompatibility error.

Updated the 410i array's memory module on the motherboard to 512MB--got same error.

Reinstalled old battery module and now get the 1748 error on the battery module as well..

Hmm.

Am I correct that you are saying that the logic board built into the battery module could be wrong even if the battery module has the correct number?

How is one supposed to get the correct part in that case since the logic board is built into the battery module and does not have it’s own part number?

Did I misunderstand you?

Regards,

John

[john1237]

Addendum:

Is there a more complete documentation for the LED pattern and/or the wiring diagram for the cable?

[waaronb]

Well, in my case, I had a few batteries for P400 and P410 that had died.  Since these were on older servers that we're replacing soon anyway, but we still wanted the batteries at least for the short term, I thought it was a good opportunity to try the little trick of wiring some AAA rechargeable battery holders to the little circuit board on the original battery pack.

It works great, but then when I was putting them in the servers that needed them, I put one of the P400 modules on a P410, and it did not like that.  It gave me that error you mentioned about an the wrong BBWC module.  I didn't try putting the P410 battery on a P400...that may have worked but I never found out.

Anyway, the BBWC module has the battery, a little circuit board on the module itself that one end of the cable plugs into, and then the cable itself.  That circuit board is the same shape, size, configuration so it wouldn't be totally weird to get them swapped around by mistake, especially since it unclips real easy from the battery.

I don't have the module for a P410 in front of me, but I do have some for a P400 and that circuit board has a sticker that says 012695-001 Rev: 0F

The battery is the normal P400 replacement: part # 381573-001 / spare # 398648-001

As for the batteries themselves, I think the only real difference in those between the P400 and P410 modules is the mAh rating... I think it's like 500 mAh for the P400 and 650 mAh for the P410 modules?  Something like that.

The reason I point that out, I guess you could take a working battery from a P400 and just swap the circuit board with a P410 (or vice versa) to get a working module, if that's all you had handy.  So in that way, the part # and the circuit board in use wouldn't match anymore.

Oh, and take a look at the date code of your module... all of mine are originals with dates like 11/07 (I think that's month/year) and even the ones that haven't died yet are swollen, so they were probably mostly gone anyway.

Any "new" batteries you find for the P400 or even P410 are probably going to be new/old stock, meaning they've been sitting on a shelf somewhere, and it's hard to say how fresh those batteries are and how long they'll really last.  I've seen ebay/Amazon sellers of those batteries selling old/used modules... that's just about worthless in my book...probably pulled from a system being scrapped and might not have even been tested.

That's why I went with my own battery packs... about $7 in parts for a case that hold 4xAAA, and the batteries themselves.  Then soldering a couple wires to the pos/neg on the circuit board.  Now if the NiMH batteries die, they're just regular AAA and I can easily replace.  Much cheaper than the cost of new or new/old stock.

Won't help if you have the wrong circuit board, but keep it in mind.