Kingston DIMMs in BL465c G1 servers

[SebastianT]

I have 4 ESX 3.5 blades BL465c's with 2 AMD 2218 each.
Upgrading RAM from HP 16GB (8 x 2GB DIMMs) to Kingston 32GB (8 x 4GB DIMMs).

Worked great on blade 1. Scanned new memory and is seeing 32GB.

Blade 2 and Blade 3, each with 32GB Kingston DIMMs will not POST. On the ILO remote screen I get only a gray, blank screen. All LEDs on front of blade are green. Moved DIMMs around - same result. The ILO shows blade powered on.
The OA shows the blades only with 16GB - not acknowledging new DIMMs.

Blade 2 and Blade 3, each with 4GB DIMMs in slot 1A and 2A. On the ILO remote screen I get only a gray, blank screen. The front LED for internal status is RED, and there is a long beep, followed by a short beep.

Between the two blades I have tried 16 DIMMs in all configurations possible. All banks populated, or just 1a, 2a populated, or 1A, 2A and 5c, 6c populated.

Placing the old HP 16GB (8 x 2GB DIMMS) the blades POST just fine. Also they will POST fine with only 1A and 2A populated each with 2GB DIMMs.

I have run out of feeling in my thumbs from all the DIMM swapping and didn't get to try Blade 4.

Also firmware is at 7.91 on all of them.

Anyone has run into this before?

Why would Blade 1 work fine, and not Blade 2 and Blade 3 with the Kingston 32GB DIMMs?

It is hard to believe that 16 Kingston DIMMs to be faulty.

[Cederberg]

Hi.

The important thing with memory on a BL465c is to have equal amont of memory on each processor. Because it's AMD the memory is devided on the CPUs.

And the largest DIMMS should be farthest from the CPU.

DIMM installation guidelines:

All DIMMs must be PC2-5300 Registered DDR2 DIMMs (667 MHz).
Both DIMM slots in a memory bank must be populated.
Both DIMMs in a memory bank must be identical.
Processor 1 memory bank A must always be populated.
DIMM banks are active only when the corresponding processor socket is populated.
If installing only one bank on a processor, populate the bank physically farthest from the processor.
If mixing DIMM sizes on the same processor, the largest capacity DIMMs must be populated in the bank physically farthest from the processor. The smallest capacity DIMMs must be populated in the bank physically nearest the processor.
For optimal performance in most applications, populate the first memory bank for every populated processor socket.

[SebastianT]

All DIMMs put in are same size, type, model, and they are 667MHz. All banks are populated.

[Cederberg]

OK.

I have experianced that one faulty DIMM could make the server not boot. try to begin with minimum amount of DIMMS and work your way up to try to sort out the faulty DIMM. We have had multiple BL465 and BL685s not start bacause of one falty memory DIMM.

[SebastianT]

Called HP Support,and found out HP does not support my case since it is not HP branded memory.

I've started booting the server with 2 DIMM's at a time in Processor 1 memory bank A. Opened 6 DIMM packs, and the server powers on with a red LED for internal status, and a series of beeps.

Firmware level is A13 4/05/2007.

Any other suggestions please?

[SebastianT]

I've tried the same DIMMs into another BL465c G1 which had it's system board replaced just a week ago.
Here the server POSTs, acknowledges the entire 32GB of Kingston memory. Also it POSTs with 2, or 4 DIMMs.

I really lean towards a system board incompatibility with the Kingston memory.

Any thoughts from the HP Forum community?

Thanks,
Seb

[SebastianT]

After a few calls with HP and Kingston on the line it comes down to the following:

The BL465C requirement is:
"Up to 32 GB of memory, supported by (8) slots of PC2-5300 Registered DIMMs at 667 MHz".

Kingston memory is exactly PC2-5300 Registered DIMMs at 667 MHz.
This is what I have found from both the Kingston and HP engineers - the system board in the BL465c is supposed to handle both Low and High Voltage DIMMs.

Kingston memory is low voltage.

For some reason the system board did not like it and would not POST.

We have had 3 system board replaced and that did the trick, since all of them had a newer revision and firmware.

As a test I took another blade which had an earlier BIOS firmware (the BIOS A13 from 04/05/2007) and installed the Kingston DIMMs. The blade would not POST.

Then on the same blade I have updated the firmware to 8.20 (the BIOS A13 03/27/2008). Installed the low voltage Kingston memory and VOILA! The blade POSTs and it is happy!

If someone else runs into this issue in the future - try updating the firmware and BIOS if you can.

I am closing the thread for now, and I seem to have found the solution to my issue with Kingston DIMMs and BL465c.

[SebastianT]

See my previous entry about the BIOS and firmware update.