P-Blade not working in specific enclosure slot

[rossb2]

Bl20p G3 is not working in a specific enclosure slot. It is slot 1 on a 8 slot enclosure. All other slots are in use. When booted, windows displays a "hardware malfunction, call hardware vendor for support, the system has halted" error.

Moving the blade to another enclosure does not produce the error and the blade works okay. The blade has the latest BIOS/ILO version. The enclosure with the issue has the latest management module 2.40 firmware.(the other test enclosure is older 2.30 firmware).

I have had problems with this blade recently. It is on its third system board(under warranty) in a short space of time. At first, I thought HP had sent faulty system boards, but now I am thinking it could be an enclosure issue. Has anyone else experienced this?

[gregersenj]

Yes it could be a faulty backplane.
Note there's 2 backplanes in the p-class encl. Signal backplane and power backplane.
Most backplane failures is due to bent pins ind the signal backplane.

It could also be the slot is in failed state.
Check for RED light on the management module.
and/or connect a laptop to teh management module, using the serial cable, that came with the encl. and use a terminal emulation program. Hyperterm will do just fine.
If it's failed, reset the module.

cheers
/jag

[rossb2]

Fault fixed. It was not a hardware issue, but actually a software issue. The new system board must have had different hardware to the original system board.

An install of the latest proliant support pack did not fix. I rebuilt the OS using the latest smartstart CD, and the server works okay.

Interestingly, the "hardware malfunction" error did still occur on the older 2.30 enclosure, but at random intervals. The malfunction was immediate on a 2.40 enclosure.