Smart Array P800 0xD4 error - no HW replacement from HP?

[Mark Ryan Miller]

I've been pulling my hair out on this one. I bought a Smart Array P800 controller off eBay. It turned out to be a bad idea. It looks like the card is defective, but HP won't replace under warranty since I'm not using this in an HP server. I know I'm not using this in a standard config, but I should at least be able to get a hardware replacement from HP.

The card worked on and off. It worked initially and I set up a RAID 10 config with 4 500 gig SATA drives. Then it stopped working. Today I managed to get it to set drives again but shortly after it went back to an error state. The card gives various errors, usually a 0xD4 error, LED's CR509 and CR510 are amber. It does not recognize any attached drives. If I run ADU, it finds no errors, just doesn't find drives attached. If I run ORCA at boot it tells me a "Fatal Error" has occurred.

I've tried reseating the cache memory and batteries, moving to a new PCI-E slot, etc. Unfortunately when I called HP tech support they claim that there is *NO* hardware replacement or support, despite this card being less than one year old. The batteries have a date of 1/07. It could just be that both batteries were replaced recently but seems likely that this should be within the 3 year warranty.

I would appreciate any advice about (1) how to get HP to replace this under warranty or (2) how to get it to recognize hard drives.

Thanks.

[mits]

HP Parts Store web page says as follows.

398647-001
HP Smart Array P800 Controller - 16-port PCI-Express (PCIe) Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) RAID controller

http://h20141.www2.hp.com/hpparts/Search_Product.asp?mscssid=WCQN1J1H91M98M7TLK3RXUAD7VBSFWA8&Smethod=0&SearchCriteria=381513-B21
-> List all parts for this product

[Andrew Merritt_2]

Hi Mark,
I'm not posting in any official capacity for HP. As I understand it, the card you have is designed to work in HP Proliant systems. If you're using it in some other type of system, how can you tell it's not working because of a hardware defect in the card rather than some incompatibility with the system? Also, since you bought it from via ebay, not from HP, I would think your first port of call would be the vendor, not HP (but I'm not an expert on consumer law, and that varies from place to place anyway).

With regard to getting a replacement, I think you'd have to demonstrate that the card doesn't work in a system it's supported on.

Andrew