EVA5000 - Cache Battery problem

[Fabio Regis]

Hello,

I have powered up an EVA5000 yesterday after it had been off for 3 weeks during the summer holidays and I'm now having a similar but not identical problem.

One of the two HSV110 controllers has the red Cache Battery Assembly lit.

In Command View Eva though the batteries for both controllers are 2.33V and the battery charger's operational state for the faulty controller is good as can be seen in the attached screenshot.

Any info on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Fabio Regis

[Rob Leadbeater]

Hi,

> I'm now having a similar but not identical problem.

Please start a new thread for your problem.

That way if someone fixes your problem, you can assign points etc.

By all means reference this thread if necessary.

Cheers,

Rob

[IBaltay]

Hi,
I would like to add all possible combinations here:

Intro/legend

Primary controller PC
Slave controller SC
Disk write back DWB
Disk write through DWT
Primary controller battery PCB
Slave controller battery SCB


a) PCB good/SCB bad => DWB on PC
b) PCB low/SCB bad => DWT on PC
c) PCB bad/SCB bad => no data disk pres.
d) PCB good/SCB low => DWB on PC
e) PCB low/SCB low => DWT on both
f) PCB bad/SCB low => DWT on SC
g) PCB good/SCB good => DWB on both
h) PCB low/SCB good => DWB on SC
i) PCB bad/SCB good => DWB on SC

on some additional details on why both batteries have to be replaced even if only 1 fails see also the thread
http://forums12.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1261501

[IBaltay]

one additional warning which seems to be obious:
to avoid the battery drain during the extended shutdown:
never simply shutdown EVA via the buttons, but always via the OCP or Commandview EVA. This correct shutdown procedure disables also the batteries and no further (other then very lenghty self discharge rate) drain on the batteries occurs. Therefore it is not necessary to remove them from the systems that will be powered off for a long time

[PDP-Fan]

Today I have powered up an EVA5000 which has been shut down for a couple of months. The batteries were reported as failed and the vdisks could not be presented to a host. (Thex could in the Command View but were not seen by Windows).
After such a long time lead-acid batteries discharge themselves below the minimum voltage. The charger built into the HSV controller is not able to charge them from such a state and declares them unusable. Even a week of charging does not change that because there is actually nor charging at all.

But there is a trick to get the batteries back to life (at leat on the HSV110/EVA5000):

(*** NOT RECOMMENDED FOR UNEXPERIENCED PEOPLE ***)

Open the battery case carefully ant take out the battery cells attached to a PCB. Connect a suitable lead-acid battery charger to the cells directly and charge them.
I connected all three cells in series and applied a charge voltage of 7.5V (3 cells, 2V each).
After 2 hours the batteries came up to a voltage level that allowed re-installation in the EVA... The EVA charger accepted the batteries and started charging them.
Both controllers are working now.

If you have to store an EVA for a longer time it is recommended to remove the batteries from the controller because the discharging is much lower.

[Steve_EVA5000]

PDP-Fan,

I have an EVA 5000 /w 2 x HSV 110 controllers. I bought 12 new X Cell batteries yesterday which were manufactured May 29th 2010. Unfortunately they all have a charge of 2.10v. I installed them into the modules and after inserting them into the controller, CommandView reports the battery modules as Yes Installed and Operational State Good. It also reports the Voltage at 2.12v and Operational State as Low Charge. The battery charger operational state is reported as good as well.

As I understand it, the batteries are too low a charge for the controller to start charging them. If this is correct, to what voltage do you recommend these batteries be charged to? I have a 6v 900mA 3 stage charger which I plan to use with the 3 batteries wired in series. Do you think that this charger is even capable of charging the batteries to where they need to be or do I need to consider a 7.5v charger, like you had used? also how many mA was your charger rated as?

I attached a screen shot of my CommandView battery stats.

Thanks in advance for your reply.
-Steve

[Cliff Wells]

How did you get the pack apart? I thought it would be easy (two visible tabs on the end) but I've made no progress.

[Cliff Wells]

Never mind. Figured it out.