PCI Slots on rx4640

[KPS]

Hi,

We're getting an rx4640 in the next day or two and I'm trying to figure out if I can hook up a SCSI PCI Adapter to an older Tape Library through a HVD SCSI Adapter Card? HP told me to check with Adaptec to see if they have a card that will help me with this. I just talked to them and they do have a card, but it only works for PCI and not PCI-X.

My question is what type of PCI Slots are on the rx4640? Are they PCI-X. (I'm guessing they are since this is a newer system)

Thanks,
KPS

[Andrzej Kowalik]

Two 133-MHz, 64-bit slots on dedicated PCI-X buses
Four 66-MHz, 64-bit slots distributed on 2 PCI-X buses; 2 slots per bus

regards,
Andrzej

[kris rombauts]

KPS,

pls check the supported cards on hp.com (i.e. : http://www.hp.com/products1/servers/integrity/entry_level/rx4640/supplies.html )

Most cards are LVD,don't think their is a HVD SCSI card in the tested/supported list of cards for RX4640)


HTH

Kris

[mits]

See quick spec of RX4640 below.
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/11847_div/11847_div.HTML

I/O Architecture sction describes the detail of the slot specification and configuration.

All slots should be capable to run with PCI IO card. But this does not mean all PCI cards will be supported. See Supported I/O Cards section for detail.

[timmy b.]

Ken,
Just FYI,

When you look at the back of the server, you will find that the available slots are labeled 3-8. Slots 3&4 share a bus, while 5 & 6 share another. Slot 7 & 8 each are on their own bus.

When you load your slots, try to NOT load the heavy I/O cards paired up into the shared slots. Heaviest loads should go into 7 or 8.

Good Luck - Tim

[rick jones]

In general, unofficial, terms, a 'PCI' card will "work" in a 'PCI-X' slot. I think that one of the "translations" of the term 'PCI-X' is supposed to be "PCI-eXtended" It may though bring the entire PCI-X bus down to the speed supported by the PCI card.

[I believe that it is PCI _Express_ that cannot take a PCI/PCI-X card]

If indeed there are no longer any "supported" HVD SCSI cards on the HP CPL, you might want to keep the following HPSpeak decoder in mind:

Supported, known to work -> warm fuzzies all around
Supported, not known to not work -> an HPite may be in trouble
Supported, known to not work -> an HPite is in trouble
Unsupported, known to work -> lucky today, unlucky tomorrow?
Unsupported, not known to not work -> there but for the grace of Turing
Unsupported, known to not work -> no, it was not deliberate ;-)

Also, you didn't say which OS you were planning on running. Keep in mind that the I/O drivers supplied with HP-UX will only claim I/O cards with HP subvendor ID's. The Linux (and I suspect but cannot confirm Windows) drivers don't care. I suspect that OpenVMS drivers would look for HP subvendor ID's but cannot confirm that.

[Ted Buis]

Ken,

What OS will you be running? HP has different cards supported for HP-UX than Windows and LINUX. The A5159B FWD(HVD)dual SCSI adapter that is supported on the pa-risc version, is not supported on the rx4640 with any OS that I see.

[KPS]

We'll be running HP-UX 11.23

[Ted Buis · Accepted solution]

If you have one of the A5159B cards, you might just try it. Do not try anything other than FWD a.k.a. HVD. LVD will not work with your tape if it is HVD. There are companies that offer HVD to LVD converter boxes. Go to google and enter HVD LVD converter to find them. I have also seen FC to HVD converters. HP used to sell one of those.