Absolute nightmare of a DL380 G7

[BrightMinds]

We're using the onboard HP 410i controller upgraded to the 3.52 firmware. All default options, difficult to access the config because it needs to be online.

Yeah I'll be interested to see if upgrading the hard drive firmware helps, keep me posted!

How often by the way do yours fail?

[Simon.H]

Of the 17 DL380 G7's we have, 4 are 'live' (Hyper-V cluster), 7 are in DR and sitting doing nothing at the moment, and 6 are still being built.

Of these, we have the controller failure log entries in the IML of 5 of them; 3 of the live ones and 2 DR, with the worst culprits having the issue about once per week.

Since we upgraded the P410i BIOS to v3.52, we have only had the issue re-occur on one server, but 3 times in 1 week! (and it was one of the live Hyper-V servers too.) We have only been running the 3.52 BIOS for 3 weeks though.

You should be able to see your Array cache details on-line using either the Windows Array Configuration Utility, or the HP System Management Homepage, if you have them installed.

[BrightMinds]

Here's an export from ID...

[Simon.H]

Yep, you've got the 1GB FBWC on your array controller the same as ours. This was only offered as a default option on the G7's so I wonder if it is related to the problem... i.e. most people using the P410i controller on the G6's would only have had a maximum of 512MB BBWC by default.

I've had the issue twice again since, both on the same server though. I've now disabled the write cache on the array controller for that server to see if it still re-occurs. I will hopefully be able to upgrade the disk firmware in the next couple of days to see if that has any effect.

How often is your server having the problem ?

[BrightMinds]

It dies about once every 3 days however on Sunday it died within 20 minutes of booting!

[Martijn Goudkamp]

Good, I'm not the only one with a rubbish DL380 G7! Spent â ¬ 8000 on a server that randomly hangs with SCSI problems.

Config: dual quad-core, 24GB ram, 4x146GB SAS 15k, 2x 300GB SAS 10k. Running ESX 4.1 with 10 VM's. P410i 1GB BBWC, dual power, etc.

Updated RAID to v3.52, even all the disks got an new firmware. Now, the server hangs once or twice a week, most of the time in the weekends, ESX is unresponsive except for the the ALT-F11 screen: this gets filled with SCSI errors. Then, after reboot, I get the same RAID errors as you guys get:

POST Message 10/30/2010 19:37 10/30/2010 19:32 2 POST Error: 1719 - A controller failure event occurred prior to this power-up
POST Message 11/01/2010 20:26 11/01/2010 20:26 1 POST Error: 1719 - A controller failure event occurred prior to this power-up
POST Message 11/01/2010 20:26 11/01/2010 20:26 1 POST Error: 1792-Drive Array Reports Valid Data Found in Array Accelerator
POST Message 11/05/2010 23:29 11/05/2010 23:29 1 POST Error: 1719 - A controller failure event occurred prior to this power-up



At least with the latest iLO firmware (1.10) it doesn't hang during a remote reboot and I can restart all my VM's while sitting on the couch but my trusty ML350 G6 NEVER gave me any problems.

Anyone with a solution?

[BrightMinds]

Sorry the link to my story is actually this

http://www.geakeit.co.uk/2010/11/11/review-avoid-the-hp-dl380-g7/

I guess we all need to pester HP to ensure they know their customers are having problems.

I'll be interested to see if disabling the write cache helps, could indicate a bad memory batch.

[Simon.H]

Hi there guys.

Disabling the write cache on the array made no difference. The server crashed with this issue five times yesterday ! I have now physically removed the array cache card from the server to see what happens.

I'll keep you posted !

[Martijn Goudkamp]

Yesterday, after contacting support via mail, HP called me back, asking me for extra information: seems we're not the only ones as they want to replace the RAID card but also the whole motherboard on-site.

I'll let them; hope this will solve the problems.

[BrightMinds]

We've already had our motherboard changed but since starting this thread it seems the problem lies with the 410i storage controller.

I'll be very interested to hear if you still have the issues after they replace it!