DL360p Gen8, B120i Controller and Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials..., total nightmare!

[CPA-UK]

Hi, I would really appreciate any help on this one..., I'm having a nightmare building a new DL360p Gen8 with a B120i RAID Controller and Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials...

The server is a brand new HP DL360p Gen8 E5-2630 1 x CPU, 8GB RAM, 2 x 1TB HDD (RAID 1), which we are installing HP's own ROK version of Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials..

Right from the start of this there seems to have been issues.. I would add that the hardware of the server seems to check out okay...

I started by trying to use the INTELEGENT PROVISIONING to install the O/S, but it wouldn'y have that and said that it didn't recognise the version of Windows we were trying to install..., not a good start...

I then created the RAID1 array and installed the O/S by booting from the Windows install CD... This seemed to work okay.. I ran Windows Updates and installed the latest Proliant Service Pack, HP_Service_Pack_for_Proliant_2014.06.0_784915_001_spp_2014.06.0-SPP2014060.2014_0618.4, and this is where the problems started...

The install of the SP took ages..., approx 3-4 hours!.., and then once we were back up and running there seemed to be other speed issues with the whole thing..., but I didn't seem to be getting any errors reported in the Event Viewer.. I tried rebuilding the server a couple more times, in slighly different ways but the problems persisted..

In the end I ran out of time as I had to install it on the customer site the next day, so I built it without installing any of the HP drivers or Service Packs, and this seemed to work to a point...

The server is now live but I'm still having problems such as when you run up Disk Management, it just sits there and says "Loading Disk Configuration Information", I also cannot seem to run any backups to an external drive.. It all seems to point to the drivers running the controller...

To this end I started investigating more, and I see from the forums that there are a shed load of problems with this HP controller, B120i and WSE 2012 R2...

I've followed this further and this lead me to two updates...

The first was  update cp020819.exe, which put a much newer version of the controller driver on the server, 62.8.0.64 (10 Jan 2014)... This did seem to make things a bit better, but I still could not run a backup, and general speed issues again with the drive...

To this end I looked a bit further, and I found cp022624.exe which again took me to a newer version, 62.10.0.64 (13 Mar 2014)... This seemed to be a lot better and I could open Disk Management.., but it was intermittant at best..., again, if I try a backup it just runs up and says it is starting but goes no further...

We are now getting errors in the Event Viewer such as ;

The IO operation at logical block address  for Disk \Device\0000003a (PDO name: ) was retried.

Log Name: System
Source: disk
Date: 17/09/2014 04:17:56
Event ID: 153
Task Category: None
Level: Warning
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: MySvr1.MyDOM.local
Description:
The IO operation at logical block address for Disk \Device\0000003a (PDO name: ) was retried.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="disk" />
<EventID Qualifiers="32772">153</EventID>
<Level>3</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-09-17T03:17:56.880005700Z" />
<EventRecordID>7435</EventRecordID>
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>MySvr1.MyDOM.local</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data>\Device\Harddisk2\DR2</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Data>\Device\0000003a</Data>
<Data>
</Data>
<Binary>0F01040004003400000000009900048000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000928</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

I'm really lost with all this... My problem is that this is now a live server and if I mess it all up by installing further HP Service Packs and lose access to it, I'm in big pooh.., but I don't have any backups yet, so I'm very worried in case I get bigger problems..

When I first started having the problems, I contacted HP and they advised I download and install the latest SP.., but as I mentioned above that just caused even more problems... As I cannot put any HP software on the box it's hard to get more feedback...

I'm sure I'm looking in the right area here..., as I found others with similar problems with this O/S and this contoller..

I would really appreciate any help with this one..

I've built loads and loads of HP servers but never had so many problems...

[esantos999]

Hi,

I have the exact the same hardware configuration and the same OS, which lead me to the same exact problems you described.

Since I have time before delivering the server to the customer (what I dont think it's going to happen) I tried to install Windows Server 2008 and found out that no issues at all, everything is working flawless.

After installed the W12K Essentials and the first disk errors appeared, I believed it was a driver RAID origin, and you post just confirmed that.

I don't understand how HP does this...

Regards,

Edgar Santos

[esantos999]

Hi,

PROBLEM SOLVED!

I downloaded the latest HP Intelligent Provisioning recovery media (you can find it here: http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/management/ilo/index.aspx#tab=TAB5), rebooted the server with this CD, installed the CD, and after that in the F10 Intelligent Provisioning setup now it identifies the Windows 2012 Essentials R2 DVD, installs all the drivers.

After several reboots and Windows updates I don't find any errors on the event viewer and everything is working smoothly as expect.

I hope this can help you.

Regards,

Edgar Santos

[Niyi1]

Hello Guys,

I'm currently facing thesame above challenges but in my own case, I have successfully installed Windows server 2012 R2 for the past 5 months and it was working perfectly until 3 weeks ago when it got crashed, I tried to do a full backup recovery which was successful but can't lunch Dashboard, so i choose to reinstall the server now it crashes intermittently.

I tried to follow the thread above but I could not download the currect HP Provisioning.

KINDLY HELP.