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Failing processors

 
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Failing processors

PL8500 with 4x Xeon 550mhz processors, 2 GB RAM.
I am experiencing random failing of processors during re-boot. There seems to be no pattern -not every re-boot causes this phenomenon. Sometimes there could be only one failed processor, sometimes there could be 2 or 3.
I get the POST 212 error message and several agent-related entries in the system log. One of this messages sugests to check the OS license which is alright since I am using the Enterprise edition of NT 4.
Reseting processors using F10 only temporarily fixes the problem and then it re-occurs !
I have already replaced the processors' board but the problem seems to be here to stay.
Any suggestions ?
7 REPLIES 7
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Re: Failing processors

We are are running a very similar setup (only 1Gb Ram though) and have had the same issue on 2x 8500s, I had to be replaced as nearly every part was replaced. The 2nd occured only yesterday and we are waiting for an engineer.
Tried new BIOS etc no luck
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Re: Failing processors

Same here... All parts replaced with our std-by machine............ psu's, io try, interconnect, media tray, processor tray, processors etc.. tried erase also. Strange thing is although all processors failed system still boots... work that one out...
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Re: Failing processors

Solved ours, it seems that for some reason one cpu was id'd by the server as failed, then someone for troubleshooting purposes moved that cpu to another slot. This in turn caused both cpus to be marked as faulty, then swapped both with the other 2 cpus (4cpu system) which then marked all as faulty. Wierd thing is I came in swapped the processor bay and moved 2 of the cpus across and the "failed" cpu msg travelled across... Do the PIII's have an on brd status bit that can be set and unset? - (needed to F9 then mark all as corrected to fix issue) I know they have serial numbers, but I ran erase on the system which should clr all bios and nvram and ESCD settings...
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Re: Failing processors

Hi,
Me again. I got an odd answer from my vendor who checked with Compaq. He says Compaq knows of this problem in certain PL 8500 machines (with certain serial #'s). He says the i/o board needs to be replaced - which is odd, because someone here, at the forum, said he replaced the i/o board and it did not solve the problem !
Compaq seem to not publish this eventhough I have specificaly requested a link to some sort of documentation.
I would appreciate if anyone from Compaq can answer this and assure me that replacing the i/o board will solve the problem. And why don't you publish this kind of thing if you know about it ?
Regards
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Re: Failing processors

Had (and solved) the same problem with the 8500. Basically, the processors are NOT detected by the system automatically, which causes these errors. Hit the F9 key (listed with the normal F10 key) to get into the config screen and get the system to scan itself to detect the processors.
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Re: Failing processors

I have run in the sam problem on two 8500's/700mhz machines. If I do the F9 and mark them corrected and reboot, they work for a while, but it will happen again.

Anyone have any other update on this?

Thanks,
Bob
Ayman Altounji
Valued Contributor

Re: Failing processors

Compaq sent me a processor board to try and fix this problem. I also put in 4 new processors that we had just to take anything with the processors out of the picture. First time I booted, I got 2 of the 4 processors failed. Went into F9 and marked them as corrected and rebooted and they all came up and initialized. I see that a couple of other people have replaced the processor board and it hasn't fixed the problem so I am not too confident that this is resolved. When I talked to one Compaq tech on the phone he told me "this problem is a quirk of the processor and nothing can be done about it." I replied that I didn't pay tens of thousands of dollars for a server that will fail to initialize it's processors every few times it boots.

I have a meeting with our Compaq sales rep next week, plan to discuss this with him.

If anyone else has any updates, please let me know!

Thanks,
Bob