ML150 G3 embedded SATA Raid problem

[sandeep_raman]

Hello J Muurling/Alan Wyatt-Jones,

Wondering if you tried options in Pg 34,
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00260539/c00260539.pdf
Btw,what's the controller driver link?

SRH

[Alan Wyatt-Jones]

Hi again.

I spoke with HP again today and related this call to yours. Having conducted some further testing, I have found that the system actually resets itself after about 9 minutes and 42 seconds consistently. I have used a stopwatch at the point the SATA Raid menu appears. I expect that this is probably actually 10 minutes because it depends when the reset timer is started. If this is started at the point the SATA BIOS screen is shown prior to pressing F8 then this would account for the other 18 seconds. I am considering returning the server because I cannot wait but it would be interesting to see if your times are equal. Will have to ask HP for a return reference if I hear nothing tomorrow.

Regards,

Alan Wyatt-Jones.

[Alan Wyatt-Jones]

Sandeep,

Yes I can confirm all my BIOS settings are as per the manual p34. I think I may have stumbled upon the answer by accident. There is a BIOS setting that controls the timeout value to wait for the OS to boot. On my server this is set to 10 minutes! Aha!. I think what may be happening here is that the BIOS sets this timer running when the machine boots. Due to the fact that I have 2 x 250GB SATA drives in my RAID1 array, the building takes much longer than 10 minutes. After this 10 minute timer expires, the server reboots right in the middle of the array creation. I am current running a test having set this value to 100 minutes. Keep your fingers crossed hopefully this will sort it.

Regards,

Alan Wyatt-Jones

[Alan Wyatt-Jones]

Unfortunately changing this setting has absolutely no effect. I also disabled this option and other options but the same problem persists. I thought I had it there. So a further day goes by with another promise of a call back from India that's "Anand" and "Riju" who have both failed to return calls. HP customer service appears to be pretty poor!

Alan Wyatt-Jones

[J. Muurling]

Hi Alan,
I was called today and I have to translate some updates in ENG from Dutch.

I can't find the time-out setting in de docu on page 34. Is it in the Bios or in the SATA bios?

I will keep you updated.

[Alan Wyatt-Jones]

The settings are in the BIOS I think it is in advanced settings under the IMRI section (I don't have the server running at the moment to check!) or a section like that. Not easily findable. However, as I said before this had no effect so I am still awaiting a response.

[Alan Wyatt-Jones]

Spoke to HP again this morning. They have advised this case has been escalated as already implied. I received an email from HP stating "CASE IS IN PROGRESS: Additional Technical Resources are being added". Not sure what this means. The title of the case states unable to configure raid on server. I feel a better description should be server reboots after 10 minutes during configuration of embedded SATA controller.

[Alan Wyatt-Jones]

Had an email and call from HP today - they are doing something it appears. The suggestion was:

Extract from HP Email . . . .
By reading through the case, it looks like to a similar issue which we faced with ML150 G2. Have a look at the following steps and action accordingly and let me know whether it helps or not.

1] press F10 (setup) on POST.
2] on the Main (tab) -> Memory Cache
3] Cache Extended Memory Area: Change to Write Through or uncached.

Having checked my BIOS, I have no Memory Cache entry on the MAIN tab. Does anyone else? Is there a BIOS version issue. My BIOS is O07 06/23/07.

[Alain Grenier]

Hi,

I just got a new ML150 G3 and I was having the same problem. But I was able to verify my array for more then 25 minutes with the following Bios settings:
F10 -> PhoenixBios Setup -> Advanced -> IPMI ->:
BIOS POST Watchdog: Disabled
OS boot Watchdog: Disabled

Have a nice day!

[Datanet]

Yep same issues witrh ML150-G3 4 x 160gb sata in raid 1 config that I was configuring on the 9th Sept.

Changed to the disabled setting and all worked OK.

F10 -> PhoenixBios Setup -> Advanced -> IPMI ->:
BIOS POST Watchdog: Disabled
OS boot Watchdog: Disabled

Thanks Alain.