Proliant 1600 and old array controller.

[Adrian Hall_2]

I have an acquired 1600, with 3 9GB ultra scsi drives in the array.
However the original SA 3200 controller has gone belly up (tried all the reseating options - just fails to initialise with error 1783 [command failure(cmd=11h, er=020h)]

Anyway, i've given up hope for this card, but I have managed to acquire from our nice server people where I work, an old ISA controller ( 003596-002) - however, I am not sure that this will do the job. For a start, the cable connectors are different - Ultra vs fast maybe?

Anyway, can anyone advise whether I'll be able to use this to control the array, and be able to configure the card using SmartStart4.23


TIA.

[Doug Eaton_1 · Accepted solution]

Adrian,

I beleive that card is the original EISA card (to my knowledge there was never a ISA card produced) and the 3200 should have been available with a PCI bus only.

The original Smart Array Controller has a 50 pin internal connector and a 100 pin (or about) external connector, which attatches to a Y cable for port 1 and port 2, if you use the internal connector, you can not use port 1 on the external connector.

An adapter is available (p/n 199618-001) that will allow your existing 68 conductor cabling to interface with this card.

If the card you had was a 3200 it would have had the internal connector(s) on a daughter card, the controller shipped with both a single port and dual port daughter card and they would have the HD 68 Pin connector(s), as well as 2 VHD external connectors.

You may have actuall had a Smart-2/E Array Controller, which is an EISA card (or the 2/P was a PCI card), these cards would have had a single HD 68 Pin connector for "BUS1" directly on the controller itself, as well as an external HD 68 Pin connector for "BUS2".

The older 1600's had a PCI/EISA configuration, and the newer ones had a PCI/ISA configuration, there maybe some with just an EISA bus, but I've not seen one.

As far as configuring the Original Smart Array Controller goes, you will not run ACU (Array Configuration Utility) from the system partition or the SmartStart CD, instead, when the system configuration is run, you can view/edit the details and scroll down to the array controller and modify as needed, note: you cannot create logical drives, you will need to create the install partition from the windows setup program, IMPORTANT, your OS will not install if your boot partition is too large, I'm not sure what the actual limit is, but 4000 MB (4GB) works for Windows 2000 (you didn't say what OS you were using), this is a limitation of the Original Smart Array Controller...

doug...

[Adrian Hall_2]

Well, a few months down the line. Just acquired a 'new' SA 3200 controller.

Great, I thinks - this one's been tested OK.

So I pops it in. Guess what. Same error.
The chances of both cards failing is minimal, so what else might the problem be?

Could the problem be on the Drive array end?
I've tried reseating all connections, but no joy.

What is the controller trying to do when it is doing the initialising? What are the points of failure?


TIA.
Adrian

[David Lochhead]

Check your firmware date , shown after the intializing line , to make sure it is upto date .

Clear your NVRAM with the SW2 switch 6 then run your SCU 2.48A or higher . Hope this helps .

[Adrian Hall_2]

Cheers,
um...

I have aquired this server (legally, mind!) without all it's docs, so if you could expand a little on the second action you suggested, that'd be great, thanks.

[David Lochhead]

Service and Maintenance guide for the PL1200-1600

http://h71025.www7.hp.com/support/reference_library/viewdocument.asp?countrycode=1000&prodid=50&source=149036-001.xml&dt=13&docid=15934


Chapter 4 for the maintenance switch , flip it on and then power up your server , you will get an error . Shut down flip it back then boot with the SCU (tap on F10 just before the OS loads , you will see the message) . Run the SCU to reset your NVRAM , make sure it says 2.48A or higher in the top right corner of the main screen . You could also find and boot from a Smart Start 5.5 CD and run the SCU from the main screen.

Cheers