Proliant 800 with Radeon 7000 boot problem

[Jelle_1]

Hi everybody,

I'm trying to install a Radeon 7000 32 MB DDR PCI-card into a Proliant 800 server (Pentium II-400MHz). The problem is, that when I put the card in the PCI-slot and boot the PC, the Smart Array 221 controller isn't mentioned in the POST screen anymore, and thus my harddrive isn't found and the OS won't boot (I get a 'No system disk or disk error' warning). When I remove the Radeon card, the system works fine.

It seems that the graphics card somehow 'blocks' access to the Smart controller on boot up.

Anybody have any tips on how to install this PCI video card? Thanx in advance!

[Sunil Jerath · Accepted solution]

Hello Jelle,
Do you have Smart Start CD?? If you do then you can boot your server with it and set your boot controller order properly to SA221 and you should have no problems. If not then download the System configuration utility from the following link and create four floppies. COLD boot the system with the first diskette and you will be asked Upgrade System partition or Do not upgrade system partition. You will select do not upgrade system partition. This will run system configuration instead and then it will show that all boards and controllers have been installed/set. Your boot controller order has been set to SA221. If not then you can do this manually by running system configuration and change the boot controller order to SA221. Please let me know how you make out.
Here is the link for SCU:

http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/13227.html

Regards,

[Jelle_1]

Hello Sunil,

I do have a Smart Start CD and have tried your suggestion. It seems to work fine: video-card in the PCI slot, boot the CD, run the System conf. utility. The utility mentions a configuration change (new card in slot, which is ok because that's my VGA-card) and says it has configured the SA221 to be the boot controller. No problems so far. I pick 'Save configuration' and the config is saved.

But when I reboot, I get the same problem as mentioned in my first post. The POST screen doesn't mention the SA221 anymore, and I get the same 'Non-system disk or disk error' message (because the system tries to boot from floppy or CD).

I inserted the Smart Start CD again and ran the System configuration Utility another time. It mentions no configuration change (so it looks as if the new VGA-card has been added to the configuration). When I review the system details, I see the new card listed indeed. I tried to change some settings (the use of standard VGA-resources enabled/disabled on the onboard VGA-controller and on my new card), but still not the desired effect. I also removed a PCI-ethernet card from the system to clear all PCI-slots except the SA221 and the VGA-card. Each change is recognized by Smart Start, but after the reboot the SA221 has disappeared again. When I remove the PCI VGA-card, all is back to normal, the SA221 is on my POST screen and the systeem boots from harddisk again.

Anyone have another suggestion?

[Sunil Jerath]

Hello Jelle,
Please make sure that the system bios as well as the firmware of SA221 is uptodate. I had a similar problem with Sound Blaster card but after updating the bios as well as the firmware of the controller I did run the latest the system configuration utility. I am not sure which version of Smart Start do you have. The other thing you can do is move the Video to a different slot. Actually I am going to install a PCI video in a client's PL1600 today and shall let you know the results.

Regards,

[Jelle_1]

Hello Sunil,

I upgraded the firmware (rather stupid I hadn't tried that yet...) and everything works fine! Thanks a lot!!

Regards, Jelle