Gen9 blades have a removable NAND flash - what's the part number?

[PDP-Fan]

Gen 8 and Gen9 servers (Proliants and Blades) can develop a irreparable problem with the ILO flash chip. On the Gen8 servers, the flash chip is soldered to the mainboard, so the whole board must be replaced.

I have seen now that the BL460 Gen9 has a pluggable module with that flash chip on it. This could be changed easily.... but there is no prt number on it. It also does not appear in the spare parts list.

Does someone know how to get this NAND flash/SD-Card module??
Everyone talks about protecting the environment.... replacing a whole mainboard while a pluggable spare part is available seems wrong to me.

[Jimmy Vance]

If you are refereng to the highligted area in this image, this is a µSD slot, not the iLO NAND

[PDP-Fan]

Hi Jimmy

Yes and No. This is the Micro-SD module..... and on the backside of that module is the iLO flash chip.

At least this was the case on the Gen8 blades. Unfortunately on Gen8 it was soldered to the mainboard and very difficult to change. I fixed one board with the infamous iLO flash error by replacing that module.

Now on the Gen9 blades it has a socket, makes it easy to fix.... but only if the module is available somehow.

Chris

[Kashyap02]

Hi

ILO Chip / NAND Flash is not a repalcable part. If you are mentioning about any other part you have replaced, please specify with part number.

[PDP-Fan]

Well... on the Gen9 boards it is replacable because it has a connector and can be plugget out. The problem is that there is no spare part number on it.

This probably means that it is not available as a spare part  but that's quite a bit silly. To make a frequently failing part pluggable but not providing it as a spare part.... Why do I have to replace the whole board when only that chip has failed?

[Kashyap02]

We still do not have a spare part number for this and We do not ship this part separately. This is as per the design.

[PDP-Fan]

Too bad....

At the end that means if this iLO flash chip is broken (and that happens quite often) we have to replace the whole board, even if it is on a pluggable module that could be replaced easily...

Sometimes I do not understand company politics. Especially in times when environment protection is a top issue.

[Torsten. · Accepted solution]

see

https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-a00060052en_us&docLocale=en_US

MicroSD card reader, spare part number  P08035-001

[PDP-Fan]

Torsten to the rescue...! As always a brilliant answer. That was more than I expected.

I knew that HP must be aware of the problem. It only takes a while before these information gets to the end customer.
I found another solution for this problem. A company here can replace the flash chip for $60.... I already ordered 25 chips and the next board that fails will be repaired.
For Gen8 this is not a solution because the whole BL460 board can be bought for $50. Although an used board can have a bad chip too...

[PDP-Fan]

In a nutshell:

- HPE does supply this module since November 2018
- The spare part number is P08035-001 for BL460/WS460/XL230/XL250 servers
- For XL450 servers it is  P09242-001

- More information is in the document link by Torsten (see above)

[RootCause]

At the time (Nov 2019) Kashyap02 wrote this, the technical paper

https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/docDisplay?docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-a00060052en_us

had been out since at least November 2018 (in an earlier revision). The Nov 2018 revision did detail the separate part number P08035-001 for BL460c Gen9 iLO flash.

PartSurfer was even updated for many of the units I serviced in AU to show that this part was a valid replacement spare.

But L1 never gave any sign (up to March 2020, at least) that they had read this white paper.  They kept ordering system boards to handle what should have been a trivial, 15-minute swap.