Questions for LT 6000r Processors/NetRaid

[Tamouh]

Hi, I just got my hand on a beautiful HP LT 6000r U3.

1) It came with two 900MHz processors!! I thought max was 750MHz on these machines!

2) So I upgraded to 6 x 900MHz and worked fine

3) Installed 8GB sweet ram

4) Put 4 x 146GB Ultra320 drives

5) Flashed BIOS / NetRAID - OK

6) Installed Windows 2003.

I've two problems:

- In Windows under 'Deive Manager' -> Processors it only shows two processors there. However, when I check the task manager and msinfo32 it shows 6 processors.
The BIOS detects 6 processors.
I read somewhere that I need the HP Navigator CD to reconfigure the system that it is using 6 CPUs, could that be the problem ?

- I ran some benching on the drives, and the max I was able to get was 98MB/s burst speed using HDTach. Which is lower than an IDE speed! Checked the NetRAID and it has lots of configuration options, reset defaults, same thing.

Any opinion on what can possibly be lagging the hard drives like this ? I couldn't find detailed documentation about these NetRaids on the site.

Anyone has the Navigator CD for these machines please ?

Other than that, I think I'm in love and my wife is jealous !!

Cheers,

Tamouh

[Tamouh]

Anyone can give me at least the Navigator CD ?
Thx

[Sean T. Craig]

Hi Tamouh,

Okay, this is quite the case you have here.

1) This server was available in 550, 700 & 900MHz models so, you're okay there.

2)& 3) 6x900MHz with 8GB RAM is uber sweet.

4) Ultra-320 drives are not supported in this server but will work, they just won't operate at U320 speeds.

5) If you are running the drives off the embedded NetRAID, it won't matter that this server is a U3, that is just for the SCSI Controller. The Embedded NetRAID is only Ultra-2 and if you are bursting at 98MB/sec, you are getting better than U2 speeds.
Solution: Get an "M" class NetRAID Controller; 1M, 2M or 4M - They support Ultra-3.

6) Server 2003 is not supported for this server and there are no Navigator CD's that include this O/S so it won't help you there. Are all the VRM's installed? I think as long as the Task Manager shows 6 procs in use, and actually processing, you should be okay.

7) I'm with your wife, I'm jealous too. That's one sweet box you're running buddy.

Hope this helps,

Sean T. Craig Sr. C.E.T., M.C.P.

[Sean T. Craig]

Hey Tamouh,

Okay, I just had a chance to check for myself and not rely on memory. I was wrong about the embedded NetRAID controller being ultra-2 but you want to make sure that it is, in fact, set to Ultra-3. If you use the M utility (NetRAID Express Tools), go to Objects-->SCSI Channel--> Channel 0 and make sure the SCSI Transfer rate is set to Ultra-3.

Let us know what happens,

Sean T. Craig Sr. C.E.T., M.C.P.

[Tamouh]

Hi! Thanks for the reply.

- All VRMs installed and working properly. The reason why I asked for the NAV CD 'cuz I bought the machine with 2 CPUs originally, and I read somewhere that the in the Navigator CD you can specify how many CPUs are in the machine. So I was thinking this could be the reason why Windows sees only 2 CPUs under Processors.

However, in task managed it shows 6 CPUs working fine.

- The NETRAID yes I think it is U3. I was actually thinking to put a PCI U320 RAID Card, but I wasn't sure if the backplanes and the backplane card can support U320.

Thanks for the help :)