A500 lan2 / btlan3 problem ..

[someone_4]

Hey everyone,

I have a rack of 10 A500-5X servers running 11.0. Last week I rebooted 1 of the A-class servers for regular maintance. But I had problems with lan2. It didnt want to come back up for anything. I did everything changed cables 4 times. Ports in the switch. So I ended up reconfiguring another A-class to do the job of the other one. And once again the problem followed that server on lan2.

I called in to HP and we did all sorts linkloop test with loopbacks and cross over cables. We did one lookback with a cross over cable to another server and its lan2. And from the test HP said that lan2 on that server was bad. So the final deal was that I have 3 servers with bad lan2 nic cards. I just find that very hard to digest. Has anyone had or heard of any such issue with A-class servers? Any ideas on what I can do or try before replacing 3 nic cards?

Richard

[Jim Turner]

Hi Richard,

Link light? Layer 1 okay.
linkloop? Layer 2 okay.
ping? Layer 3 okay.

Short of you having some bizarre "NIC-eating virus" runnning amok, I'd say you just had the misfortune to hit a bad spot in the production run of those NICs.

Of course, it's always a good idea to clear client ARP caches and switch ARP cache (and CAM) when playing musical ports and adapters.

Good luck!
Jim

[Duncan Edmonstone]

Look at the port speed settings on your hub/switch.

On many occasions the auto-negotiation between the NIC and the switch fail, making it look like a failed LAN card.

The best thing to do is to agree with your network guys what speed to operate at, and then set that value on the switch and on the NIC (i.e. disable auto-neg). You can determine what you are currently set to by issuing:

lanadmin -x 2

You can chnage this using (e.g.)

lanadmin -X 2 100FD

to set to 100Mb/s full duplex

And you can make the change permanent by editing /etc/rc.config/hpbtlanconf (on 11i at least)

Make sure the network guys tie down the port to the same speed, and disable auto-neg at their end too.

HTH

Duncan

[John Payne_2]

Richard,

Let me tell you what I accidentally did once. I accidentally got the MAC address of the 2nd lan card in my A500 Ignite image. Then I got 4 new A500's in, and blasted the image out. The MAC addresses were all the same on 5 boxes, and it did not take long for the NIC cards to stop working...

We use the 2nd NIC for our data network, and when the backups stopped working on the 5 boxes, I got a call. Luckily I noticed that the MAC addresses were all the same. (From running lanscan on 2 different machines and the output being on the screen at the same time.)

Could this be what has happened to you? In /etc/rc.config.d/hppci100conf was where the MAC address was listed and was populating. (The STATION_ADDRESS) I think the MAC address got there because I was playing with one of the cards in SAM one day, and SAM stuck it there.

Hope it helps.

John

[someone_4]

everthing is ok .. port settings are fine and everything else. If I hook up a console to it I see this message scroll.

(6016) HPCORE 10/100 base-t driver detected a transmit command that timed out in slow (crd In#) 2

has anyone ever seen that?


Richard

[someone_4]

Here is the only thing I have found about that error.

6016 * Ecxpert Failed to create an internal data packet
object.



http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=755726ab0c2b311a71/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000046464956

richard

[someone_4]

The error is

(6016) HPCORE 10/100 base-t driver detected a transmit command that timed out in slot (crd In#) 2

not

(6016) HPCORE 10/100 base-t driver detected a transmit command that timed out in slow (crd In#) 2


Richard

[Brian Hackley]

Hi,
I've got two things for you to try. First is to disable identd. ITRC document N100BKBRC00007520 discusses that issue.
Second, is to:
ioscan -kfClan, see what kind of card in use. Note this restriction:
Dual Port with Ultra Scsi 2 (A5838A) :

On A500 for A5838A only :

2 cards max: 1 guaranteed card in the Dedicated Full-Length slot supported.

Another A5838A is supported in a Shared Slot if there are no cards in the two Shared slots

Hope this rambling response helps,
-> Brian Hackley