PCI conflict with HP-supplied LSI U320 SCSI controller

[Chuck Davidson]

I have two DL140 G2 systems, one came with a HP-branded LSI U320 SCSI controller and the other without. I've added a QFE network card to both machines. The one without the SCSI card works fine while the one with the SCSI card no longer sees it and, of course, won't boot. Removing the QFE card allows the SCSI controller to be recognized. I've tried disabling bus-mastering in the BIOS, but that didn't help. Both cards are PCI-X and have no jumpers.

Does anybody have any ideas??

[Brian_Murdoch]

Chuck,

Would disabling the COM ports (if not required) in the Advanced setup of the BIOS help? Freeing up unused comm ports or USB devices might enable more resources for these cards.

I hope this helps.

Brian

[Chuck Davidson]

I disabled the SATA controller, the USB controller and even the second built-in NIC. You don't have options to disable the COM ports. Doesn't help.

[RGP]

Hi,
Please upgrade the system firmware.
http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/24573.html

Older firmware has some issues with the LSI..
Ref: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c00691105&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Rgds,
Roy

[Marco_Guillen]

RGP gave you a correct answer, another thing you should try is to check the IRQs and be sure that the SCSI controller is not sharing any IRQ with another hardware. Leave the controller alone in an IRQ.

[Chuck Davidson]

I'll pursue the BIOS upgrade, but I saw that article and disregared it because this is not a RAID controller - just a dumb SCSI controller.

Of course these systems don't have floppy drives nor connectors on the motherboard for them, so the upgrade isn't as simple as in the old days.

[sandeep_raman]

Hello Chuck,

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00218060/c00218060.pdf

Hope it helps.

SRH

[Chuck Davidson]

OK, so this would seem simple enough, but hasn't worked for me yet. I downloaded the flash drive boot utility, ran it on a flash drive and copied the files from the floppy into the "components" directory. When I try to boot the DL140, it starts loading and then says it can't find VMLINUZ. Well, it doesn't exist on the USB drive, so I'm stumped.

[Chuck Davidson]

This is getting silly. Format the USB fob as a floppy, getting it's source from the diskette produced by SP32670.exe and you get "Cannot load DOS!". Format the USB fob as a hard drive adn it can't find the VMLINUZ kernel to boot.

What am I missing here? The instructions point you to "www.hp.com", which is about as useless as you can get.

[Chuck Davidson]

I feel like I'm writing a journal :0

I swapped USB fobs and now it writes the missing Linux files! No errors came out of the drive key boot utility before, but it obviously wasn't writing everything. Darn generic fob...

Now when it finishes booting it says there is nothing to upgrade. I don't know what it's looking for in the components folder, but its ignoring what I put there.

The list of servers with software available for off-line ROM flash does NOT include the DL140.

[Chuck Davidson]

Next journal entry...

I finally upgraded by attaching a CD-ROM, booting Win98 and running the ROMpaq from a newly burned CD-ROM. Nothing else would work.

However, all that work was for naught. I'm running BIOS 1.7 and there is NO difference - and still no SCSI controller seen with the QFE card in place.

In regards to the various suggestions, note that there is no way to control individual IRQ's assigned to slots or boards and nothing else left to disable on this box.

Of course, HP's response was that I should purchase an HP-branded QFE card ;-)