DL380 G3 "memory parity error"

[CA1320897]

My company has a good amount of the DL380 G3 servers deployed throughout the world in support of our work. There is an increaed trend starting to show with a particular error. In the last 60 days, I have had 12 cases opened for an error that cause a blue screen of death stating "Hardware Malfunction error NMI Parity Check Memory. Please contact hardware vendor."

I can reset the server and have it come up and without warning within one hour to a couple days, it will happen again. Each time I call HP for support, they will never tell me whats wrong and their fix is to just send a new motherboard out.

Could someone tell me if they are experiencing the same problems or know what might me causing this. Thank you.

[Oleg Koroz]

Do you have any additional Cards in it? Externally, what connected ?
Do you have second Server?
Swap around all Components: Memory, riser cage, Cache for Array Controller, Pull out any additional Cards Temporarily

[CA1320897]

Yes, I have many of these servers. Right now I don't have any experience these problems, but when I get one in I will try. They are dual processors, 3GB RAM, and the only card installed is a 64-bit PCI-X Dual Channel SCSI card that a Quantum SDLT tape drive connects to. Please let me know if anymore information is needed. Thank you.

[Edwin Gnanasekar]

Hey I Have also Experienced same Kind of Problem in DL 580 Server.The cause of error was malfunctioning of addidtional PCI Card. I Have replaced RILO Card then the Problem get resolved.

Regards
Edwin

[Judy Tillman]

I am in the same boat as you are. We have several DL360 G3 servers. I have a two web servers that are experiencing this exact problem: Blue screen, NMI: Parity check/Memory. Parity error. System halted.
So far we are having this problem everyday approximately one hour to 8 hours apart. Fortuneately we have a redundant set up.
So far technical support has ask me to update the firmeware of everything. I did that. Then I found that the cpus weren't matched. they were 3.2 GHZ/533 FSB one with 1 mb L3 cache and the other with 2mb Cache. I normalized it out to match. Then 3 hours later the server went down again.
I don't have any PCI cards installed.
I would like to get to the bottom of this problem. I am comeing to a stumped problem. When ever I swap it out and test in the shop I can't produce the same symptoms. The server passes all the HP smartstart tests. Even if I put it through 400 passes or more.
Let me know if there is a fix.

[Chris Hatcher]

Having the same problem but only on startup, intermittently. I get the Server 2003 splash screen and then the NMI parity error blue screen. Tech support had me replace RAM chips and battery backed write cache. No change in symptom. Ever get a fix other than the M/board?

[Sandeep H Raman]

Hello Chris,

Entries in Windows System log?
System Rom Rev?
Insight agent version?

SRH

[Judy Tillman]

Ok. I think I found the problem a while ago. The processors have a different size of cache. Also one processor was being overused while the one processor was not getting used that much. Causing it to heat up. So we contacted HP and they gave us a front end controller card replacement. I believe this card controls how the fans cool the CPUâ s. This card comes out as the face plate that presses forward. It took me a minute to figure that one out. Then we balanced out the CPU completely. Hp states that the CPU different caches shouldn't cause any problems but to be on the safe side we made sure that everything with the CPUâ s matched completely. I hope this was helpful to someone.

[Derek Biddle]

I had the same problem. After dealing with the memory as the problem, I removed an adaptec 29160 and external tape drive and the system booted fine. I reinstalled the adaptec and tested...ok. I plugged back in the HP Ultrium tape drive and tested...ok.