RAID Controller failures on DL380 G2's

[Anthony Hill_2]

I have a number of DL380 G2's and in the last month, three of them suffered from integrated 5i RAID failures, the problem occurs on a re-boot when an error depicting the lockup state error is recieved, the power was cycled to try and clear this but then the 5i controler fails to even initialise. I have tried clearing the CMOS, Updating the system BIOS and unplugging the daughter board for 60 hours but the only way to restore the server is to replace the daugter board. We just lost our 3rd controller in 3 weeks on the 3rd seperate DL380 G2, I am quite concered at this faulire as all the D2's make up our ADS Forest and the last box to fail was the Root PDC. I want to know why this is happening and if there is anything I can do to fix it without having to replcace the RAID controller again.

Thanks for any help and advice.

[Tarek Kawach]

Hi Anthony:

this is an issue with this server; possible because of a bad scsi cable and or scsi backplane or both.


the scsi cable could be damaged and cause a short on the scsi controller. on these servers there was issues with scsi backplane being bad.


Replace:

Miscellaneous SCSI Cable Kit (Spare part number 228517-001).

and

SCSI backplane board with Spare part number 228502-001

Tarek.

[Anthony Hill_2]

Thanks for the reply, I don't believe the problem is related to the backplane or cable as once the RAID card is replaced, the server resumes operation. Unless it's an intermitent problem I guess.

But once the card has entered the lockup state, it's all but dead! is there any way I can get the card out of the lockup state?

[Tarek Kawach]

cannot get card out of lock up state; it has failed

I guess what i am trying to say was that the 5i controller issue is related to the scsi backplane and bad cabling ; making the cards fail.

sure replacing the card fixes the issue; but if it happens again on the same server; then we need to look at the scsi backplane and the cables.

check for any damaged cables or bent pins.

regards,

Tarek.

[Anthony Hill_2]

It seams this problem is known to HP and is down to a miss match of system board BIOS version and 5i Firmware version, I was advised to upgrade the BIOS and was told this should re-detect the 5i, I tested this and it worked. Once the 5i wa re-detectable, I loaded the latest rompack firmware for the 5i. Strange how it ran for 3 years with no problem then one day decided it no longer wanted to play ball. However, it's working and I am happy.

[pAnoNymous]

we've suffered the same fate as the OP - everything working fine - needed a restart for a software update and now the RAID controller is missing - system is not reporting any errors - BIOS still assigns IRQ/etc but it just doesn't load - had a look at the HP site but we already seem to have the latest BIOS for a DL380 G2 : P24-05/01/2004. could someone please advise if I'm missing something?

someone at work mentioned we had the same problem with another server/switched it off a while (weeks?) and then one day tried it again and it worked....?