How to diagnose bad smart array 5i? 1

[johnzbesko]

I recently acquired a surplus Proliant DL380 G2. It has a Lights Out board and six hard drives. I installed Ubuntu. Then, I added a gigabit PCI ethernet card. Upon boot, the smart drive array did not seem to be recognized, ie. the smart drive did not initialize and the system would not boot.

I read manuals, searched online, tried the HP Diagnostic boot CD, etc. and tried different motherboard switch settings. At some point, the smart drive decided to work and I was able to boot. I installed Fedora 6 and the server worked fine.

Then, I tried to change the resolution of xwindows but the screen hung (the server was still working, eg. firewall, file server, web server, etc.) So, I did a cold boot- shut off the server using the power button.

Now the server will not boot again because it doesn't initialize the smart array. What is going on?!

Any suggestions for this frustrating problem are greatly appreciated.

 

[burtsbees]

That's exactly what I would have done...it is fortunate that you found them for so cheap.

Burt

 

[zeroKelvin]

It is interesting, of all the hundreds of servers I have worked with over the years, I have never had a SCSI controller failure until I started working with the DL380s using the 5i. Was this some sort of design flaw in that series? I have 12 other 380 servers here that are using the 5i and I am not feeling very comfortable at the moment. It would surely be a real PITA to have to swap out the controlles and reload everything. I am hoping this was just a fluke.

Phil

 

[burtsbees]

They have had a problem, as I have heard, but I have only had to replace 2 in the year I have been working on servers. Many people have reported problems with them, I'm afraid. I have had to replace a few 6I's as well, but they had cache batteries, and they could have been the problem.

Burt

 

[kgillett]

I have been at my current job for about 8 months. We have 8 gl380 g2 servers. I have had 4 of the 5i controllers fail. I can't wait to finish moving responsibilities from these servers.

 

[burtsbees]

WOW! There ya go!

Burt

 

[blister911]

kgillett,
Sorry, I feel for you. What's the saying? Initiation by fire.

 

[zeroKelvin]

I wonder what the actual failure is on these cards. They show up in the F9 screen when it comes to setting the interrupts, so they are still being seen somewhat by the BIOS. They do not however initiate their start up sequence and are not seen by the operating system or diagnostics. I wonder if something in the internal flash of the device is getting corrupted and there is some way to manually reset the device so that it can be reloaded. With a company of HP/Compaq's reputation I find it hard to beleive that they could have produced garbage hardware like this and in such volume.

Phil

 

[neebski]

Hey there, I recently bought a dl380 g2 from ebay but I am having a similar problem. I cant find the software to install the firmware for the smart array. Any idea where I could get it? I checked HP's site but nothing.

Thanks in advance!
- Kevin Neberman

 

[burtsbees]

Firmware, or HP Array Configuration Utility? The configuration utility is on Smart Start. I will post more info tomorrow, unless you want to search HP website for Smart Start. I can't remember, But I think 7.x will work for G2's.

Burt

 

[burtsbees]

Here are the links---the firmware cd is a bootable Linux kernal, and it will flash everything in the system, including the RAID controller. The Smart Start 7.91 is the latest, and it is 1/2 down the page, under Software---CD ROM. The firmware is Firmware---CD ROM (NOT just "Firmware"---you want 7.5, the latest available for G2's).

Here's the link...

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...=316587&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=1005#290

Burt

 

[neebski]

thanks so much!

 

[burtsbees]

Sure thing. Please let us know if this works for you.

Burt

 

[johnzbesko]

Arrgh, it happened again. A month or two ago, I purchased a 5i controller on eBay and my Proliant DL380 G2 was working fine again. I was even able to reboot a few weeks ago when I swapped in some larger drives.

Alas, Comcast changed my IP address- I could no longer access my webpage, nor connect with ssh, so I (warm) re-booted and the #$%^ controller is not working!

An earlier post in this thread suggested using a replacement controller called 5300. Searching eBay, I found these:

http://search.ebay.com/search/searc...&satitle=scsi+raid+controller+5300&category0=

The earlier post says the whole system had to be re-installed. Ugh, are there any other choices on controller that could be dropped in without major reconstruction?

 

[ntinlin]

Hmm.

532 or 641/642 perhaps.

Neill

 

[blister911]

I think we replaced ours with a 431, although a 5300 should work as well.

 

[burtsbees]

You just need to tell the new controller what RAID config the drives are in. No reconstruction.

Burt

 

[neebski]

Well I finally went ahead and burned the ISO and tried the install but when the smart start comes up it says that "The primary controller configured in your system is not supported by this version of SmartStart"

I believe that this is version 7.90 - Any recommendations?

 

[burtsbees]

Well, I am not sure Ubuntu is supported by Smart Start anyway, but if it is, then for the G2 servers, I believe 7.0 would work. If you can't find your OS supported, then go into the 5i BIOS during POST (F6?) and configure your RAID that way, and then during Ubuntu set up, it will see the drives as HP 5i Volume or something. Without Smart Start, you won't have the HP Management Homepage or the ACU (Array Config Utility).

Burt

 

[ElmerWFudd]

I have been installing Debian Linux on recycled DL360's and DL380's. I do not find the SmartStart disk useful. Rather I set up the drives & RAID through the ROM menus. Make sure the machine is set to boot from CD. Then put in the Debian Linux CD one and they (DL360 G1 and G2) do POST and boot into the installer. Once installed, they POST and load Linux. This DL360 G2 that I am typing this on thinks it is setup for Windows NT. Once your Linux boot installer starts, I think you can largely forget SmartStart and Compaq.

 

[burtsbees]

There is no SmartStart for Linux. Once you RAID the volumes, the Linux will see the volume as HP 5i volume or something like that.