Raid Card Resets 25 times a day! 3

[RegisMencer]

I am running an LSI Raid Controller 9690SA in a system running W7 64 bit. One hard drive is set aside for the OS and the Raid Controller is (supposed to be) controlling two separate Seagate SAS drives - ST3500620SS. The controller is resetting about 25 times a day. When this happens, the whole computer locks up and becomes inoperable until the computer recovers from the reset. The resets are happening because the Raid Controller log shows that the controller keeps sending out the b7 SCSI command - Read Defect Data. I have no idea why this is happening or even which program is doing this - this is a squeaky clean install of W7. The latest firmware updates have been applied to both the Raid card and hard drives but this has made no difference. If anyone knows how to stop this happening, I would be most appreciative.

Thanks,

Regis

 

[BadBigBen]

when you say, the latest firmware updates have been applied, which version do you mean?

reason, the latest Beta Firmware has this in the read me:

Readme.txt for Beta firmware for LSI 3ware 9650SE and 9690SA RAID controllers v1.2
February 2011
Firmware version 4.10.00.021
Includes changes from previous beta version 4.10.00.016, 4.10.00.019, and 4.10.00.020.

prom0006.img is for the 9650SE
prom0008.img is for the 9690SA

See LSI 3ware KB article 10058 [URL unfurl="true"]http://kb.lsi.com/KnowledgebaseArticle10058.aspx[/URL] for instructions on how to flash upgrade the controller.

Summary of changes from 4.10.00.016 release (which are also included in this 4.10.00.021 release):

[b][u]SCR 2196:  Unexpected controller soft resets
Fixed an issue with regards to  deferral of write and read commands to help eliminate unexpected soft resets.[/u][/b]

Link to the above mentioned firmware:

http://www.lsi.com/DistributionSystem/User/AssetMgr.aspx?asset=56123

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

While I would always be careful of BETA firmware or firmware, this type of situation calls for immediate action and if the verbiage in the BETA driver fits your problem, I'd give it shot.

Do you have matching drivers and firmware. I know that IBM was always hyper about having the two match - update one/update the other.

 

[RegisMencer]

Ben, I updated the firmware to the version you suggested. The RAID card reset five more times after that and then it did not reset. I'm hoping that it reset 5 more times because the reset RAID card instructions were in the cache of the RAID card when the firmware was updated and the firmware update did not flush the instructions out of the cache.

Anyway the firmware update seems to have worked. Thanks for your help.

Regis

 

[BadBigBen]

Well, lets keep the fingers crossed and knock on wood, just in case...

;-)



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[RegisMencer]

It reset 5 more times yesterday. This is not as bad as 25 resets a day but it still means there is something wrong.

Regis Mencer
See my blog -

http://www.regismencer.com

 

[goombawaho]

I wouldn't have given out those stars with the results you got!! Ask for a refund.

Is it possible that something related to one of the hard drives is causing this issue?? Could you test each drive separately with the manufacturer's diagnostic tool connected to a different PC/controller if at all possible??

I know that's a pain and a lot of work, but it would give a different perspective on the problem (different computer and a hard drive test).

 

[BadBigBen]

sorry to hear that it did not alleviate the problem...

Gooms suggestion, on testing the drives separately, would be a good start...

if you have this option (if you have one on hand or if budget allows it), next in line would be to switch out controllers, e.g. to a 3ware 6750-4i (or another model that supports SAS)...

you could also try to turn off the write caching and test from there...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Yeah - I was including my comments in the "needing a refund category" as well. I would give my star back if I could.

In this type of scenario, it's almost better to try a new controller depending on what it will take to get the system running again.