Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 10:07:54 -0700 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Andrew Heyn" <aheyn@aheyn.com>, <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Compaq Proliant 8500 issue with Integrated SMART ArrayRAIDController (ida) Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNOEBMFBAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <200504110804.35453.aheyn@aheyn.com>
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owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org wrote: > On Saturday 09 April 2005 05:35, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: >> owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org wrote: >>> Hi, >>> >>> I have a Compaq Proliant 8500 with the integrated SMART Array RAID >>> controller. I recall seeing "Symbios" and "ARM" on a chip on the >>> center of the PCI module must be the >>> RAID controller. I >>> used to have extreme problems even getting the system to boot >>> up until I >>> used the SmartStart >>> CD and disabled the "Array Accelerator" for my one and only RAID1+0 >>> Container. (Before doing this) I would get numerous >>> ida0: soft write error and if the system did manage to boot >>> up, a process >>> might read the disk, and >>> forever be stuck in some kernel routine between userland and >>> the disk that >>> gets a block or whatever. >>> Now, I only get an occasional "ida0: soft read/write error" which >>> occasionally causes a 15 or so second delay. The "Array >>> Accelerator" for the Integrated SMART array controller is 8MB of >>> read-only cache. Other SMART Array models like the 4200 have >>> battery backed up cache that can be user-separated between write >>> and read cache. >>> >>> I'm wondering if anybody has ever seen the problem mentioned above. >>> >>> I would hate to have to replace the whole >>> PCI module because of some bad controller ram since that darn thing >>> is integrated, and would make useless the >>> internal bays if another raid card was added. As a note, the >>> contacts between the hard drive and the drive module >>> have been cleaned out multiple times for all the drives in the >>> array. The connection between the drive module and >>> the back of the computer is sturdy and clean. There are only >>> TWO cables in >>> this entire system that I know of, and one >>> is for the IDE CDROM, and one is for the floppy. So, cabling >>> cannot be a problem. I also have two working PSUs that >>> each have a 120V line going into it, so I doubt it's a lack of >>> power. Even though 220V is recommended for both of them, >>> it works fine with even just one 120V line. >>> >>> I asked the HP/Compaq forum and they weren't able to give me >>> much more of an >>> answer than "check the cabling" and "blow >>> off the dust" which I found extremely irritating because the >>> data is carried >>> on copper wires that resemble the pins found >>> on an IDE hard drive or floppy, not your standard "cabling." I >>> might ultimately be wrong...but I doubt it. >> >> You should ask Windows questions in a Windows forum. Oh, you aren't >> running Windows on this system? Must be FreeBSD 2.2 then, right? >> >> Ted >> > > > Right now, the machine runs FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE. I've also > tried a specially > modified 6.0-CURRENT kernel upon suggestion of Matthew N. > Dodd, and FreeBSD > 4.11, but the nature of the problem never changed and no more useful > information was able to be found. The same thing also > happened running linux > 2.4.27 and some version of Linux 2.6. I had given up hope > that it was a > software issue and was trying to see if any of the number of > people on this > list have ever had a machine that did this, or had details > about somebody > else's machine that did the same thing also. Also, the ROM on > the controller > and the primary system BIOS have been updated to the latest available > versions. I have also updated the firmwares on the disk drives. > > I can tell you right off the EISA versions of this controller don't work at all. Seems to me I recall some discussion a couple years back that there were problems with certain versions of this controller. Check in the mailing list archives, but more importantly check the google news archives, as I thought I saw the thread on Usenet. Ted
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