nsiwireless
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Dell PowerEdge 2450 PERC 3/Si SCSI Card Not Found
We've got a Dell PowerEdge 2450 2u box with a PERC 3/Si SCSI card installed in the default, bottom PCI slot of the riser card. Simply put, the SCSI card is no longer being detected. After a POST, a message is being displayed that there is something alive in the system, but, immediately, a 'No Adapter' message comes up. Going through Dell's wizard on reseating the card, flashing with a new BIOS, resetting the BIOS/CMOS, resetting the SCSI card, went without any results. Even with drives plugged into the chain, or without drives, the card is still undetected. We've tried moving the PCI card into different slots, still the same.
This happened after a few new PCI NICs were placed into the system to attempt to find a compatible NIC that would work with VMWare ESX server; the BIOS has been reflashed, the BIOS was reset, as well as the card itself, drives plugged in and also unplugged. No results, still, 'No Adapter' is shown.
Clues would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
This happened after a few new PCI NICs were placed into the system to attempt to find a compatible NIC that would work with VMWare ESX server; the BIOS has been reflashed, the BIOS was reset, as well as the card itself, drives plugged in and also unplugged. No results, still, 'No Adapter' is shown.
Clues would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you in advance.
I forgot to suggest, also to verify MEMORY !!
Best Regards !
Best Regards !
ASKER
Thanks for the replies. I've replaced the onboard 128MB ECC stick with a 32MB ECC stick of PC100, with no results.
The Memory, I meant RAM of the system, just in case one chip is faulty !
When you enter the BIOS, can you see the Controller ? ( under IRQ, I think )
If so, what's the IRQ, shared or not, PCI Resources !
Best Regards !
When you enter the BIOS, can you see the Controller ? ( under IRQ, I think )
If so, what's the IRQ, shared or not, PCI Resources !
Best Regards !
ASKER
RAM is fine; I forgot to mention, after the 'No Device' is diplayed, and even though a key-combination is displayed as well '<CTRL><M>', I am unable to get into this utility to see or change any IRQ configurations. RAM was swapped, and that portion is good to go.
The BIOS I was refering to is the Main System BIOS, F2 key !
Best Regards !
Best Regards !
ASKER
The main BIOS is extremely limited. No IRQ/DMA information at all. Just boot device order, whether onboard SCSI is on/off, and that's about it.
I'm out of thoughts !
Try to ask "Rindi" or "Garycase", or wait till they see your post !
Sorry not being able to help out !
Best Regards !
Try to ask "Rindi" or "Garycase", or wait till they see your post !
Sorry not being able to help out !
Best Regards !
ASKER
Thank you for trying, mcp_jon
Have you tried putting the card in another PC to see if it is any good?
> the SCSI card is no longer being detected
Sounds like its kaput, I'm afraid. If you aren't getting the CTRL-M BIOS message, then it is most probably dead. You've tried all the troubleshooting steps that I'd suggest - the only other thing that might be worth a try is to unplug the system from power, then pull the CMOS battery out and leave it out for an hour. But I think that it is most likely delaying the inevitable. As pgm554 suggests, try the card in a PC and see what it does. If you get the same results, then it's time to buy a new card. The good news is that any of the AMI ange of LSI cards will happily read your existing array.
Sounds like its kaput, I'm afraid. If you aren't getting the CTRL-M BIOS message, then it is most probably dead. You've tried all the troubleshooting steps that I'd suggest - the only other thing that might be worth a try is to unplug the system from power, then pull the CMOS battery out and leave it out for an hour. But I think that it is most likely delaying the inevitable. As pgm554 suggests, try the card in a PC and see what it does. If you get the same results, then it's time to buy a new card. The good news is that any of the AMI ange of LSI cards will happily read your existing array.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Adaptec AIC-7899 - Dual channel controller - The Ultra160 interface is fully backward-compatible with Ultra/Wide and Ultra2 peripherals. The Ultra160 channels are based on the Adaptec 7899 chip and interface with the internal hard drives by means of a SCSI backplane. Max sync transfer rate now tops out at 160. The driver is listed as "Adaptec AIC-7892, AIC-7899, AHA-3960D Ultra160/m PCI SCSI Controller" and is found on DOSA 5.3.
Tech Note: There is a Verbose/Silent mode on the 7899 controller. If Silent mode is enabled you will not see the controller AT ALL during POST. The system will boot normally, but it will take the same amount of time to boot, therefore the system appears to hang during POST. There is no Ctrl-A prompt shown, just hit the Ctrl-A as normal after the processor detection.
Tech Note: There is a Verbose/Silent mode on the 7899 controller. If Silent mode is enabled you will not see the controller AT ALL during POST. The system will boot normally, but it will take the same amount of time to boot, therefore the system appears to hang during POST. There is no Ctrl-A prompt shown, just hit the Ctrl-A as normal after the processor detection.
ASKER
Folks, thank you for your wonderful input. I'll test this card in a different machine one last time then I'll move on. Thank you all.
Hi nsiwireless,
Can I ask why you accepted cooledit's answer over mine?
I hate to seem finickity... :-)
Can I ask why you accepted cooledit's answer over mine?
I hate to seem finickity... :-)
Check that !
Also, try to Reseat the RISER CARD !
Best Regards !