I've had the exact same problems with 1600's. Look carefully at the
connectors and transistion card that connect the CPU board and expansion
slot board. Sometimes the stiffener bracket on the CPU board will press
on the SCSI connector cover (feeding to the drive cage) and give you an
intermittent operation. Sometimes you need to let the transition card
"float" by leaving the mounting screws slightly loose to allow the MB
and expansion connectors to seat well. In my case it wasn't the power
supply or the motherboard causing the problem - turned out to be
pressure on the SCSI connector.

Good Luck!

Adam Raff wrote:
Thanks Guys,



I knew I could get some answers here. Just to let you know



Yes I did load the support that was supported for 2003.



If the system is dead how to I look at the IML. If I need to boot from CD
don't think that is going to happen as I tried and same thing.



System starts up. CD light flashes, drive lights go on for a second then go
off. Power light stays on. All the Fans are spinning, but nobody is home.



My gut feeling it's the MB. Perhaps the Power Supply but as everybody says
it's an old system.



Lucky the data was not imported as it was an FTP server only, nothing else.
I am looking around for another server which was why I asked about the Dells
Raid Cards. I did a Google but did not find anything that sheds any light.
If somebody can give me a place to look that would be a great help. I am
also looking at the new HP systems something small with SATA or SAS.



Thanks

Adam Raff


"Phil" wrote in message
.. .
"NuT CrAcKeR" wrote in message
t...
the HP Array controllers generally dont cause problems (like you are
describing) with the servers. Dell, as you mentioned ...well, thats
another
discussion.

I wonder if you have/had the proliant support pack for 2003 installed on
your server. If there is a deeper hardware issue, you would want to look
at
the IML (integrated management log) viewer ... this is a log in the
hardware
that can tell you when nasty things are happening to the machine itself.

For now, i would try clearing the NVRAM (should be a position on the SW1
or
SW2 switches on the mainboard (check the case lid for more information)
and
try to boot again.

Also, check the status of your powersupply. that machine is getting
pretty
darn old right about now, and those powersupplies dont last forever.

- LC

--

"Adam Raff" wrote in message
...
Good Day,



We have an old 1600 that was working fine. It had a 3200 Raid
Controller
with a raid 1 and 5 setup. OS mirrored with data Raid5. The system was
running Windows 2003 SP1



A few days ago out of the blue we were not able to access the network
drives. I took a look at the system and found that I could not access
it.
Monitor was black and blinking with no video. I had to do a hard
reboot
and all came back up. We had some issues and I thought at the time
that
it was something that happened and did not pay any mind to it. It
happened again a few days later and this time I said Ok this may be a
problem. I checked the logs which showed no errors except that the
server
had to be rebooted. I went into the raid software and checked the
drives,
everything looked clean and green.



Today we had the same problem and this time there is nothing on the
screen
when I boot. I tried changing the controller with no luck (used
another
3200 card). That is when I realized that I was not even getting post
on
the server. The CD Rom drive would light up and then the drives and
that
is it. Everything is dark, no activity to the Raid. I am getting power
of
some kind.



So, what is the best way to figure this out as I believe that the
system
is done for?



On a side note, I read a post here about Dell systems having issues
with
their raid cards could you please give me a little bit more info on
this
as our company is looking at Dell now?



Thanks for your help

Adam Raff


At one time we had a bunch of 1600's. Two repetitive problems that we
found
were connections where the boards plugged together and the two mainboards
themselves.

You state you have changed controller so that is eliminated, and if the
drives run that means the 12 volt is on the power supply. You effectively
eliminated "half" the power supply by stating the drives are running and
usually when the supply goes, it's dead, this is assuming you have a
single
power supply. If your machine is a 3 power supply unit, at least 2 of the
3
power supplies have to be in working order for the server to function.

If cpu-1 should fail you would have a similar problem to what you
describe,
though doubtful. You can take CPU-2 and it's vrm and plug into the CPU-1
slot leaving CPU-2 slot empty and would have an excellent chance of
eliminating the CPU and vrm. CPU's don't give much trouble either.

The other pregnant possibility is the Ram. It is also possible a card
plugged into the main board other than the Raid controller is the problem.
If that is not the issue, the Mainboards or connections will be the
culprit.

If it is a hardware / mainboard issue, a dirt cheap way out is get a
ML370,
it accepts 6 drives like the 1600 and will also accept the 3200
controller.
The raid 5 data would be no problem, the OS on your first two drives could
be an issue with drivers and possibly get you a "blue screen" by directly
swapping drives from a 1600 to ML370. You could reload the os though and
still have the data on the raid 5 part of the array. The Dual 1 gig ML
370's
are running between 50 and 100 bucks depending on what's in it.

Another issue with the 800's and 1600's is the battery for the bios is on
it
's last leg if not already dead. As nutcracker said, it's an old unit and
not worth putting any money in it.

Phil