[Info-vax] rx2620 power supplies / VRM voltage low

[George Cornelius]

In article <0248e70f-1f3c-442a-aa30-0a2e430f5245 at googlegroups.com>, Steven Schweda <sms.antinode at gmail.com> writes:
> I still know nothing, but the "HP Integrity rx2600 Server
> and HP zx6000 Workstation Operations and Maintenance Guide"
> (Document Part Number: 5991-5988) says that there are
> distinctive patterns in the diagnostic LEDs for various
> faults, including power supply and VRM over- and
> under-voltage ("View the SEL for additional information.
> For further assistance, contact your HP Support Engineer.")

We have been through all that, and, yes, the codes are there
at the front panel - sometimes.   The manual states that
if you have an iLo MP the front panel status LEDs are
disabled (all the information is in the error logs
you can get to via the ILo) but if your system hits one
of these fatal errors you can eventually get it to show
up on the lights as well (pressing the halt button
or something).

I suppose there have been four failures since last
June, and if he had been sending back the old supply
each time he would have been getting the replacements
for free - until the vendor got tired of sending more
supplies.  But it's time to swap in the spare motherboard,
or to do what Hoff (and I) suggested and buy a 2nd
system to swap the parts into.

The manual is somewhat ambiguous but the error does
show up under motherboard failures, so we suggested
either a power supply or a motherboard, and he bought
both.  We thought of a motherboard replacement as
being a more invasive fix, so have resisted putting
it in, but now may be the time.

Regarding the online forums, we found some tantalizing
but in the end ambiguous items:

 o A thread in the HP forums with the same error
   codes, which someone decoded with an, apparently,
   HP internal tool called IPF2.  This second person
   was corrected and told the system in question was
   not IPF2 so the decoding would not apply.  Thread
   was resurrected maybe a year later - maybe 2008 -
   with someone claiming to have an _rp_ 2620, and
   that is when the same responder was asked to _not_
   supply information using the IPF2 tool and the
   poster told to call field service.

   What we would have been able to obtain if the
   thread continued was the decoding of the field
   that specified _which_ voltage sensor was
   returned the bad reading.

   One remark, maybe in response to the first
   problem, was that the message indicated the
   sensor itself was bad, thus muddyng the
   waters even further.

 o MG, on another forum, as eMGee I think,
   responded to someone's question having to do
   with a problem which might be solved by a
   motherboard replacement and pointed out that
   there are UUID's involved somehow, and the
   new motherboard's UUID would not match what
   was expected, in which case everything would
   work except it would not go naturally into EFI
   mode and you would have to do that by playing
   games with the iLo MP.  But it might have had
   to do with swapping, say a ??6200 motherboard
   into an rx2600, and might not have applied
   to my case.  Still, it's confirmation that a
   motherboard swap might not be as simple as
   it might appear on the surface.

>    If the rx2620 and its corresponding manual are similar,

What you are saying sounds exactly like what's in
the rx2620 manual.

>                                       [...] I bought two
> rx2600 systems at the same time, so I have a spare one in
> storage, just in case.

Spares are easy to come by.  My experience is, however, that
bureaucracies and eBay just don't play well together, and
that makes it all more difficult and expensive.

George