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Hi all,

I'm having a devil of a time installing Solaris (Nevada builds 28
and 30) on my X4200. This machine has a pair of 36GB disks in slots
0 and 1, and a pair of 72GB disks in slots 2 and 3.

All the disks are seen by the BIOS, and I've managed to perform a
surface check of all disks using the LSI MPT SAS BIOS software thing
(the software that runs when you type Control-C on bootup). No
errors occurred.

Booting from the internal DVD drive seems to take ages, but that's
just the begining of the problems. Numerous messages from the SCSI
subsystem appear on the console, like this:

WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci1022,7450@2/pci1000,3060@3/sd@0,0 (sd3):
SCSI transport failed: reason 'reset': giving up

(This is after selecting a Solaris Interactive installation.)

Is this a known issue with builds 28 and 30 (I plan to burn Solaris 10
1/06 onto a DVD later tonight to try THAT), or--as I suspect--am I
seeing a hardware problem? I've tried various combinations of disks,
including booting with only one 36GB disk installed, all to no avail.
The thing is: if this IS a HW issue, why does the LSI MPT SAS BIOS
software work without errors?

Any clues greatfully received!

TIA,

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

In article <Pine.SOL.4.64.0601241550510.1053@marrakesh>, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
>
> I'm having a devil of a time installing Solaris (Nevada builds 28
> and 30) on my X4200. This machine has a pair of 36GB disks in slots
> 0 and 1, and a pair of 72GB disks in slots 2 and 3.
>
> Booting from the internal DVD drive seems to take ages, but that's
> just the begining of the problems. Numerous messages from the SCSI
> subsystem appear on the console, like this:
>
> WARNING: /pci@0,0/pci1022,7450@2/pci1000,3060@3/sd@0,0 (sd3):
> SCSI transport failed: reason 'reset': giving up

1. Is the machine fully up to date on its firmware? (I'd guess so since
it's newish, but doesn't hurt to check.)

2. Is the message only for sd0,0?

If it's only for sd0,0, you may have a cabling or drive problems leading
to noise and related sympathetic SCSI bus resets. If so, physically
remove the drive from the system and see if things quiets down.

If it persists, even for only one hard drive installed -- and then
persists even if a different hard drive is put in its place, then you
probably have some sort of non-physical issue. (e.g. firmware, driver)

-Dan

....and for giggles, does it work any better with Solaris 10 Update 1?

-Dan

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Dan Foster wrote:

> 1. Is the machine fully up to date on its firmware? (I'd guess so since
> it's newish, but doesn't hurt to check.)

It is AFAIK. It's BIOS rev is 8.0.10, dated 08/10/05; a quick look around
the X4200 download site doesn't reveal a newer one.

> 2. Is the message only for sd0,0?

Nope.

> If it's only for sd0,0, you may have a cabling or drive problems leading
> to noise and related sympathetic SCSI bus resets. If so, physically
> remove the drive from the system and see if things quiets down.

Tried that.

> If it persists, even for only one hard drive installed -- and then
> persists even if a different hard drive is put in its place, then you
> probably have some sort of non-physical issue. (e.g. firmware, driver)

Hopefully; although I can't think of what to do next.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Dan Foster wrote:

> ...and for giggles, does it work any better with Solaris 10 Update 1?

I'll try that later (I need to buy some more recordable DVDs). If it
works, great, although I want to play with ZFS on this beast, so Nevada
build 28+ is preferable.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

In article <Pine.SOL.4.64.0601241640110.1053@marrakesh>, Rich Teer <rich.teer@rite-group.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Dan Foster wrote:
>
>> ...and for giggles, does it work any better with Solaris 10 Update 1?
>
> I'll try that later (I need to buy some more recordable DVDs). If it
> works, great, although I want to play with ZFS on this beast, so Nevada
> build 28+ is preferable.

Well, it's just a troubleshooting step to see if it's some kind of
subtle or weird driver issue introduced in Nevada, but one that doesn't
exist in S10 itself.

If it's problematic even with S10U1 (considering S10U1 is fully
qualified for and supported with the X4200), then would lean towards
hardware issue in some way.

-Dan

Rich Teer wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Dan Foster wrote:
>
> > ...and for giggles, does it work any better with Solaris 10 Update 1?
>
> I'll try that later (I need to buy some more recordable DVDs). If it
> works, great, although I want to play with ZFS on this beast, so Nevada
> build 28+ is preferable.
>


I installed two X4200 Monday.
These were two off Opteron 280's with 8 GB ram and Four 73 Gb
disks
They came preinstalled with S10HW1 i assume, but neither was able to
boot solaris.
I Reinstalled from scratch with S10u1 via the GRASP card and
JavaRConsole.
This way I eventually got the boxed up and running.

//Lars

On Tue, 24 Jan 2006, Dan Foster wrote:

> If it's problematic even with S10U1 (considering S10U1 is fully
> qualified for and supported with the X4200), then would lean towards
> hardware issue in some way.

Agreed. I didn't get the recordable media last night--tonight for
sure.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, tunla wrote:

> I installed two X4200 Monday.
> These were two off Opteron 280's with 8 GB ram and Four 73 Gb
> disks
> They came preinstalled with S10HW1 i assume, but neither was able to
> boot solaris.
> I Reinstalled from scratch with S10u1 via the GRASP card and
> JavaRConsole.
> This way I eventually got the boxed up and running.

Good to hear; I to oam using the ILOM/JavaRConsole thing. Bit of a
shame that I can't get the CDROM and ISO attachment features to work
as advertised. That at least would save me the hassle of burning
media.

I'm gonna try booting from a S10U1 DVD later today, and if I still get
no joy I'll be phoning Sun.

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich

HI,

Rich Teer wrote:
> On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, tunla wrote:
>
>
>> I installed two X4200 Monday.
>> These were two off Opteron 280's with 8 GB ram and Four 73 Gb
>>disks
>>They came preinstalled with S10HW1 i assume, but neither was able to
>>boot solaris.
>>I Reinstalled from scratch with S10u1 via the GRASP card and
>>JavaRConsole.
>>This way I eventually got the boxed up and running.
>
>
> Good to hear; I to oam using the ILOM/JavaRConsole thing. Bit of a
> shame that I can't get the CDROM and ISO attachment features to work
> as advertised. That at least would save me the hassle of burning
> media.
>
> I'm gonna try booting from a S10U1 DVD later today, and if I still get
> no joy I'll be phoning Sun.
>
Welcome to the world of PC's

/michael