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Conference wrksys::alphastation

Title:Alpha Workstation Conference
Notice:See note 1.* for conference notices
Moderator:WRKSYS::HOUSE
Created:Wed Sep 07 1994
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1996
Total number of notes:9122

1843.0. "AS500 WNT reboot hangs at SWXCR init" by ACISS2::MILLER () Thu Feb 06 1997 10:36

    I'm having a problem at a customer site with multiple Alphastation 500
    5/400 systems. The systems are configured with 256MB, DE500, ZLXp-E1 and
    KSPSC 3 channel RAID (with 3x RAID5 sets and HSP). All firmware levels
    are up to date from the 3.8 CD (KZPSC 2.36, ARC 4.49, SRM 6.3-11). NT is 
    3.51 SP4. The problem is when selecting the shutdown and reboot option
    from NT. The ARC screen appears and initializes the drivers, but then
    hangs for a long time at the SWXCR init while each channel of the KZPSC 
    is reset and each drive probed in a contiunous loop. If you instead hit
    the reset button or power off/on, the system will come up normally. By
    the way the system disk is internal SCSI. Another starnge thing is that
    if you leave the SWXCR driver init long enough-about 10 minutes, it
    will eventually continue on to boot, but the RAID drives won't be
    there. If you stop the boot and instead go into SWXCRMGR, you get all
    sorts of strange data like 0MB cache, firmware V0, and no channels
    appear in the "View Configuration" menu. Again, resetting the system
    and going back into SWXCRMGR shows everything as fine.
    
    Sounds like an ARC firmware issue, but I didn't see any references in
    any previous notes.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Dale
T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name		DateLines
1843.1DECWET::LEESCThu Feb 06 1997 12:0810
How many disks do you have connected to the SWXCR? Do you see this problem
on a cold boot?

The long wait at SWXCR init is expected if the configuration on the SWXCR
does not match the configuration attacted to the controller or if the
controller is not ready (drives are not all spun up) when the driver
initialization occurs.


Scott
1843.2Ext BA356 shelves always powered on.ACISS2::MILLERThu Feb 06 1997 15:5317
    The disks are all external BA356 shelves and are fully populated with
    RZ29B-VW's on each channel. The power is not interrupted to the shelves 
    during the reboot. As stated, a cold boot (power system off/on) or reset 
    does work fine (disks again have not been spun down). 
    
    The SWXCR comes back on its own (config verified by SWXCRMGR RCU) after
    a reset. This is happening on thirteen brand new out of the box
    Alphastations.
    
    Any additional replies would be appreciated.        
    
    Dale
1843.3Tried older KZPSC too.ACISS2::MILLERThu Feb 06 1997 19:258
    I just tried an older rev KZPSC (rev B) in place of the rev D that came
    with the system and I also tried just a WNT shutdown (not a shutdown
    and reboot ) and then waited until all "unsaved data" had been written 
    to disk and the restart button appeared on the screen. I then used the 
    mouse to click the restart button with the same result-hung SWXCR init
    in ARC console.
    
    Dale
1843.4ARC v4.52 fixed it !!!!!!!ACISS2::MILLERWed Mar 05 1997 17:3918
    
    
    
    
    
    
    For anybody who cares,
    
    More input and testing from the customer showed that two fully
    populated BA356's worked ok, but as soon as you added a third, the
    symptom would appear. It didn't matter which BA356 was left off, only
    the total number of drives. Anyway, after seeing the availability of
    ARC V4.52 on the WEB, we decided to give it a try and it resolved the
    issue of Windows NT shutdowns with auto-restarts causing the ARC
    console to hang at the SWXCR driver init.
    
    Dale