[tech] Downtime & R.I.P. Maltair

[Bob Adamson]

Felix and I de-racked maltair tonight and I pulled its mobo out. The Lenovo
page lists only a "VT261" 5V regulator as probably being damaged, so I
figured we should just be able to find and replace it. Famous last words.

Google turns up VT261WFQR-ADJ as (the only) possible candidate for what
VT261 refers to. Unfortunately, googling further for the VT261WFQR-ADJ
datasheet only shows up a Maxim datasheet, which makes sense since they
bought out Volterra in 2013. Just to make things really interesting, the
kynix site  (the only result that has a datasheet) links to an Intersil
datasheet: https://www.kynix.com/uploadfiles/pdf8827/ICL7660ACBA-T.pdf  .
The maxim site was a bit more forthcoming once I knew a newer part number (
https://datasheets.maximintegrated.com/en/ds/ICL7660-MAX1044.pdf ), but I
didn't have any luck looking for 7660 on any of the mobo chips.

More googling later, and even turning to countries that have a robust market
for *ahem* aftermarket goods, shows up this:
https://ru.aliexpress.com/item/VT261WF-VT261MF-VT261WFQX-ADJ-QFN-1-integrate
d-circuit/32818058390.html , which is possibly-maybe the thing we should be
looking for on the mobo. There were a few shiny chips on the board, but I
need to return  at a later date with my shiny new USB microscope to check
further.

If anyone else wants to take a look at it, please be careful about flexing
the board while handling (it's very big) and also be careful not to knock
off any components (they're very small, and I mean like >.< this big).

Oh, and I manually migrated all network-stored VM's to medico today, and I
believe Felix did the remaining locally stored VM's this evening.

--Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: tech-bounces+bob=ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
[mailto:tech-bounces+bob=ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au] On Behalf Of
Felix von Perger
Sent: Wednesday, 8 August 2018 11:51 PM
To: tech at ucc.asn.au
Subject: [tech] Downtime & R.I.P. Maltair

Dear tech subscribers,

For those of you who have not been following the committee discussions of
the last week or so, there was a total service outage this morning between
8:00 and 10:00 which was due to RCD testing in Cameron Hall. 
Apologies for any inconvenience.

Sadly, in the process of turning things back on after the power was
restored, an IMM2 firmware bug on Maltair seems to have rendered it
permanently unbootable (see
https://support.lenovo.com/au/en/solutions/ht118532). [CFE] performed a
firmware upgrade this evening to the latest version (v6.8) from v4.3 however
it seems like the damage has already been done and either the entire
motherboard or the builtin 5V voltage regulator will need to be replaced or
repaired.

Due to Maltair being presently out of action, additional downtime may be
experienced for certain services that were previously hosted on Maltair. 
Since Maltair accounted for most of our RAM availability, member VMs with
large RAM requirements may remain powered off for the time being or have
their maximum RAM reduced.

Any suggestions for replacement hardware for Maltair are welcome. The
existing server is a 1RU IBM System x3550 M4 (7914/7915), and it is likely
that the majority of its parts (CPU, RAM, RAID, 10Gb NIC, PSUs) are still
functional despite the system board being fried.

Best regards,

Felix von Perger [FVP]
UCC Secretary & Wheel Member

_______________________________________________
List Archives: http://lists.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/pipermail/tech

Unsubscribe here:
http://lists.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/mailman/options/tech/bob%40ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au