Intel Server Technical Solutions Training 2010

Intel has announced that the server based Technical Solutions Training events are now available for registration.

Alberta will have an event in Edmonton, AB (TST registration link for Edmonton) among other Canadian locations.

• TST 2010 Registration Direct Link (North American Site).
• Intel Reseller Site (North American Site).

A Reseller account sign-in will be required for the direct link.

As an alternative, sign into the Reseller site and click on Training & Events to find a link to the TST registration page if an e-mail has not shown up in the Inbox yet.

We have always benefitted from our TST attendance in the form of getting to know some of our peers along with being able to speak one-on-one with some key Intel product engineers.

Tied into that has been the product specific training we receive via the course instruction. We have always learned some key information that we were later able to use in our Intel based server solutions via TST training.

Server building has always been a very good part of our business for our local clients. Even with the Cloud movement going on around us, server building will still be an important part of our network solutions architecture as we can tailor our server based solutions to our client’s specific needs.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Server’s Having A Bad Day When … CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT (101)

We lose it almost continually throughout the day.

This particular box is our first Intel SR1630HGP Server System with an Intel Xeon Processor 3460 and 16GB of RAM.

This is what the %windir%\MiniDump directory looks like right now:

Our handy Crash Analyzer Wizard that comes with our Software Assurance and MDOP benefits tell us:

Click on that Details button and we see:

CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT (101)

An expected clock interrupt was not received on a secondary processor in an MP system within the allocated interval. This indicates that the specified processor is hung and not processing interrupts.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000019, Clock interrupt time out interval in nominal clock ticks.
Arg2: 0000000000000000, 0.
Arg3: fffff88001e5d180, The PRCB address of the hung processor.
Arg4: 0000000000000002, 0.

Now, it’s not like we have not seen this one before:

• Hyper-V On Nehalem CPUs Error – CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT Critical Hotfix
• Hyper-V CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT Error Within 24 Hours On Fresh H-V 2K8 R2
• This particular server hit by the freezes was actually the one from the above posts. It has been sitting off on a shelf as we have not had the need for it up until this current project we are working on.

We did run the hotfix on the server a while back, but apparently that version was not good enough since we brought all off the server’s server board firmware and the RAID controller’s firmware up to date. We did this just before bringing it back online.

The above screenshot of the MiniDump directory does not do the situation justice as the server has frozen a lot more times than that . . . leading us to look at other options for the setup we need.

But then, apparently the KB975530 hotfix has received a newer version from what we found when searching to find any further info on the problem.

Here is a screenshot of the hotfix directory with our original update and the one that we just received:

There was not a lot of time between v3 and v4 with the time of this post being late March.

It now remains to be seen if this fourth iteration of the patch will actually straighten out the timing problem happening with the Nehalem CPUs.

The server:

• Intel Server System SR1630HGP 1U
• Intel Xeon Processor X3460
• Intel RAID Controller RS2BL080
• Battery Backup Unit
• 16GB Kingston ECC DDR3 RAM
• 450GB 15K Seagate SAS drives in RAID 5
• DVDROM optical drive

***

This post has been sitting open for the last couple of hours while busy with other things. After consistently freezing today, the server has been up and running with the two server VMs and five desktop VMs without a hiccup.

Hopefully that will be the situation from now on!

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer

Intel Modular Server – Compute Module Xeon Processor 5600 Series Compatibility Caveat

The newly released Intel Xeon Processor 5600 Series CPUs with up to 6 cores will need a refresh product code for the IMS compute modules.

Current MFS5520VI compute modules will require a firmware update to be compatible with the new CPUs.

• IMS: Intel Server Compute Module Overview
• Intel Xeon Processor 5000 Sequence Technical Documents
• PDF: Intel Xeon Processor 5600 Series Product Brief
• PDF: Intel Xeon Processor 5600 Series Specification Update March 2010

The technical documents link will have the most current version of the PDF files.

From the Overview page:

◊¹ . . . Out of the box support for the Intel Xeon processor 5600 series will be indicated by the addition of the letter "R" at the end of the product order code. For boards and systems currently supporting the Intel Xeon processor 5500 series, a BIOS update is required before installing the 5600 series processors. Select the support tab above for more information.

Note that when it comes to the Intel Modular Server, we are currently at CMM firmware version 5.5. So, we should be seeing a firmware update in the next little while to allow the existing MFS5520VI compute modules to accept the new Intel Xeon Processor 5600 Series CPUs.

It is recommended that any new Intel Modular Server quotes and orders be placed using the new compute module product code.

• MFS5520VIR

Intel Modular Server documentation:

• IMS: Intel Compute Module MFS5520VI Support Page
• IMS: Product order codes and configuration guide
• IMS: Intel Compute Module MFS5520VI Technical Product Specification Page

The first link to the product support page should contain the more recent links to the various bits of information on the product once they change.

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer