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

Thu Jul 25 21:43:04 AWST 2019

Hi All,

Just updating this old thread for the benefit of all the people who are
coming across it on the internet (I've had a few emails now). The photo
below will hopefully make it into the list archives - sorry it's blurry but
it does the job. The VT261 is in area circled in the picture, just to the
side (left or right, can't remember) of the large, rectangular, dark-grey
inductor near the internal SAS card PCIe slot.

Regarding our experience with trying to swap out the chip with an
ebay/aliexpress one. alas, no luck. The lack of datasheet means we could not
even check if we had the right chip or that it was actually broken. I've
done a fair bit of surface mount rework, but this chip takes the cake -
miniscule pads, in a non-standard layout, all under the chip. So damn hard
to solder, and then basically impossible to inspect. If I were to do it
again, I would try and figure out some way of creating a tiny single-chip
solder stencil to do it with, because just sticking on a bit of solder paste
didn't cut it. Regardless, I believe the chip sits on some sort of comms bus
for control and may not work without some pre-programming anyway - again not
easy to work that out without a data sheet or a working one to probe.

Since my last post, the club replaced the M4 with another M4, and even
though we did the firmware upgrade, it died a few months later. We also got
donated another few M4's.same thing again. Basically, the M4 is a lemon, cut
your losses. The most cost-effective response we found was to buy a
barebones second-hand HP server of a similar generation and transplant the
disks, CPU's and RAM across.

I would love to be proven wrong on this by the way - if anyone in the club
wants to have another crack at one (even as just a learning experience), we
have several to try on!

Cheers, Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: tech-bounces+bob=ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au On Behalf Of
bob at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
Sent: Tuesday, 14 August 2018 6:26 PM
To: Bob Adamson <bob at ucc.asn.au>
Cc: tech at ucc.asn.au
Subject: Re: [tech] Downtime & R.I.P. Maltair

Update: I managed to find the VT261 on the mobo last night. I looks like the
one in the aliexpress link in my last email. I've ordered a couple off
aliexpress, but they will take a few weeks to get here. When they arrive, we
have some Damn Finnicky soldering to do (it's surrounded by 0402 sized
components). Oh, and [TPG] had a chat to a rep from Maxim, and apparently
datasheets for the Volterra VT261 were never made public, so we kinda just
have to hope that this chip is the thing that's broken.

Andrew Adamson

 <mailto:bob at ucc.asn.au> bob at ucc.asn.au

|"If you can't beat them, join them, and then beat them."                |

| ---Peter's Laws                                                        |

On Thu, 9 Aug 2018, Bob Adamson wrote:

> 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>
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>
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-int>
https://ru.aliexpress.com/item/VT261WF-VT261MF-VT261WFQX-ADJ-QFN-1-int

> egrate 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:  <mailto:tech-bounces+bob=ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au at ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>
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>
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:  <mailto:tech at ucc.asn.au> 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>
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

> 

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