[Beowulf] HP 10 GbE card use/warranty

Tue Mar 30 11:47:59 PDT 2010

Hi Alex,

Thanks a lot.  Sounds very similar to what I've been doing. I too *luckily* ordered a spare thinking that some day we'd be able to use it in another system. 

Thanks to some people from the list I've got a lead on some help. Our VAR is still working on it too. I'll let you know either way. I hope this gets the word out that the HP NICs are definitely for HP equipment only. Maybe not functionally but as
far as warranty goes keep it in mind.

Steve 

Alex Chekholko <chekh at pcbi.upenn.edu> writes:
>Hi Steve,
>
>I can report that I had the same problem.  I have a bunch of NC510c
>cards in IBM X3650 servers.  One broke, with the symptom that it would
>just hang any machine I put it into.  Luckily (or with great
>foresight), I had previously ordered a spare to have on hand.  At one
>point, the HP tech on the line was able to find the serial number in
>the HP system somewhere but only confirm that my card was out of
>warranty (it was manufactured long before we purchased it).  In the
>end, our VAR was able to convince their distributor to mail me a new
>working card, free.  Took a couple of weeks.
>
>Here, I can even copy in our e-mail chain, somewhat sanitized:
>
>
>*****
>
>From: helpful VAR Jeff
>To: Alex Chekholko <chekh at pcbi.upenn.edu>
>Subject: RE: FW: bad network card
>Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 08:46:25 -0400
>
>Good morning Alex,
>
>We finally got the distributor to ship you a new card - it should be
>shipping today.  Sorry for all the trouble.
>
>________________________________________
>From: Alex Chekholko [chekh at pcbi.upenn.edu]
>Sent: Monday, October 20, 2008 12:15 PM
>To: helpful VAR Jeff
>Cc: manager at genomics.upenn.edu
>Subject: Re: FW: bad network card
>
>Hi Jeff,
>
>Tech support line that I used is 1-800-474-6836
>
>The last time I spoke to HP on Oct 8th, I ended up in the queue
>Tech Support -> Networking -> ProCurve
>
>This time I spoke to HP, I ended up in the queue
>Tech Support -> Servers -> Proliant
>
>They couldn't find any record of that card anywhere in their system and
>said I have to get a replacement through the reseller the card was
>purchased from and recommended I call 1-888-943-8476 (turned out to be
>a "customer satisfaction" line).
>
>I called back again and went to
>Tech Support -> Networking -> ProCurve
>
>They initially couldn't find it in the system, until I recollected that
>they called it a "server adapter" last time; that allowed them to find
>it, and then they dumped me back to the initial menu.  Apparently, the
>serial number doesn't help, and the part number doesn't show up in the
>system (for the ProCurve folks).
>
>Then I called the "customer satisfaction" line, who suggested the HP
>Parts Store (1-800-227-8164 option 2) and transferred me there.  They
>said that Tech Support is the only place that could authorize warranty
>replacement, and were unable to look up the order numbers listed below,
>but connected me to "HW Support Orders" department (1-800-525-7104) who
>then forwarded me to the front menu of Tech Support.
>
>Total time, 2hrs.
>
>Good luck.
>
>On the UPenn side, the PO number is 2010394.
>
>Regards,
>Alex
>
>On Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:33:53 -0400
>helpful VAR wrote:
>
>> Alex,
>>
>> Per note below can you try HP support one more time?  Sorry for the trouble! Thanks.
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: distributor "arrow" On Behalf Of ISS Team
>> Sent: Monday, October 13, 2008 5:18 PM
>> To: helpful VAR Jeff
>> Cc: other arrow folks
>> Subject: RE: bad network card
>>
>> Hi Jeff.  We came up with, we hope, information that will prove to HP
>> that the card is under warranty.  It was ordered through Synnex and the
>> order numbers are 24927045 and 26715052.  They shipped from Synnex on
>> March 20, 2008.
>>
>> Part# 414129-B21 (they ordered a qty of 3)
>> HP NC510C PCIE 10 GIGABIT SERVER ADAPTER
>> Reseller Info:
>> helpful VAR...
>>
>> End-User Info:
>>
>> our address
>> PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104
>>
>> Please have the end user call HP and give them this information.  Please
>> get back with me if HP still won't replace it.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>
>
>*****
> 
>On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 15:51:42 -0400 (EDT)
>Steve Cousins <cousins at umit.maine.edu> wrote:
>
>> 
>> I have a couple of 10 GbE cards from HP (NC510F, NetXen/QLogic) and I have 
>> been trying to get them to work in non-HP Linux systems. After failing to 
>> be able to comile/install the nx_nic drivers on Fedora 9 and 12 (it checks 
>> to see if kernel >= 2.6.27 and if so looks for net/8021q/vlan.h but can't 
>> find it) I installed one of the supported distributions (or close enough): 
>> CentOS 5. Driver installation went fine and I was able to get one of the 
>> cards to work. The other one seems to be bad. The nx_nic driver loads but 
>> no eth2 device shows up. Also, the Activity LED is constant but no Link 
>> LED lights up. Since I can't get the eth device loaded I can't update the 
>> firmware.
>> 
>> So, I have one good one and one bad one. Pretty clear-cut. I've tried to 
>> get technical support from HP to RMA it and I end up in no-mans land. It 
>> seems that they do not have support for peripherals like this. They 
>> consider this part of a system and the only systems they seem to think 
>> these go in are their Proliant servers so I end up at Proliant tech 
>> support. But I have no serial number for a Proliant server so it is a dead 
>> end.
>> 
>> I tried "Customer Satisfaction" and got none.
>>
>> They insist that these cards are *only* for HP Proliant servers but I have 
>> not seen any indication of this at the sites I go to to buy this type of 
>> card. I bought this from a reseller when we bought a bunch of Procurve 
>> equipment with some 10 GbE modules for a switch. The reseller is seeing 
>> what he can do but in the mean time I thought I'd check here to see if 
>> anyone has run into this sort of thing from HP. I've always had good luck 
>> with HP but it has mainly been from the Procurve section and they won't 
>> touch this either.
>> 
>> Anyone running HP cards in non-HP equipment? Any tips on getting an RMA 
>> for this? I'm thinking of trying to track down an HP server on campus to 
>> work with just to get the RMA but I doubt if there are too many of these 
>> that aren't in use and still under warranty.
>> 
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Steve
>> ______________________________________________________________________
>>   Steve Cousins - Supercomputer Engineer/Administrator - Univ of Maine
>>   Marine Sciences, 452 Aubert Hall       Target Tech, 20 Godfrey Drive
>>   Orono, ME 04469    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     Orono, ME 04473
>>   (207) 581-4302     ~ cousins at umit.maine.edu ~      (207) 866-6552
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
>-- 
>Alex Chekholko   chekh at pcbi.upenn.edu   

______________________________________________________________________
 Steve Cousins, Ocean Modeling Group    Email: cousins at umit.maine.edu
 Marine Sciences, 452 Aubert Hall       http://rocky.umeoce.maine.edu
 Univ. of Maine, Orono, ME 04469        Phone: (207) 581-4302