HP P410i - P420i Self-test failure lockup

Recently I was messing around with a DL360G8 from HP. It all looked well until my raid controller, a p420i, quit while I was installing a virtual machine in ESX6.0. When I reboot, I got this nice message; 1783-slot 0 Drive Array Controller Failure. [Self-test failure (cmd=0h, err=00h, lockup=013:0h)]

At first I was kind of clueless, what to do? Was it a failure in my raid controller, or maybe in the cache module? After some Google work I found most people who had a similar problem had it because they did not have OEM disks (neither did I, I just replaced them with some aftermarket Intel SSD DC S3500 ssd's). But after removing them and trying to boot without disks, the error persisted, so it must me something else. I tried booting without the cache module, since many people had issues with this as-well. Unfortunately, this didn't help either. Then I figured I would let the server sit without power for a while to drain any leftover power from batteries or other kind of capacitators, when this didn't work I disabled the p420i in the BIOS/UEFI, I figured maybe if I reinitialise the card in this way, it might work... Wishful thinking, it didn't.

Then, I got the idea to disconnect the cache module, and more importantly, the SAS cables on the motherboard, so there wouldn't be any signal to the raid controller at all. Hallelujah and praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster! It works! In all my enthusiasm I powered down the server to re-attach the cache module and the SAS cables. But hey, when I rebooted the server, the error message was back... Bummer! I figured it must of been the SAS cables, because the cache module alone didn't fix it. So I powered the machine down again and disconnected the SAS cables. I rebooted the machine and held my fingers crossed (with a G8, it takes a while to boot..). Yes! Again no error message. So I hit F8 to enter the adapters setup. Whilst in setup I reconnected the SAS cables to the motherboard and one by one my ssd's reinitialised. When I clicked on the create a raid array, there where my disks, and I could successfully create a new array! After rebooting there was no error message anymore and I was able to boot safely into ESX and continue with my work!

I hope you guys find this useful, and as always... If you find a controller that is helped with the same fix, leave a comment, and you might help someone else with it to!

How to reset consumables like toners fuser units and belts for a Brother printer

Have you ever had the idea that when your printer says you are out of toner, or your fuser is end of life, it might not be true... Well it most likely isn't true! Most manufacturers make their cartridges and toners in a way that it will stop working at the moment they think they cannot guarantee it's full working order anymore. This is quit absurd, imagine manufacturers from other items do this, you might get a car that stops when it reaches a 100.000km because they can't guarantee it would work any longer.

However! There is a solution to this problem. Since I own a Brother printer and found out how to do this I will share it with you. This might also be possible with other printers from Brother or other manufacturer, but since I do not own them I cannot tell you how to do that.

Note: Keep in mind that you obviously one day have to replace your toner and other consumables like the fuser unit. Just keep a sharp eye on your print quality, when you see it getting worse you should start thinking of ordering replacements.

It is always a smart thing to write down the pagecounter when you have reset your printer so in the future you know this information and can use this information to troubleshoot if needed.

There are multiple options for your printer, not every printer works the same and there are also some other exclusions for some printers like when you already get the message your out of toner there should be followed another method to get in the menus, so please pay close attention, and if one option doesn't work for you, please continue reading and see if another will.



If this manual was of use for you, please let me know! A message is always much appreciated!

Resetting Toners

Methode 1: (this doesn't work in most cases)
Find and cover the lens in your tray or your toner.
This lens reads out your toner level and passes it trough to give a signal when the manufacturer thinks it might be low or reaches it's date. Note, some toners use an electric strip to contact with the tray, I'm not sure if you can cover this with lets say a piece of paper, if someone know please leave in the comment!

Methode 2:

MFC 9840,MFC 9440,MFC 9450,MFC 9320cw,MFC 9325CW,MFC 9460CDN,MFC 9560,DCP 9010CN,DCP 9055CDN

There is a hidden menu in many printers you can only access with a certain key combination. For a lot of brother printers from the MFC and DCP 9xxx series this will work.

Before you start, first check which toners you have (this can be seen on top of the toner), When finished close the printer again and start following these steps.

Step1: Open the door to access the toners, you will see the "Door is open" message on your screen.
Step2: Press the clear or back button on your printer, this will bring you in the toner reset menu.
Step3: You can scroll trough the menu, and you will see the following options

B.TNR-S – Black toner small cartridge (TN-110)
B.TNR-H – Black toner high-capacity cartridge (TN-115)
C.TNR-S – Cyan toner small cartridge (TN-110)
C.TNR-H – Cyan toner high-capacity cartridge (TN-115)
M.TNR-S – Magenta toner small cartridge (TN-110)
M.TNR-H – Magenta toner high-capacity cartridge (TN-115)
Y.TNR-S – Yellow toner small cartridge (TN-110)
Y.TNR-H – Yellow toner high-capacity cartridge (TN-115)

Step4:  select the proper cartridge, you can see the cartridge type on the top of your toner as mentioned at the start. and press OK.
Step5: Press clear or back to get out of the menu and close the cartridge door again.

Aberrant printers

A few printers in this series don't use this method, such as the MFC 9970cdw.
Im not sure if other printers have the same issue, if you know please leave a note in the comment section!

MFC-9970 CDW
Step1: Open the cartridge door
Step2: Press 1
Step3: Select your cartridge and press OK
Step4: Close the door

If you already get the message you are out of toner, you cannot enter this menu this way, you have to do as follow:

Step1: Open the cartridge door
Step2: Power off, wait 5 to 10 seconds and power back on
Step3: Your display will tell you to close the door, don't, press 1
Step4: Select the toner and press OK
Step5: Close the door


DCP-9020CDW, MFC-9130CW, MFC-9140CDN, MFC-9330CDW, MFC-9340CDW
Step1: Press the Fax button to bring up the numeric pad, remember where the * buttons is, but do not press it! (it will not be visible later on when you need it)
Step2: Press Home to return to the main menu
Step3: Open the cartridge door
Step4: Press and hold the button when the * should be, after 5 seconds the rest menu appears
Step5: In the menu you will find the options to reset the color and counter
Step6: Select your option, it will say accepted when done.
Step7: Exit the menu and close the door


HL-3140CW, HL-3150CDN, HL-3150CDW, HL-3170CDW
Step1: Open the cartridge door
Step2: Simultaneously press Secure and Cancel
Step3: In the menu you will find the options to reset the color and counter
Step4: Select your option, it will say accepted when done.
Step5: Exit the menu and close the door


HL-4040 and 4050
Step1: Open the cartridge door
Step2:Press and hold Cancel, then click Reprint (press and let go while still holding cancel), after that release Cancel to.
Step3: In the menu you will find the options to reset the color and counter
Step4: Select your option, it will say accepted when done.
Step5: Exit the menu and close the door

Resetting other consumables like belt and fuser unit

MFC 9840,MFC 9440,MFC 9450,MFC 9320cw,MFC 9325CW,MFC 9460CDN,MFC 9560,DCP 9010CN,DCP 9055CDN

Step1: Press 3 and 9 at the same time
Step2: Select the item you want to reset and press OK

Drum
Belt Unit
PF Kit MP
PF Kit 1
PF Kit 2
Fuser
Laser

Step3: Exit the menu

Extra info:

A list of printers where these menu methods have been tested on and have been found working:

MFC 9320
MFC 9325
MFC 9440
MFC 9450
MFC 9460
MFC 9560
MFC 9840


DCP 9010
DCP 9050

CN, CDN, CW or any other addition does not make a difference, it should work on all the models.


Weight of a toner according to the Brother manual.
Take note: when your cartridge weighs 595g, it is “empty”, as you can guess it is not, there is still 60g of toner inside. You cannot get it completely empty because it would result in very bad prints when you reach 0 grams left.

(TN-110, TN-130, TN-150) BK (2.5K) Y (1.5K) M, C (1.5K)
Brand New Toner Cartridge Weight 645g (±10g) 630g (±10g) 625g (±10g)
Toner Weight at “Brand New Toner Cartridge” 110g 95g 90g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 80g 80g 80g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Life End” 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Life End” 60g 60g 60g

(TN-115, TN-135, TN-155) BK (5K) Y (4K) M, C (4K)
Brand New Toner Cartridge Weight 695g (±10g) 675g (±10g) 670g (±10g)
Toner Weight at “Brand New Toner Cartridge” 160g 140g 135g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 80g 80g 80g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Life End” 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Life End” 60g 60g 60g

(TN-115, TN-135, TN-155) BK (5K) Y (4K) M (4K) C (4K)
Brand New Toner Cartridge Weight 685g (±10g) 681g (±10g) 653g (±10g) 670g (±10g)
Toner Weight at “Brand New Toner Cartridge” 150g 146g 118g 135g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g) 615g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Near Empty” 80g 80g 80g 80g
Toner Cartridge Weight at “Toner Life End” 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g) 595g (±10g)
Remaining Toner Weight at “Toner Life End” 60g 60g 60g 60g


 Notes from Brother:
- You can print about 500 pages with 10g toner. (A4 size, 5% coverage, continuous printing)
- Toner cartridge weight is without the package and the protective cover.
- Toner weight may vary ± 1g.
- The molding is different on each model so that the container weight is different.






If this manual was of use for you, please let me know! A message is always much appreciated!




Keywords:

DCP-1000 DCP-8020 DCP-8040 DCP-9040

HL-1650 HL-1670 HL-1850 HL-1870 HL-2030 HL-4040 HL-4070 HL-5040 HL-5050 HL-5070 HL-5140 HL-5150 HL-5170 HL-5250 HL-8420

MFC-8220 MFC-8420 MFC-8440 MFC-8640 MFC-8820 MFC-8840 MFC-9440 MFC-9450 MFC-9840

 

Upgrading the firmware on a 3ware 6950SE

When I was working on a file-server which had a 3ware 6950SE raid-controller I was struggling to find some decent information about how to flash this card to a newer (4Tb supporting hard-drive) firmware from within windows. So why not bundle all the stuff together for everyone who has the same issue!

First we have the tool 3DM2 Management Utility with this tool you can easily login to your 3ware controller and set up loads of stuff. One of those things is upgrading the firmware. If you know how to use a browser, you can do this!

The mirror is my own FTP, so no weird repackages or other crap, just the original files!

Download the new firmware LSI/3ware | Mirror
Download and install the tool. (needs Java!) LSI/3ware | Mirror
Download Driver for Windows 7/server 2008r2 x64  LSI/3ware | Mirror

Run the Tool from this short-cut.
It will open (a new tab) in your browser.
https://localhost:888/




Login with the administrator account. the standard password is 3ware

Now you hover over the tab Management and click on Maintenance

At the bottom you see a box where you can upload the firmware.

Browse and select the firmware called prom0006.img and click open. After that, click "Begin Update"

You will be prompted with a warning screen, read it and take actions if needed. The next screen showing you your current firmware and the new firmware.
Read the last row, it will tell you weather you can continue or not. (you might need to install an older firmware version first before you can upgrade to the latest version).

Unfortunately I did not make a screen-shot of this point, so please if you did send it to me so I can add it!

Upgrading takes 1 or 2 minutes and might freeze your screen. Don't start clicking everywhere, just wait.



now we repeat this step and upload the file prom0008.img

This time you will not be prompted with anything. after a minute you can reboot, use alt+3 to enter your raid-controller config and create your new raid array!

Congrats, you can now use 4Tb disks on your 6950SE!

Cyberbunker not located in a bunker in Kloetinge, and other misconceptions.

There has been quite a buzz around the Cyberbunker and Sven Kamphuis a.k.a. CB3ROB. Which of these are true, and which of them are false?

 

 

 

 

 

Largest cyber attack ever?

Well, this part of the story was true, the attack was the largest attack ever, peaking at 300Gbps. To accomplish this they used a technique called 'amplified DNS attack'. The attack was performed from standard 1 to 10Gbps connections, but by exploiting a weakness in the DNS system they managed to massively increase the traffic used for the attack. This is done by spoofing the senders address on a DNS query, which results in the DNS server sending the reply to the wrong place, so instead of sending it back to the real requester it's sent to the victim. 

The second part in this is amplification, the request that is send to a DNS server is around 64 bytes, the answer however can be up to 4000 bytes, that's roughly 60 times as much!

Imagine this is done trough multiple connections at 1 to 10Gbps, and amplify this by 60, that's a massive amount of data coming to you, even if you are a big hosting provider this can get you on you knees.

This is exactly what happened to Spamhause, they couldn't handle all this traffic and therefore the website went dark. In an effort to resolve this issue they requested Cloudflare to help them in the hosting. Which is quite an odd decision since they had some issues in the past (Spamhause blocking IP ranges from Cloudflare). Cloudflare at one point had a big struggle to stay online to, many other customers like Netflix where affected by this massive DDoS

Cyberbunker still located in Kloetinge ?

This is a common misconception, the Cyberbunker has left the bunker in Kloetinge in 2011, they sold it to another company called Bunkerinfra Datacenters. Bunkerinfra released this in a pressrelease.

"We are the current users of this bunker, but this bunker has a turbulent history and the former users were from time to time in the news. 12 years ago, an organization named the Cyberbunker, was housed here, mister Sven Kamphuis was a member of this organization. After a fire in 2002, the storage of data was stopped based on a decision by the municipality. Bunkerinfra has taken over the use and management of the bunker in 2010 and after a preparation period of two years, a huge rebuilding started in January2012.  “Cyberbunker was more servicing ‘the dark side’ of the internet, the hackers and organizations which are refused anywhere else, Bunkerinfra is just te opposite. Our clients are the larger companies, financial institutions, governmental organizations and for example organizations for which electronic patient files should be properly stored and protected.

“During the past year we made an investment of some millions of euros in the rebuilding of this bunker. Also we are,at the moment, very busy with attracting and contracting new investors and partners to cope with the expected growth of this organization. Cyber-security is a real high growth market and as BIDC we have an answer for specific problems; how to protect your data from an earthquake or other environmental disasters, like solar storms or from a disaster like Fukushima? With the unique approach in offered services and the high security standard, with 10-layered security, we have an answer to those problems. So what we are doing is completely different from what the Cyberbunker was doing, from that point of view.”

A full press release can be found here

Eng:http://www.bunkerinfra.com/press/PRESSRELEASE_Cyberbunker_not_in_bunker-Kloetinge_March29th2013.pdf

NLD:http://www.bunkerinfra.com/press/PERSBERICHT_Cyberbunker_niet_in_Kloetingse_bunker_29maart2013.pdf

How about all the other stories?

Some stories are partially based on the truth, and others are complete nonsense, Bunkerinfra hopes to get these myths busted forever. This is what they had to say about it. 

"Rumours about a swimming pool, a network of tunnels and a large weapon cache, all stories that have appeared on the internet during the last 10 years. All those stories are partly true or need somekind of historical explanation.“Yesterday, I had to dissapoint the UK’s Daily Telegraph that there wasn’t a five floor bunker, or tunnels or a swimming pool and that there weren’t done any cyber-attacks from this location”. But the bunker itself is quite large with three floors and 60 rooms. The tunnels were escape tunnels, which were closed by our Defence organization before it was handed over to the private market. The swimming pool was an idea of the former owner, but was never executed because of the fire in 2002. This bunker was also never ‘NATO territory’ were the Dutch Law didn’t apply. “There is no such thing as NATO territory in the Netherlands, and this bunker was always used by our Defense organization. Between 1960 en 1992, it was permanently used by the so called Provinciaal Militair Commando (PMC). Also this bunker was used by a ‘Stay-behind’ organization, called ‘Gladio’. This is why the stories of the large weapon caches exist. “During the past three years we have spoken to several military veterans, people who live in the neighborhood and people who worked on the initial building of this bunker.Out of these stories we drew our own conclusions based on facts.There were indeed three weapon caches in the area surrounding the bunker. They were dismantled in the beginning of the 90’s. This bunker is also standing on Dutch soil, was always in the hands of the Dutch government and there were never any soldiers from other NATO countries present”.

Cyberbunker

The Cyberbunker themselves seem to have made up quite a story here, fooling everyone with it. Looking at their website it seems they are still located in Kloetinge, all one big lie so it seems. But where do they place their servers if they are not in Kloetinge? At the moment it is unknown where Cyberbunker hostst their servers. It is know that CB3ROB´s company places his colo servers at a data-center from a hosting provider called Datahouse (it is unknown if any of these are used in an attack).
Trough this forest of lies and stories they have been able to stay undetected and continue their operations. After all this has come out, what will happen? The future will tell us.

Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool error: We were unable to copy your files. Please check your USB device and the selected ISO file and try again

Having issues with formatting an USB drive for Windows 7 USB DVD download tool?

Getting this error message?
Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool error: We were unable to copy your files. Please check your USB device and the selected ISO file and try again



Perform these easy steps and get the problem sorted!

NOTE: Be very carefull you select the proper disk, if you select a wrong disk you may lose all your data!

1. Start command prompt as Administrator and type diskpart (or open diskpart directly from 'Run'
2. type  list disk
3. type select disk  and number of your USB disk ( like select disk 1 )
4. type  clean
5. Convert gpt (only if you need gpt!)
6. type  create partition primary
7. type  select partition 1
8. type  active
9. type  format quick fs=fat32
10. type  assign
11. type exit  to exit the diskpart utility
12. type exit  to close command prompt

Sometimes it happens that a drive letter isn't assigned properly, you can add a drive letter as you would do normally trough disk management.


To download Windows 7 USB DVD download tool, click here

Modding a Dell Perc 6 / Dell H310 / Dell H710 (other LSI 1078 or 9223-8i based) SAS Raidcontroller

Last week I was working on my new fileserver. To ensure my data will be a bit safer I will use a RAID solution. In my storage I had a Dell Perc6 controller, perfect for my needs. There was just one problem, when installed my server didn't boot.

I heard about it before, use tape to mask 2 pins in the PCI-E bus. After searching a bit more I found exactly what these 2 pins do, and I took the step and it works like a charm.

The pins you need to mask are:

B5 (SMCLK, SMBus clock) an B6 (SMDAT, SMBus data)

When these two are masked you are blocking the SMBus signals, now they cannot interrupt the boot process anymore. In the past there where only some vague guidelines for this, not real standard, which lead to a variety of different implementations, which in the current time lead to issues with new motherboards who do follow the now current standards.

If you want to apply this mod as well, you may do so with some insulation (electrical) tape or paint you use on nails. I do recommend the first one.

As you can see on the picture on the right I used the tape. You must only cover these 2 pins on THIS side of the controller, you mustn't tape the other side!

I hope this will help some other people in the future.

This has been tested and found working on Perc5 controllers as well!


p.s. this was tested with this hardware
SuperMicro H8SGL-F
AMD Opteron 6166HE
4x4GB ddr3 ecc reg
ESXi 5 (boot from usb)
2x2TB Seagate (attached to the perc6)

Later on I successfully added the 2x2TB as a mirrored RAID setup to my ESX as a datahost.
This Perc6 can only see harddisks up to 2TB, if I ad 3 TB harddisks it only sees 2.1TB

Update:
This raidcontroller has been moved to another system with the same mod, and it works perfectly.
ASRock P67 Extreme 4
Intel I3 3220T
2x2GB DDR3
8x2TB attached to the perc 6



Also confirmed working on the folowing cards:
IBM SR M1115
Dell Perc5
Dell H310

And probably all other LSI 1078 and LSI 9223-8i bases controllers.

Cheers,

Yannick

Welcome to my first Blogpost. This blog will be used to chat about technology and hardware. I will share my findings about a variety of different builds, tests and other issues whom might be interesting for other people to reed. I myself focus on the server-market and enterprise environments, you will most likely find blogs about these subjects.

I am Dutch, but IT is really English minded, and since a big part of the world's population understand it, why not write in English? 

I hope you enjoy my blog, and I hope it one day may help you!

Cheers,

Yannick