Friday was our end of month and end of year. I was more concerned with getting
the system running than fixing a board that may or may not be faulty. Thanks for
sharing your story. Now that I know it has happened to someone else and that
your processor failed a second time, I will be more aware of the severity of the
problem and get the board replaced the first time.


>>> Patrick Santucci <[log in to unmask]> 06/30 1:00 AM >>>
Wes Setree updates us on his processor status:

> UPDATE... HP engineer came in and tried to reset (RS) our system...
> and he kept getting a FLT 1009, which indicates a faulty processor.
> He then decided to do a power cycle and the system came up without
> a problem. His early [opinion] is that possibly the cache was
> corrupted which was fixed on the power cycle. Therefore, he did not
> replace the board. I am not entirely comfortable with this but I
> have to live with it. C'est la vie...

<horror story>

Ick... this sounds too familiar. A few years ago (at my old job) we had a
processor go bad on our 997-500 (it may have been 'just' a 995-500 then :-)
). Anyway, the CE did the same thing: RS, no go; RS, no go; power cycle,
good boot. Ah, says he, your processor cache must have gotten corrupted
somehow, probably during a system halt, and it's really not hardware at all
(even though we told him the box had a HPMC - 'High Priority Machine Check'
for the uninitiated) so he didn't replace the processor... until a few days
later when the box died again with another HPMC. This time, even though he
was able to make it boot by power cycling, we (actually my manager) insisted
that he replace the processor (the one indicated by the HPMC as being bad)
and wouldn't let him leave until he did. Guess what? No more HPMCs.

</horror story>

Bottom line: *you* are paying HP for hardware support and *you* should be
the one to make the decision to replace in an iffy situation like this,
*not* the CE. If I had insisted on replacement the first time, we wouldn't
have had egg our face the second time, because there wouldn't have been a
second time.

Listen to your gut. If you don't feel comfortable there's probably a reason,
and "C'est la vie" won't C'ave your hide if the box dies again. And believe
me, it doesn't go over well with the users to say, "but the CE said it
wasn't hardware," while he's replacing the processor after the second
crash... :-(

Patrick
(yes, it still smarts to think about it)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Patrick Santucci
HPe3000 Systems Administrator
Cornerstone Brands, Inc.

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