Undocumented Xserve Failure.

Okay, I have an xServe G5 (1st edition motherboard) to fix here and it's behaivior is outside the Service Manual's scope. Please let me know if any of you have seen this before and how it was resolved.

The Failure centers around the SATA 150 RAID controller card (megaraid) provided by Apple.

On boot the xServe would emit a piercing alarm tone, much like the one APC UPS's emit during a power failure. I isolated the tone to the RAID card and ordered a replacement. Upon replacing the card I continued to get the error tones. I pulled the card, plugged the drives into the logic board and reformatted one to install a system and insure good time/date, up to date firmware, etc. Re-installed the card and voila! no tone.

But of course there's a punchline: The system sees neither the card nor the drives with the card installed and the drives hosted by it. I've swapped the Video card and the RAID card and the video card works in either slot so it's unlikely to be the slot itself. Am I looking at a bad logic board?!? That would really suck as the LB is rediculously expensive and the Uni didn't get AppleCare for the thing.

Any suggestions appreciated, THX.

simie said:

Can you test the drives in any way or even swap the drives and build a new array on the drives?

Click to expand...

Here's a fun little tidbit: The card is only configureable via the Terminal and returns the error: "no megaraid card present" when querried for anything. If I bypass the card and plug the drives directly into the Lobo everything's cool. The other isue is that with the card does not support Target Disk mode so I can't check the interface from an adjacent machine. Disk Utility and Disk Warrior return only the generic "SMART Status reports your drives are fine" answer when I check the disks from the Lobo. It's almost like the Lobo is refusing to relinquish SATA to the host card.