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4735
August 20th, 2012 12:00
PE2800 startup/memory error - HELP!
My wife's small business server has gone down over the weekend and the person who usually helps with it is on holiday. I am fairly competent with PCs but don't know much about servers. It gives the error message 'Memory/battery problems were detected. Adapter recovered but cached data may be lost". It continues to boot windows, but eventually comes up with another error message, "Windows - dealyed write failed". It then hangs.
I have read elsewhere on here that this could be down to the RAID memory having failed. Can I replace this with ordinary RAM (I have various types/sizes on hand), or is it specific to Dell? I am thinking about how long it is going to take to get hold of some. If anyone has any idea where I might get some in the UK, please tell me!
Any other advice/comments would be very gratefully received :-)
theflash1932
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August 20th, 2012 12:00
I would assume from your description that the LCD panel on the server is blue, not amber, right?
If so, then this is 90% of the time the RAID memory that has failed. It canNOT be regular PC memory, and in some cases, cannot be regular server system memory. It has very specific requirements dealing with layout, speed, etc. Take a risk if you want, but to ensure fastest recovery (as you probably will not be able to use the OS to much extent until it is fixed), I would get the memory designed to take its place:
www.impactcomputers.com/4d554.html
www.serversupply.com/.../4D554.htm
What size of DIMM's are installed in the server for system memory?
theflash1932
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August 20th, 2012 13:00
Like I said, there is a 90% (or greater) chance that it is the RAID memory. The remaining less than 10% is a bad battery (which will usually turn the blue light to amber with a voltage error and not cause any OS problems) or riser card (which IS the actual RAID controller). I have never seen or heard of the RAID key being the cause of any problems. If you wanted to be safe, you could order a riser and battery too, but there is very little chance that they will fix it ... from your description.
The reason I ask about the system memory is if you had 256MB DIMM's installed, there would be a chance it would work in the RAID controller (RAID memory will work for system memory, but system memory will not always work for RAID memory), but if you have 5GB installed, it is extremely unlikely you have 256MB DIMM's installed (would have to be 2x2GB + 4x256MB).
The drives being added recently isn't likely to have anything to do with the recent failure - unless by 'recent' you mean in the last day or two before the failure occurred. It is possible they jostled something that caused a failure over some amount of time, but most failures would have been noticed almost immediately.
lordretsudo
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August 20th, 2012 13:00
Many thanks for your reply - I was suspecting that ordinary RAM wouldn't cut it, but was still vainly hoping...
The LCD on the front is indeed blue. I believe that there is 5GB of system memory, but I am not entirely sure what this is made up of (I can find out tomorrow). It has six hard drives in RAID 1 configuration, but two of these were only fitted very recently, so I'm wondering if that is connected in some way to this problem...
Thanks again for your help.
lordretsudo
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August 20th, 2012 13:00
Oh, and do I need to get the battery and key (whatever that is!) do you think, or should I be OK with just the RAM?
theflash1932
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16.3K Posts
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August 20th, 2012 13:00
I forgot you said you were in the UK ... I believe ImpactComputers ships Internationally, but otherwise, as UK sites tend not to be as search friendly as other sites, I would start by Googling the part number 4D554 in the UK.