R540 Bad PHY Slot Error

Question

Greetings Everybody,

I'm having an issue with adding new Hard Drives to a Poweredge R540 system with a PERC H740P controller. Currently the system is populated with 10 x 12TB SATA Hard Drives. Dell P/N: 0T2YHT. I purchased 2 identical drives (Dell Branded/Firmware/Same Part Number) to fill the remaining 2 slots. When I install the drives I am getting an error: Bad PHY Slot 10.: Connector 1 Controller 0 & Bad PHY Slot 10.: Connector 1 Controller 0 in OSMA. I'm curious to know if others have experienced this issue and if they've been able to resolve it. I'm trying everything I possible can before resorting to a hardware/backplane failure diagnosis.

The only difference in the new Drives I purchased is in the P/N of the caddy/tray. The existing drives caddys are labeled SATA and show Dell P/N: Y796F. These new drives, although identical, came in a SAS labeled caddy P/N:X7K8W. Can the caddy itself can cause this issue?

So far I have attempted the following steps:

1. Server restart & Server Shut Down/Power on

2. Upgraded the PERC Firmware to 51.16.0-4076 & Windows Driver to 7.716.30.00

3. Tries cleaning dust/lint from the empty drive bays.

4. Ensured all cable connections from the backplane to the PERC controller are secure

4. Upgraded OSMA, restarted services, cleared logs...

Am I missing something else? or do all factors point to 2 bad slots on the backplane?

Thank you,

Neal

DELL-Young E · Accepted Answer

Hi,Could I pull a drive from that, put this drive into one of the trays and test that way?-> because there's RAID configuration, data is at risk. I wouldn't recommend personally.I would say at this point - that is if your system is in warranty- collect the logs and raise a formal ticket to the phone support team to have it looked at.

DELL-Joey C · Answer

Hello @Nealio

I think you might have a typo, both errors are on Slot 10. Probably one of the error is for Slot 11. Anyways, the error Bad PHY Slot ## is mainly providing information about the port communication on the backplane with the drive.

Do you have another R540 or other server that you can test the new drive with? Just to make sure that the drive connector are good. Another troubleshoot is for the server having the error, but this step is risky as you need to remove one of the drive and try on slot 10 or 11. This is to make sure that the slot connector on the server is not faulty.

I checked, both caddy PN# have the same construction just a newer version than the other, therefore most likely it has no effect to the issue.

Nealio · Answer

Hi @DELL-Joey C

Thank you for the prompt reply. You are correct I did have typo, it is Slot 10 & Slot 11. Unfortunately I do not have another R540. I have a few other PE Servers, but they all use SAS or NL-SAS drives. I have an old R520 (2015 model) that is not in use, sitting on a shelf. Could I pull a drive from that, put this drive into one of the trays and test that way? It's a lot safer than risking data loss on the R540. This particular R520 is populated with 8 SAS drives in a RAID5. If that is possible I can at least rule out a hard drive problem.

Thank you,

Neal

Nealio · Answer

Thank you all for the assistance. I was able to source another drive, that was a known working drive, and it installed and began working immediately. I received 2 defective hard drives, which I thought was very odd, and it took me a while to get another drive to test with. I just had to rule everything else out along the way to get a refund for our defective drives. Thank you again!

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

R540 Bad PHY Slot Error

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