Category: exacqVision Hardware
Steps
Follow the steps below to replace your SIIG SC-SA0R11-S1 Host Bus Adapter card with the LSI 9300 Host bus adapter.
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- Power down the system.
- Locate the host bus adapter. If your system is a Hybrid with an analog capture board, the host bus adapter is the one with the SATA cables between this card and hard drives in the front of the system.
- Loosen the hold-down from the cross-bar and move this out of the way.
- Remove the screw hold down from the back panel.
- Remove the SATA cables from the host bus adapter.
- Remove the host bus adapter from the motherboard.
- Remove removing the fan in the center chassis on this side of the system will make passing cables easier. To remove the fan, pull the thumb-tab out and then up.
- With the fan removed disconnect the SATA cables from the backs of the hard disks, then remove the cables from the system.
- Thread the SATA connectors from the Mini-SAS cable through the opening at the bottom of the fan divider in the middle of the chassis. These are numbered 1-4.
- Connect the SATA connectors to the back of each hard disk.
- Slide the fan back into the bracket and secure to the connector at the bottom of the chassis.
- Insert the new LSI 9300 host bus adapter into the expansion slot you removed the old board from and secure to the back panel with the screw you removed earlier.
- Connect the Mini-SAS connector to the board.
If you are using more than four hard drives in your system you may opt to leave the additional drives connected directly to the motherboard or use a second Mini-SAS to SATA cable to connect those to the host bus adapter card as well. It does not matter which Mini-SAS port on the LSI board you connect the cable to.
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If you have a Ubuntu/Linux system you may power on the system and the drives should be recognized by the system and mounted as expected for use. The system may reboot itself during initialization of the new host bus adapter when powering on after replacement.
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If you have a Windows system, additional steps below must be followed.
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- Open the ‘Start’ menu and type ‘Services.msc’. Open Services. Find ‘ExacqVision Server’ and stop this service.
- Open Device Manager. This will show an unknown ‘SAS Controller’ under ‘Other devices’.
- Download the driver for the LSI 9300 for your operating system. Windows 7 Drivers are listed under the Archive link for the Drivers section.
- Unpack the downloaded ZIP file to the Desktop to make it easy to find.
- In Device Manager, right-click on the ‘SAS Controller’ and select ‘Update Driver Software…’
- Select ‘Browse my computer for driver software’. Use the file explorer to highlight the unpacked folder on your Desktop.
- Once the driver installs ‘Other devices’ appear. Be patient, after a few minutes the drives will be recognized and you should no longer have unrecognized devices in Device Manager.
- Rename the ‘psfpi.xml’ and ‘sysmgmtpi.xml’ files located in C:\Program Files\exacqVision\Server
- Restart the exacqVision Server service.
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How-to-Replace-a-SIIG-SC-SA0R11-S1-HBA-with-an-LSI-9300-HBA.pdfWindows systems built by ExacqVision no longer ship with a default ‘admin’ and restricted ‘user’ account beginning with Windows 10.
Some early Ubuntu 16.04 images still contain the ‘admin’ account, but do not have the restricted ‘user’ (this was changed in a later image will not have either ‘admin’ or ‘user’).
This change is due to security compliance requirements.
The first time a system boots, the user will be asked to create a custom user account with admin privileges.
To enable similar functionality of the old restricted ‘user’ account, you will need to enable ‘Kiosk Mode’ by following the instructions below, based on your operating system.
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Windows 10
1. Access the Desktop for your custom user created when the machine first booted.
2. Double-click the Setup Kiosk Mode script.
3. Follow the prompts to set a custom account name, enter the desired password twice, the use Y or N to determine if the OS will automatically boot to the new restricted Kiosk user.
To undo the changes, use the Undo Kiosk Mode script and follow the prompts.
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Ubuntu 16.04 & higher
1. Access the Desktop for your custom user created when the machine first booted.
2. Use the Exacq Kiosk User either on the Desktop, or from the menu Applications > Exacq.
3. Type in your desired restricted user account name.
NOTE: Ubuntu has the following restrictions for user names.
- Must start with a lowercase letter
- May only contain lowercase letters, underscore (_), and dash (-)
- May optionally end with a dollar sign ($)
4. Enter your desired password, then check the Auto Login User option if the OS will automatically boot to the new restricted Kiosk user.
5. To undo the changes, run the same Exacq Kiosk User link on the Desktop and type in the name of the user you want to remove or modify.
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Troubleshooting
In the event you get an Error similar to the following check the user name to ensure it meets Ubuntu’s restrictions.
- Must start with a lowercase letter
- May only contain lowercase letters, underscore (_), and dash (-)
- May optionally end with a dollar sign ($)
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The DVI output on exacqVision systems with RAID controller cards might be deactivated on systems manufactured before 2011. This applied to all 4U and RAID exacqVision A-Series systems manufactured during that period. For those systems, you must use the VGA output when connecting a monitor.
DVI-Output-not-Available-on-4U-RAID-exacqVision-A-Series-Systems.pdfSome users are experiencing multiple drives in an ‘Offline’ status with Linux systems containing host bus adapters. This may also present drives not on the HBA as ‘Offline’ or with ‘Write Errors’.
In these cases it is necessary to determine the proper cause. If restarting the server service in the past has shown the drives are ‘Healthy’ and recording for some time before returning to this state it may be caused by a link speed issue, wherein the write speeds to the drive have lowered and the server service eventually displays the drives in a non-Healthy status.
Please note that this does not cause drives to display ‘Failed Drive: Replace Now’.
Limiting link speeds will not appear in the syslogs or the exported support diagnostics, these are going to be found in the Kern logs. To search for limiting link speeds, perform the following in Terminal:
cd /var/log
sudo zgrep -i "limiting sata" kern.log*
Anything that returns, regardless of the speed that is reported, is a limiting speed. This means the system lowered the SATA link speed to be able to write to disk.
After the link speed lowers, we should be able to find write errors in the exacqVision server logs:
cd /usr/local/exacq/server/logs
The command below will search for write errors on 2/13/2018, you can edit this for a specific day or range of dates
sudo grep -i ". ps error ." 20180213.txt
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Drives-Appearing-Offline-in-Linux.pdfAlthough there are portable power supply testers on the market that are inexpensive, it often becomes necessary to test whether a power supply is good or bad with only a multi-meter handy. The following steps detail how to perform this.
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WARNING: When working with electricity always follow proper safety procedures. Remove jewelry from your hands. Do not attempt to open enclosures labeled “Non-Serviceable” or with warnings of electric shock. Do not touch capacitors which may still be holding an electric charge.
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- Power down the system and remove the power cable(s) from the device.
- Open the server case and unplug the power connectors inside.
- Follow the large bundle of wires from the power supply to the motherboard. You will find a large, plastic connector. This is typically white but may also be black.
- Press the release down on one side of the connector and pull up to remove it.
- A smaller bundle will connect to a 4 or 8-pin connector elsewhere on the motherboard. Disconnect these as well.
- It is not necessary to remove the entire power supply from the chassis; just pull the connectors to a place you can easily access them.
- Examine the pinout diagrams. While some machines may have a 20-pin connector, others will have a 24-pin connector. With the pins facing you and the release clip towards the right the top-left pin will be pin number 1 and follow down the left side before beginning again at the top of the next column.
- You will need a short piece of wire to use as a jumper for the next step. If you have a 20-pin connector, insert the ends of the wire into pins 13 and 14 to short out this connection. If you have a 24-pin connector, insert the wire into pins 15 and 16
- 20-pin --> 13 to 14
- 24-pin --> 15 to 16
- Plug in the power supply. If it has no power switch you should hear the fan come on. If it does have a power switch, turn the unit on.
- If you have an Auto-Ranging multi-meter you can just set it to DC Voltage. If you have a traditional multi-meter, set the dial to the 10-Volt setting.
- Place the black (-) probe from your multi-meter on any of the pins labeled Ground (GND). Place the red (+) probe on the first pin and work your way around to each pin.
- Make a note of the voltage reach from each pin. Click here for a printable worksheet to record these readings.
- Make a note of the voltage reach from each pin. Click here for a printable worksheet to record these readings.
- Compare the values from your meter readings to the value that should be supplied.
Note: These will almost never be exactly 3.3, 5.0 or 12.0 volts. Your actual meter readings should fall between the minimum and maximum voltage tolerances.
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If your readings are above or below the allowable tolerances, noted on the worksheet, for that pin the power supply should be replaced.
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How-to-Test-an-ATX-Power-Supply.pdf