Cisco UCS Blades KVM Not Working

I needed to access a Cisco UCS Blade enclosure at one of my customers after a major ESX failure.  When attempting to access the KVM over the Java applicate for the Cisco UCSB-B200-M3 blade servers, I received the following error:

The viewer has terminated.
Reason: The network connection has been dropped.

 

After troubleshooting the issue for a while, I decided to downgrade my version of Java to an older build.  I tried the following build of Java in a Virtual Machine:

 

Java SE Runtime Environment 7u79

 

Success!

 

 There is an issue with the latest Java build and the Cisco UCS KVM application.

 

Could not initialize the capture device - EasyCAP DC60 Video Capture

I purchased a USB EasyCap DC60 Video Capture Adapter + Software for my parents to convert a load of home video tapes to digital for permanent storage.  This device is cheap - you can buy it online for around $10 USD and encodes great digital video in a variety of popular formats.

After the EasyCAP dongle arrived in the mail, I installed the Honestech HD DVR 2.5 software which came on the EasyCAP CD shipped with the device.  This software is used for recording video coming through the EasyCAP USB dongle and encoding it to a digital format you configure.  As for the driver for the EasyCAP DC60 Video Capture Adapter, the CD did not contain any driver files.

Windows 7 64bit automatically scanned its online driver repository for an appropriate driver and ended up detecting the EasyCAP dongle as a "Usbtv007" device.  The driver which Windows 7 64bit detected and installed was the incorrect driver and as a result, when attempting to open the Honestech HD DVR 2.5 software the following error was experienced:

Could not initialize the capture device

I spent over an hour on the Internet trolling through dodgy websites attempting to find a driver that works with Windows 7 x64 however none of the drivers downloaded matched the vendor and hardware ID's of the EasyCAP DC60 Video Capture Adapter which for my model are:

USB\VID_1B71&PID_3002&REV_0100
USB\VID_1B71&PID_3002

When I was about to give up, I stumbled across a forum thread which had a link to a driver download.  The forum thread wasn't in English so it was hard to make out however I know a download link when I see one.  This driver I downloaded matched the VID_1B71&PID_3002 Hardware ID's of the device.  I installed this driver and Walla - it worked!

To save someone the pain I went through to obtain a working driver for this device, I uploaded the driver which you can download from the following link below:

https://sites.google.com/site/cbblogspotfiles/UVG-002_driver-EasyCAP DC60.zip

Note: This ZIP contains both the 32bit and 64bit drivers.

When you install this driver the EasyCAP device will appear in Device Manager as OEM Capture.  Make sure you have the above Hardware ID's on your device before attempting to use this driver which can also be viewed in Device Manager.

Lastly if you have a Webcam, I recommend disabling the Webcam driver in Device Manager if you cannot easily disconnect it as the Honestech HD DVR 2.5 software can communicate with the Webcam instead of the EasyCAP device - at least that is what happened with me!

Hope this blog post saves someone the pain I went through!

HP Proliant MicroServer G7 N40L not working with 2012 R2

The HP Proliant MicroServer G7 N40L is a great lightweight server perfect for small business and home use.  However with the release of Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2 you may find problems booting the operating system.  After completing the installation, on first boot it will hang on "Getting devices ready" forever.  This is due to the on-board Broadcom NIC which has issues with only Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1

There are a few forum threads on the Internet about this issue including:

http://forum.wegotserved.com/index.php/topic/29031-hp-microserver-n40l-windows-81-installation-problems/

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2179812

HP has released a BIOS firmware update which resolves this issue by updating the firmware to 2013.10.01 (A) (15 Nov 2013).  This firmware update is packaged in "SP64420.exe" and is available for download from the following HP website.

http://h20566.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdDetails/?sp4ts.oid=5336618&spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3Didx%253D%257CswItem%253DMTX_57720d956df94dfcbaa0e28256%257CswEnvOID%253D4064%257CitemLocale%253D%257CswLang%253D%257Cmode%253D%257Caction%253DdriverDocument&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken

Unfortunately to be able to download this package from HP, your server must be under warranty or you must have a special account on the HP website.  I find this ridiculous as it is clearly a bug with the current firmware and if your server is out of warranty this means you can never upgrade the operating system!  What a joke!!

Luckily, I have uploaded this BIOS update to my Google hosting to ensure anyone who finds themselves in the same situation as me is able to get the SP64420.exe and update their BIOS for a HP Proliant MicroServer G7 N40L allowing them to run Windows 8.1 or Windows Server 2012.  This download is available from the following link:

https://sites.google.com/site/cbblogspotfiles/SP64420.zip

Websense Appliance - Internal Error - Server Connection Terminated

When setting up a Websense V5000 G2 appliance 7.8.1, in Gateway Manager I enabled integrated Windows Authentication, joined the appliance to the domain then enabled SOCKS.  After making these changes, when navigating to websites from clients the following error was experienced:

internal error - server connection terminated

The Internal Error generally occurs when SOCKS has been enabled but not configured.  After disabling SOCKS in the Websense Gateway Manager interface, the issue was resolved.

 

Exporting Drivers from Windows

I stumbled across a great application today called DriverMax - a free application which lets you export drivers from Windows based operating systems.  This tool is handy when you are having difficulty tracking down an unknown driver but have it readably available already installed on another workstation.  With this tool you can simply export the driver from one computer to another.

The latest version of DriverMax as of this writing is version 7.21 which can be downloaded from the following URL:

http://small.drivermax.com/soft/dmx/drivermax.exe

Once installed you will be presented with the following splash screen.  Simply click "Driver backup and restore"

Next select "Backup drivers".

Select the drives you wish to export from the operating system such as display, network or audio drivers.  In my case I have a HP USB mouse/keyboard which is not being recognised by Windows 7 x64 (weird) so I want to move the drivers from a PC which I know have the correct drivers for this device.

I selected "USB Input Device" (both the Mouse and Keyboard both use the same driver).

Next under the backup button select "Backup selected drivers to a specified folder".  Select the folder and then select backup.

Under the folder specified the drivers will be backed up to the respective location as shown in the following screenshot with the driver ini file and system files.

 

ASUS RT-N66U Dark Knight Wireless Problems

I recently purchased a ASUS RT-N66U Dark Knight Wireless to replace an under performing all in one router/modem/wireless hotspot provided by Bigpond Internet here in Australia.  The ASUS RT-N66U was configured in Access Point mode to simply provide wireless access coverage for a residential house using the latest firmware as of this writing 3.0.0.4.374.720 downloaded from the ASUS website.

After the setup of the new wireless hotspot was configured, we tested the unit and it performed amazing.  After the unit was in use for a period of time however we noticed the following problems occur:

• After 4 hours in production, latency pinging the wireless hotspot was fluxuating between 1ms to 400ms.  This was when standing only a couple of metres away from the wireless access point.  Performance of the unit was also sub standard providing less then 4mbps to LAN resources instead of the promised 450mbps as promised by ASUS.  Rebooting the wireless access point resolved the problem.
• Later on a few hours later we then noticed the wireless access point started failing to pass DHCP discovery packets on to a nearby DHCP server and as a result wireless clients started getting 169. APIPA addresses.  Again rebooting the wireless access point.

After reverting to the whirlpool forums I was advised to rollback the firmware to 3.0.0.4.276.  Rolling back the firmware to a previous build stabilised the unit.  It has been a rock solid reliable unit since rolling back the firmware.

To obtain the 3.0.0.4.276 stable build of firmware please visit the following ASUS website:

http://support.asus.com/download.aspx?slanguage=en&m=RT-N66U+(VER.B1)&os=8

I hope these experiences help others who may have similar stability issues with the ASUS RT-N66U Dark Knight Wireless unit.

02A2: BMC System Error Log (SEL) Full.

A customer of mine had a HP ProLiant ML110 G6 server which did not boot successfully.  Upon booting the boot would halt with the following error message:

02A2: BMC System Error Log (SEL) Full.

The fix for this problem was to go into the BIOS by hitting F10 and setting Clear System Event Logs to Enabled in the BIOS.

This can be found under IPMI on the Advanced Tab.

Navigate to System Event Log

And setting the Clear System Event Log to Enabled.  This will ensure the event log is cleared on next boot.  As you see there are no remaining event logs in our BIOS flash memory hence why the error is occurring.

Upon reboot the system will automatically set Clear System Event Log back to Disabled after the clear has been performed.

SM Bus Controller VEN 8086 DEV 1E22

When setting up a new Lenovo X230 for a customer I had problems finding the correct driver for an SM BUS Controller.  The hardware had the following Vendor and Device Id's.

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1E22&SUBSYS_21FA17AA&REV_04

After research it turns out that this hardware matches a Intel 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family SMBus Host Controller.

To download the Intel 7 Series/C216 Chipset Family SMBus Host Controller driver please see the following website:

http://devid.info/download/56602/27

Scroll through the ads until you find 56602_Chipset_9.3.0.1019.zip (2.87 Mb)

Dell Wireless Driver

I had a bit of a drama finding a driver for the following hardware ID today on a customers laptop.

PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_002B&SUBSYS_02051028&REV_01
PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_002B&SUBSYS_02051028
PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_002B&CC_028000
PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_002B&CC_0280
It turned out to be a Dell Wireless 1702 802.11b/g/n adapter which can be found under R301705.exe.  Download this driver from the following website:

http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/au/en/aubsd1/DriverDetails?driverId=R301705

Hope this post has been helpful.

PPTP VPN and Belkin F5D8635

There is an issue with PPTP VPN connections and the Belkin F5D8635 router.  By default the Belkin F5D8635 router does not allow the GRE protocol which is essential for creating PPTP VPN connections between VPN clients and VPN servers.  When attempting to create a PPTP VPN connection from Windows to a host VPN server the following error is experienced complaining that GRE is not available:

Error 806: The VPN connection between your computer and the VPN server could not be completed.  The most common cause for this failure is at least one Internet device (for example, a firewall or router) between your computer and the VPN server is not configured to allow Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) protocol packets.  If the problem persists, contact your network administrator or Internet Service Provider.

Belkin has resolved this issue in the latest version of their firmware which is version 1.00.23.

Login to your Belkin router web interface and click Firmware Update under Utilities.  Under Firmware Version if it says anything below 1.00.23 you will be unable to create a PPTP VPN connection through the router.

Download the latest version of the Belkin firmware from teh following location:

http://www.belkin.com/uk/support/article/?lid=enu&pid=f5d8635uk4a&aid=14489&scid=0&fid=4779&fn=f5d8635v1_ww_1.00.23.bin

For a full list of fixes under Firmware version 1.00.23 please see:

http://www.belkin.com/uk/support/article/?lid=enu&pid=f5d8635uk4a&aid=14489&scid=0

Word Crashes Dell XPS 15z Laptop

I just got a new Dell XPS 15z laptop. Microsoft word however continiously crashes generating the following error in event viewer:

Log Name: Application
Source: Application Error
Date: 9/08/2011 9:42:22 AM
Event ID: 1000
Task Category: (100)
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: Clint-PC
Description:
Faulting application name: WINWORD.EXE, version: 14.0.4762.1000, time stamp: 0x4bae25cd
Faulting module name: btmofficea.dll, version: 1.0.0.49, time stamp: 0x4d382a1a
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00000000000065ff
Faulting process id: 0xd80
Faulting application start time: 0x01cc56359222c86d
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\WINWORD.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Bluetooth\btmofficea.dll
Report Id: d2f29c37-c228-11e0-8b74-feb16a7ed552

This was caused by the bluetooth module that comes with the laptop. In word I went to file --> options. Under Add-Ins we see the bluetooth driver.



Under COM Add-ins click Go. Untick the send to bluetooth checkbox.

HP ML350 G6 hangs at Completing Installation on a Windows 2008 and SBS2008

I had a HP ML350 G6 server that was unable to complete the SBS 2008 install. Everytime it would hang forever at the Completing Installation stage of the Windows setup.



All hardware roms were running latest firmware.

It got to the stage where I had to start removing server hardware to find out what was causing SBS Installation to fail.

The item that was causing the problem was a HP Smart Array P212 SAS Controller which was connected to a HP StorageWorks Ultrium 920 SAS Tape Drive. After removing this card the SBS 2008 installation completed successfully.

Below is a picture of this SAS Card taken from my iPhone 4G:



I removed this card, completed the install of SBS 2008, then installed the card again once Windows was up and running on the system.

Websense v10000 SQL Error

I was in the process of setting up a Websense v10000 appliance. The Websense v10000 appliance needs a Windows Server to run a Log Server that keeps statistical information about users web activity. When entering the SQL details into the Websense Log Server setup the following error was experianced:

Websense reporting tools do not work with this version of SQL you have installed. Upgrade to SQL Server 2000 or MSDE 2000.



I know for a fact that both SQL 2005 and 2008 are supported. The Websense documentation states that the Websense setup creates the SQL Websense database automatically. Because of this I gave my SQL Websense account "dbcreator" permissions. As a test I attempted giving my Websense account "sysadmin" permissions instead of "dbcreator". "sysadmin" is like "Domain Admin" rights in the world of SQL, usually a very bad thing to do as it compromises the security of your SQL server.



After giving the account sysadmin all was fine.

Dell Studio 1537 Laptop Wireless Problems

You may have read my previous post about bluetooth problems with the dell studio laptop. This was fixed by upgrading the firmware from A07 to A08.

See:
http://clintboessen.blogspot.com/2009/05/dell-studio-1537-laptop-bluetooth.html

However the A08 firmware has another bug. If you plug a network cable into the laptop load a few websites etc, then unplug the network cable and use it on wireless, the wireless will not work until a reboot.

Dell released another firmware upgrade A09 that fixes this!

Slow Network Speed with HP v2.8.13.0 on ProLiant DL380 G5

I was called out to look at a email issue between two hub transport servers for a international energy company. Messages were sitting in the queue for long periods of time in the Perth office and were having trouble reaching remote sites. After some investigation I used a bandiwidith testing program called IPerf to monitor bandiwith between the two hub transport servers and found out that they were only getting 700 bits a second between the two servers. This was not due to the link being maxed out.

The ProLiant DL380 G5 server in the remote site was running HP v2.8.13.0 with teaming enabled.

We upgraded the network drivers to the latest as of this writing v5.0.13.0 and disabled teaming. Full network speed returend and email begain flowing correctly.

Was a really weird issue. The client did not want to re-enable teaming until they replace the Cisco 2950 switch!

HP Server Hardware Diagnostics

You have a HP server you wish to perform hardware diagnostics on to identify any potential problems with the server components. What tool do you use? Where do you get it from?

Well HP provide two tools for this:
- HP Insight Diagnostics Online Edition
- HP Insight Diagnostics Offline Edition

Ideally you wish to run the Offline scan as it is more comprehensive and can detect problems the online scan cannot. Where do you get the offine edition however? This is not downloadable from the HP site anymore without a cost. However when you buy a HP server you get a "Smart Start HP CD" with the server which is bootable. If you boot of this disk it has the Offline diagnostics tool on the disk.

As of this writing its up to version 8.3 of the tool. If you cannot find a smart start disk anywhere I found an old copy of the tool (version 8.0) which can be downloaded from the following FTP link:

ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/products/Servers/supportsoftware/ZIP/

Hope this post has been helpful.

hpacucli Create Hot Spare

I have a ProLiant DL360 G5 running Red Hat 4.1.2-14.

This server has a Smart Array 6400 with 13 300GB SCSI disks allocated in two arrays and 1 disk unallocated.

This server also has a Smart Array P400i with 4 disks allocated in 2 arrays and 1 disk unallocated.

My goal is to add the unallocated disk as a spare to both arrays on each controller. This server does not have a GUI so I must use the HP Array Configuration Utility CLI called "hpacucli".

To run the HP Array Configuration Utility CLI simply type "hpacucli" in the shell.

Next lets look at all our arrays using the following command:

ctrl all show config



We can see that Smart Array 6400 is in Slot 2 and Smart Array P400i is in Slot 0. We can also see the unassigned disks are physicaldrive 1:8 and physicaldrive 2I:1:5.

To assign the drives as hot spares run the following commands:

ctrl slot=2 array all add spares=1:8



ctrl slot=0 array all add spares=2I:1:5



We specify "array all" as we want to make the disk available to all disks on the controller. We could go "array A" if we wanted to make the spare available to just onje array... I don't know why you would though!

Now if we run the "ctrl all show config" command again we see it's added it in as a spare:



If you want more information about performing other tasks using hpacucli the following link is the best documentation I could find:

http://people.freebsd.org/~jcagle/hpacucli-readme

Dell PowerConnect 5448 Switch 100mbps?

I have a Dell PowerConnect 5448 Switch with random workstations connecting at 100mbps instead of 1gbps. This is a new internet cafe with brand new CAT6 cabling. 12 workstations have intel network cards, 28 have broadcom network cards.

If I do a show running config on the switch we can see that the speed is set to 1000 by default for all ports.



One of the PC's that is syncing at 100mbps is on port g33 of the switch. Below I manually configured g33 to force it to be 1gbps.



I then unplugged the CAT6 network cable out of port g33, then plugged it back in so it could re-negotiate speed. Again it came up as 100mbps. I then plugged the machine into a TPLink switch.. it negotiated at 1gbps straight away so it is not the cabling.

The firmware i'm running as of this writing is 2.0.0.41 on the PowerConnect 5448 switch which is the latest at this time.

Please note that this is a random occurrence. If I continue to unplug the network cable and plug it back in, it will eventually negotiate at 1gbps.

This is not the only problem I have found with the Dell PowerConnect 5448 switch. It also delays up to 10 seconds when passing on DHCP requests. Please see:

http://clintboessen.blogspot.com/2009/10/dell-powerconnect-5448-symantec-ghost.html

I believe the hardware in the Dell PowerConnect 5448 is fine... however I would avoid purchasing this switch until they release another firmware update resolving these problems.

Dell PowerConnect 5448 Symantec Ghost Problem

I am running a Dell PowerConnect 5448. I upgraded the firmware from 2.0.0.35 to 2.0.0.41 (the latest as of this writing). However when I try and PXE boot the ghost client I get the following error:

Application Error 19913

Unable to start TCP/IP
Can't find DHCP server
Possible Network setup Problem

If the problem persists, contact Symantec Technical Support at http://service.symantec.com.

This is because the Dell PowerConnect 5448 for some reason takes up to 9 seconds to relay a DHCP request from the switch to the DHCP server. The problem could not be resolved, the only resolution was replace the switch.

NDIS2 Intel 82567 LM-3 Gigabit Adapter

I needed the NDIS2 Driver for the Intel 82567 Network Adapters... After surfing the internet for 45 minutes I finally found it. Intel website is so hard to navigate and their search functionality is useless... broadcom is so much easier!

NDIS2 Intel 82567 LM-3 Gigabit Adapter is used in Dell Optiplex 760 PC's.

82567 LM-3 has a vendor ID of 8086 and Device ID of 10DE.

Here is the link to download it:

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=2775&DwnldID=4239&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All%20Operating%20Systems&lang=eng

Hopefully I saved you 45 minutes!