HP A4800A manual Card Compatibility

Installing the A4800A Adapter

Looking at Adapter Installation

Card Compatibility

On-Line Addition (OLA). When on-line adding an interface card, the first issue that must be resolved is whether the new card is compatible with the system. Each PCI slot provides a set amount of power. The replacement card cannot require more power than is available.

The card must also operate at the slot’s bus frequency. A PCI card must run at any frequency lower than its maximum capability; however, a card that operated at a maximum of 33 MHz would not work on a bus running at 66 MHz. rad provides information about the bus frequency and power available at a slot, as well as other slot-related data.

On-Line Replacement (OLR) When on-line replacing an interface card, the replacement card must be identical to the card being replaced or at least be able to operate using the same driver as the replaced card. This is referred to as like-for-likereplacement and should be adhered to because using a similar but not identical card may cause unpredictable results. For example, a newer version of the target card which is identical in terms of hardware may contain an updated firmware version that could potentially conflict with the current driver.

The PCI specification allows a single physical card to contain more than one port. A single-port SCSI bus adapter can not be replaced by a dual-port adapter, even if the additional port(s) on the card are identical to the original SCSI bus adapter.

When the replacement card is added to the system, the appropriate driver for that card must be configured in the kernel before beginning the operation. SAM ensures the correct driver is present. (In most cases, the replacement card will be the same type as a card already in the system, and this requirement will be automatically met.) If you have any question about the driver’s presence, or if you are not certain that the replacement card is identical to the existing card, you can use ioscan together with rad to investigate.

•If the necessary driver is not present and the driver is a dynamically loadable kernel module (DLKM), you can load it manually. Refer to the section “Dynamically Loadable Kernel Modules” in Chapter 2 of the document: Configuring HP-UX For Peripherals, HP Part Number B2355-90698 for more information.

•If the driver is static and not configured in the kernel, then the card cannot be On-line Added. The card could be physically inserted on-line, but no driver would claim it.

Chapter 2 21