Source

RETAIN tip: H183415

Symptom

When booting the system it may display an "1801 PCI device resource allocation failure" message on the screen. The message referenced above indicates that the system ROM space is full and it has no more room for additional adapters which use ROM space.

Affected configurations

The system may be any of the following IBM eServer systems:

• IBM eServer xSeries 346, type 8840, any model
• IBM eServer xSeries 236, type 8841, any model

Solution

Changing the boot priority or disabling some devices corrects the problem. In some cases, a ServeRAID-7K (39R8800 replaces 71P8642, field replacement unit (FRU) 71P8644) or RSA II may be needed in order to avoid the 1801 messages (see the Additional Information section for configuration information).

Workaround

There are several workarounds that can correct this problem:

• Disable some of the PCI components during boot.
• Change the PCI boot device priority.
• Disable ROM execution of some of the devices. This can be achieved using either F1 BIOS setup or by means of an optional Remote Supervisor Slimline Adapter II (RSA 2 slimline) if installed.
• Disable PXE boot on the onboard network adapters by entering F1 Setup and disabling "Planar Ethernet PXE/DHCP" from Start Options.

Additional information

These products are limited to 128K of ROM space as all Intel based systems. With today's requirements of more complex embedded devices and pluggable adapter cards this space is often depleted before a desired configuration can be supported resulting in an 1801 message.

When booting the system, it may display an "1801 PCI device resource allocation failure" message on the screen.

The message referenced above indicates that the system ROM space is full and it has no more room for additional adapters which use ROM space.

If your system is configured with two of the following adapters, a 1801 PCI message will appear:

• ServeRAID-6M Ultra320 SCSI Controller, 128MB Cache with battery, 32P0033
• ServeRAID-6M Ultra320 SCSI Controller, 256MB Cache with battery, 02R0988
  
  
• FAStT FC-2 Host Bus Adapter, 19K1246
• FAStT FC-133 Host Bus Adapter, 24P0960
• FAStT Host Adapter, 00N6881
• IBM Ultra320 SCSI Controller, Option part number 71P8594 replacement part number 71P8613

There are three ways to correct the problem. Please choose the one that fits your configuration best:

• Disable the onboard integrated SCSI controller (you will not be able to boot from the disabled controller). This will free up 50K of ROM space.
• Purchase and install a ServeRAID-7K in your system. This will free up 18K of ROM space.
• Purchase and install an RSA II SlimLine, go to advance setup and disable ROM execution of some of the devices.

The referenced file will be available from the Servers - ServeRAID Software Matrix.