Dell PE 2850 vga monitor resolution too low/narrow

H Daniel

Thanks for getting back to me... I guess that was the answer I was expecting - but thanks for clearing it up...

Mike

As a matter of interest... Why do I get the:

The "Display Adapter" says - Standard VGA Graphics Adapter 

....surely it should say its a ATI Radeon VE Graphics Adapter/card...

I can't stop thinking that something is missing and the server is simply using the "lowest" default graphics adapter....

There are 3 cards slotted into the PCI-E slots....

1. I presume is the RAID Controller

2. I presume is a Network Card

3. I was thinking is the/a Graphics card....

Sorry for sounding so stupid...

Mike

1024x768 is the max resolution (no wide ratios supported).

Thing I wanted to address was this:

"I tried to download an ATI Radeon driver but it was obviously the incorrect one as all my RAID drives FAILED"

This should not happen and should not be related. I would caution you to treat these as separate events.

Make sure the BIOS and ESM (and DRAC if installed) are up to date. PERC 4e/Di firmware should also be up to date.

Use the 2008x64 driver for video, as there is not a 2008 R2 driver (and the native driver may not be suitable for the particular chipset).

If your drives are failing, I would look at the drives you are using - are they certified or generic? Are the drives' firmware up to date? Do they individually pass diagnostics? Is your RAID controller firmware up to date?

I worked with MANY of these 2850's, although it has been several years since I got rid of all of them. They all ran 2008 R2 and ran great, but updates are critical for these boxes.

Update the BIOS, BMC, and PERC (and DRAC, if installed), in this order ... maybe before you install Windows updates:

BIOS: https://downloads.dell.com/bios/PE2850_BIOS_WIN_A07.EXE
BMC: https://downloads.dell.com/esm/BMC_FRMW_WIN_R223079.EXE
BP: https://downloads.dell.com/esm/ESM_FRMW_WIN_R99806.EXE
PERC: https://downloads.dell.com/scsi-raid/RAID_FRMW_WIN_R126663.EXE
DRAC: https://downloads.dell.com/sysman/RAC_FRMW_WIN_R222914.EXE

What make/model are the hard drives and are they Dell-certified versions?

You CAN turn off RAID in the BIOS and just use them in native SCSI mode ... under Integrated Devices in the system BIOS Setup utility, change RAID Enabled to SCSI Enabled. This will NOT allow you to take advantage of the write caching of the RAID controller, decreasing performance (but may not be important to you).

Hi Flash... thanks so much for getting back to me....

Ja.. there's nothing about Dell on them.. made in Singapore.... Atlas 10K...  3.5 Series....  Ultra 320 SCSI...

Ok... let me try the above...

 

Appreciate the help... thanx...

Thanx... The BIOS is updated..., and I have all the other "Updates" on a CD-Rom in the drive... I guess I haven't run them since I kept having to re-install the OS.... but will run them in order when I install 2008r2 again... thanx Ummm... SCSI Drive 1 - 300GB Maxtor... 10K Rpm...not much else to say about it... SCSI Drive 2 - Same... SCSI Drive 3 - Seagate Cheetah 15k RPM ..then... SCSI Drives 4, 5 and 6 - Seagate Cheetah 15k RPM...BUT.... One of them does not even show up in the Config... and the other 2... say "---" 0GB storage.... (I wish I could trouble shoot this because a week ago... only 2 of the drives were saying 0GB space...anyways).... I've got no idea if they are Dell certified or not.... I'm going to try to turn off the RAID in the BIOS as you suggested... Will report back... Thanks for your help... Mike

If they are Dell-certified, they will have a Dell logo on them with a Dell Part Number (Dell PN or DPN, with some sort of number on it like CN 0N3445)

Sounds like you either have bad drives or incompatible drives (generic drives that don't know how to talk to the RAID controller).

Ummm... in the BIOS "Integrated Devices" I only have 2 options... SCSI or OFF...  I don't have a RAID option... maybe this has got something to do with my issue...

 

Can I NOT configure my drives as RAID drives and just boot the system up...? If that makes any sense...

Ok, well... thanks Flash for your help...

I've installed 2008r2 again and have run the drivers as per your list. Only the BMC updated... the BIOS and ESM said I already had the latest versions... RAID and DRAC said my system was not compatible with the update??? Sooo, I'm a bit worried about that...

I also only set  up the one 300GB drive as a RAID 0....

So far everything seems ok... I'll run the Windows updates now....

Thanks again for your help... Hopefully I won't have to bother you again with this... but I will give you an update in a day or two... hopefully not sooner...

Cheers... Mike

**bleep**...

The only way I was able to install Server 2008r2 on my PE 2850 was to use the - PERC 4/DC driver....

When installing the Server Manager software it said that my PERC driver (PERC 4/DC firmware) was outdated...

Everytime I try to update the PERC driver (PERC 4e/Di firmware) I get told that none of the systems on the computer are compatible...

I've tried several of the "Drivers" from the Dell "Downloads" section using PE2850 and Server 2008r2 criteria but none of them work...

How do I get my current PERC drivers current... I've seriously tried them all...

Sorry to keep on at this but I need to get things current as per "Flash's" recommendation above....

Thanx...

Mike

"Everytime I try to update the PERC driver (PERC 4e/Di firmware) I get told that none of the systems on the computer are compatible"

Driver is not the same as firmware. I linked to the firmware package, upon which the driver is often dependent. 

https://downloads.dell.com/scsi-raid/LSI-LOGIC_MULTI-DEVICE_A00_R227150.exe

 

Ok... I'm not sure how to run this from outside of the OS (cmd Prompt I presume) - but I'll read up on how to do it and try it...

Thanx...

Thanks Flash...

When I try to run/install the RAID_FRMW_WIN_R126663 firmware (as per your list of 5 things to do in sequence) I get the following "Warning"....

"The Update Package is running on an unsupported new operating system. Do you want to continue?"... I click "Yes".... and then get this "Error" Message...

"This Update Package is not compatible with any of the devices detected in your system."

So, I am at a bit of a loss here....

Do any of these Error/Warning messages make any sense to you? - I have a clean install of Server 2008r2 and my BIOS and BMC are updated and current...