Replacing Raid Kit in Dell PowerEdge 2850

By Mike Kidd – Velocity Tech Solutions

We have all been there, “memory/battery error” on the PowerEdge 2800-2850-1850 server. And most of the time this can be fixed rather easily with minimal downtime. So today, I will be doing a walk-through on replacing the raid kit on the 28xx series server. Now there are a few cases where it can end up being the riser card causing the issue, but replacing the raid kit seems to fix it more often than not.

Fig 1

First things first, Power down your server and remove the cover. You will now be looking at the picture shown in Fig 1. The yellow circles show the location of the raid kit components (memory, battery, raid key).

Fig 2

While you can get at the riser memory and the raid key without removing anything from the server, it will make your life a whole lot easier to take out or at least lift up the entire riser itself to get at the battery clip. Fig 2 shows the location of the release lever for the riser.

It is a blue lever towards the back of the server on the left side if you are facing the front of the server. Pull the lever back towards you. Be careful however, because sometimes it can bind while releasing and snap the pins inside causing you to have very bad day.

Once you have the lever lifted you can lift the riser straight up and off to the side to give you access to the clip that holds the battery wire to the riser card. Press in and lift to release the battery clip. Fig 3 shows the location of the battery clip and release tabs for the riser memory.

Fig 3

The hardest part of this removal is the battery from its carrier. There is a blue plastic tab (Fig 4) for you to pull up on while pressing back the black plastic that holds it in place.

Fig 4

Now that you have the entire raid kit removed, the installation of the new one is just the reverse of the removal.

For a more detailed and in-depth tutorial of this procedure, check out our How-to video at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kClQrK4-Crc. Don’t forget to check out our other videos at our YouTube channel: velocity783.

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