topic Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts in ProLiant Servers (ML,DL,SL)

dl165 g7 randomly restarts

cgill — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 14:57:48 GMT

Hi all,

I have a brand new dl165 g7 that has had issues straight out of the box. initially it had issues and would hickup and pause the system for split seconds every few seconds, that was solved with a firmware update to the storage controller. since then it seemed fine until a few weeks ago it began a daily cycle of randomly restarting. at no specific time of day, usage level (often while idling) or frequency during the day. crash logs simply state system unexpectantly shut down. I have changed the power source 3 times by moving it from room to room, ran an 80 hour memtest+ (v4.2) with no errors, and simply cannot figure out what is wrong. I have run all the patches I can think of.. any advice is welcome :-\

is there an hp specific set of tests that i can run to test power supply and system board/components?

this is with windows 2008 r2 64 bit, 4 gb ram, running as a domain controller (hardly has a load since this was aimed at being a replacement dc, we have 3 others already) with dns.

thanks!

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

Oscar A. Perez — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 18:13:05 GMT

Have you tried disabling C-States in the BIOS/OS?

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

cgill — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:01:28 GMT

only p-states are listed, which is at 0. I changed the cpu performance to 'performance' from 'efficient' which I'm hoping is a simple way of dealing with c-states

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

ProliantWatch — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:30:38 GMT

Try applying the latest BIOS update. Also remove any non hp Dimms

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

cgill — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:37:44 GMT

I can't get the usb flash to work properly. I had it format that drive and add all the files through the program (oddly it put Opera Next in the directory as well) and then ran it on the server, it booted in to the flash drive and then failed while executing autoexec.bat

RomPaq may take a few minutes to get started, please be patient...

Command or filename not recognized

then it goes to the command prompt of C:\ which is actually still the flash drive

This is disappointing, I'm pretty sure I did nothing incorrect as I've made linux flash drives and they typically work just fine.

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

cgill — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:53:20 GMT

so after comparing the distribution folder's usbkey folder and what the usb prep program did, they are very different. while it does have some hp stuff, it was not even close to what was needed. I copied over what was in the usb key folder and then replaced the autoexec.bat (it wanted to run rompaq.exe which did not exist) and instead the new one runs the actual files that are present.

this is highly discouraging, apparently no one in HP tested this bios update utility before packaging it. where the heck did opera next come from too? the drive was completely clean to begin with before running the utility to prep it for the bios-update boot files. I would highly suggest someone from HP to look in to this. Attached is an image of what the final filesystem of the usb drive looks like..

after running the bios update I'll monitor if the machine stays up.

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

Renjiv — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 10:57:20 GMT

Hi,

I think you have downloaded the BIOS firmware from a different site.

Please check the BIOS download from below link. It is the latest version.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=4091396&prodNameId=4091397&swEnvOID=54&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-4a5af7124035409b9543b0f253

Updating the BIOS to latest version will fix the rebooting issues.

Regards,

Renji V

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

fystmo — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:35:09 GMT

I'm having the same problems, a new DL165 g7 that keeps restarting, at random intervals, but around once per day on average. Tried different Linux OS distros, and also made the above mentioned BIOS upgrade. Nothing helps. Getting desperate.

Cheers, Torbjorn

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

cgill — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:54:34 GMT

I finally believe my system is now stable (been a week now). I performed full firmware updates (hard drive controller, bios, and nic).

Try all of the firmware updates possible, see how that goes. In addition, change the performance of the processor to 'performance' and not 'efficient' while in the bios menu, I believe that was the actual culprit for the random restarts

I'm disappointed the system was shipped in such a state, glad I am not alone :)

Re: dl165 g7 randomly restarts

fystmo — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:40:05 GMT

My box has now been running for 20 days without resetting itself. Before that, I noticed in the SEL log that some of the resets, including one that happened just after the BIOS upgrade, coincided with an ECC error on one of the memory banks, so I reseated all memory modules, and also changed the performance setting to 'performance', following your advice. Since then, no more ECC errors, and no spontaneous restarts. So, I'm happy.

Thanks a lot for your help!

Cheers, Torbjorn