DL320 rebooting nightly

[Nancy Rickard_1]

Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone can help me out.

We have a DL320 server that started rebooting itself on a nightly basis a couple of weeks ago.

We can't find any error messages in the logs and all hardware appears to be functioning properly.

I couldn't find anything that relates to our setup in the KB (articles c00789922 and c00688313 do not apply to us).

We are running W2K3 Server SP1.

Nothing was changed on the server, hardware or software wise so I'm not sure what could be causing the reboots.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nancy

[Andrew_346]

Have you specifically looked at the IML for any ASR messages? You might look to disable ASR temporarily to see if that stops the reboots.

Also check for any ROM updates for this particular system for any updates that might address this problem.

But I would start with disabling ASR.

[Terry Hutchings]

I would also recommend looking in the Integrated Management Log. If there are no errors there, then it's not ASRing.

These kinds of problems with a server rebooting with no errors at all are usually related to power. Is this server using conditioned power? A PPM could also be at fault.

[Oleg Koroz]

Every night? Time?
Any scheduled task overnight?
Room environment?
System LOG and application LOG?
Power changes as it mentioned before? If it attached to same source that might be used by other night time devices?
Night time cleaner did he get a salary increase? ;o)

[Nancy Rickard_1]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the help.

Here are some of the answers and I have some more questions (although they may seem strange).

Andrew - I have no idea what IML or ASR mean. Can you please elaborate? Thanks.

Terry - We are looking at a possibility that it may be the UPS it is hooked up to although it looks OK, we are going to try it on another unit tonight to see if that resolves it.

Oleg - We have no scheduled tasks (the times are erratic though, ranging from 10:30 PM to 7:30 AM).
The room environment hasn't changed although we did consider overheating, everything appears to be staying cool enough and all fans are running.
There is nothing in the Sys or App logs except the note that the shutdown was unexpected. It doesn't even seem to correspond to a particular activity the server is performing.
The server room is locked up tight, only three people have access and the cleaner definitely isn't one of them. 8-)

I'll update tomorrow once we have tried swapping the UPS units. We haven't done it before now as it isn't registering any problems and we haven't been able to bring the server down during the day.

Thanks again,
Nancy

[Gus Kwong]

Two weeks ago? That kinda close to the previous patch-tuesday...

You were saying there is no log in the Event Viewer? Is you Shutdown Event Tracker enabled/disabled? Here is a link about it http://support.microsoft.com/kb/293814

If your server is set for a reboot after BSOD and a core dump, then that will also reboot without a trace (if the Shutdown event Tracker is disabled).

[Nancy Rickard_1]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all of your help.

It turns out it was caused by a faulty UPS ... it just didn't show any symptoms until I unplugged the server, weird.

I went back through our issue logs and there was a power outage around the same time, perhaps that caused the UPS to kick the bucket.

Either way, we have it sorted.

Thanks again,

Nancy

[Nancy Rickard_1]

See last post, faulty UPS.