ML350 G4 Internal Health LED lit, fans full speed

[sc123]

When the ML450 G4 unit is powered on, the fans spin at full speed and it doesn't post. The Internal Health LED is red, all others are green except UID which is not lit.

Based on the manual the next step is to check the motherboard for amber lights, which I did. The #6 Processor 2 light flashes amber, but there isn't a second processor so I'm not sure that is relevant to the issue. There is another amber flashing LED but it isn't labeled in the manual. It is directly above and on the top right corner of proc 1. It is about an inch to the left of the #4 PPM 1 LED. I can't figure out what this light represents and there is nothing about it anywhere that I can find. I also have nothing else to use to troubleshoot. Any help would be appreciated!

[Brian_Murdoch]

Hi,

If this is a ML350 G4p model then it is almost certainly caused by the power supply backplane (where the power supplies plug into). This is quite common and the symptoms you describe fit the problem.

Try reseating the power supplies a few times to see if it helps. If you can smell burning or see any melted plastic in that area then don't attempt anything else until you have reported the fault to HP as you could end up with more damage.

If it's a G4 (not the p model) it could still be caused by the power backplane but the problem was less common in that model and the power backplanes are different.

G4p power backplane - Spare part 390548-001.
G4 power backplane - Spare part 365065-001.

I hope this helps,

Brian

[sc123]

Brian:
It's no a power supply issue, that was my first thought as well.

Since I posted this topic I actually found the cause of the issue. I removed the IDE cable that connected the CDROM drive and the system booted! I tried another CDROM drive but the system failed to boot, so I tried yet again with the IDE cabled connected but no drive on the other end. This also failed to boot, meaning the problem was the IDE cable itself - or the system won't boot if a cable is connected without a drive (which I doubt).

In the end it looks like it was just a bad IDE cable - but for a single IDE cable that only supplied a CDROM drive to bring down an entire server seems bizarre to me. The fact is, that when I removed the IDE cable the server boots normally!

[sc123]

As stated in my last post.