Server hangs at blinking cursor before reboot.

[Ayman Altounji]

Hello, I have a server issue that I cant seem to solve, I have a Compaq ProLiant 3000 (Piii 550 / Single CPU) with a SmartArray 431 (three 36 gig drives in Raid 1 + hot spare) and two dual nics (3131's) the system was built off smartstart 4.9 with windows 2000 server SP1 (sp1 already installed) everything works fine (including rebooting) until I install *anything* off the windows 2000 update site... after I do then the computer will not reboot. It starts to shutdown but at the point that the server should restart I get a blank screen and blinking cursor at the top left corner; with the only option of cycling the power on the server. I have rebuilt the server off the smartstart disk 7 times now... each time with different hardware changes ... all with the same result.

All the firmware is up-to-date and so are the drivers...

I'm all out of ideas, so if anyone out there can lend some advise; I'd really appreciate it.

[Ayman Altounji]

I'd be curiuos to know if anyone has either gotten this problem fixed by Compaq or has figured out a work around to this. Every Proliant 3000 that we have installed Windows 2000 on has exhibited this problem (we have both the dual 300MHz and the dual 450MHz version). All of our servers have the current posted System ROMs and well as Remote Insight Lights Out Edition cards. We also have a DL380 that was recently converted to W2K, from NT4, that is doing this as well. All of these servers have been rebuild with SmartStart 5.0 and still have the same problem. We have had no problems with W2K on any of our other model Proliant servers.

[Ayman Altounji]

I too have had the same problem since I upgraded to Win2k advanced server (same problem when I tried Win2k Server). I too have the latest bios. I have no remote management nor Insight Packages installed.

I am running SP2 with all latest patches.. Nothing I do has made a difference..

I strongly recommend Compaq come up with a solution if they wish to continue receiving our business.

[Ayman Altounji]

Same here, I updated Win2k server with SP2 and and all the updates available on Microsoft's site. Shut down and reboot were working fine from prior to the Microsoft updates. Now I get the same blinking cursor in the upper left hand corner forcing me to power off and then back on to reboot.

Hope here is a fix for this soon

[Ayman Altounji]

I think Compaq as disregarded this issue as unimportant, as it is an older server.. :(

I don't think I will recommend Compaq servers to our company any more.

[Robert W. Smith_1]

When I have time, I've been searching for an answer to this problem on my Compaq Proliant 3000 server for better than six months. It occurred after a server upgrade from NT to Win2K and patches to SP4. I did everything all in one sitting, so I really wasn't sure what caused it. Bacically, the server stopped shutting down all the way, I never got to "It is OK to shut turn off the computer now" (or what ever that exact message is). Rather, it just stopped at a blank screen with a blinking "-" in the upper left corner. I literally spent 20 hours over that 6 months searching knowlegebases on Compaq, Microsoft and the internet in general.
Finally, after using some creative key words I came across a Microsoft Knowlege Base article # 306942 (yes, I did say Microsoft-usually last place I look for an answer to anything) that suggested removing Media Player 7X components. I took it one step further and removed it totally, shut down to the "-" screen again, pulled the plug, restarted, and shut down again. It worked!. I almost fell off my chair...the Microsoft artical solved my problem.
I tried the few other ideas I found like replacing the CD driver and others similar. I didn't have the Easy CD creator software installed, so none of that applied. But I had the same problem they were describing.
I'm sure different things will work for different environments, but maybe this is something to try as it is not very invasive...

[Jeremy Black]

Hi... I have two Proliant 7000 servers that have the same problem... every time the servers are shut down, it never truly makes it... it stops at the black screen with the blinking cursor in the upper left part of the screen. The bios/support pack/service packs are all updated. Seems to be a problem with this model server since I have two that do the same thing. These servers only have the base Media Player, and I cannot uninstall that. Another article suggested disabling disk performance counters. That also did nothing. Suggestions?
Thanks...

[Jeremy Black]

Here is an update to mine, still no resolution:
The bios/support pack/service packs are all updated. Versions E40/6.4/4 respectively. I have moved all cards to the non-hotplug slots, and I have spent several hours on the phone with Compaq techs. We were able to reboot in safe mode, so they concluded it was software. I removed almost all software, like McAfee, but that did not do anything.
Please help!!
-Jeremy

[Victor Pendlebury]

Hi

Have a look at this Article from Microsoft

Q228734

Even though this only specifies Windows NT, I know it applies to Windows 2000 : I have allready encountered this problem

Regards
Vic

[Jeremy Black]

Hi Vic, thanks for the response.
However, this article seems to apply to machines that encounter the blinking cursor on startup, when the computer tries to load the boot sector. My two machines have no problem booting... they have a problem shutting down, and thus they also have a problem rebooting. The black screen with blinking cursor comes up immediately after the "windows is shutting down" message. I recently applied an older version of the Compaq Support Pack (6.3) in an attempt to fix it, but this still did nothing. Thanks for any more help you may provide...
-Jeremy