All links down on network adapter false positive alert

[kelmana]

Good day,

For the past few days I have been trying to deal with a false positive issue happening on a DL380 Gen9 machine. This machine has a HPE Ethernet 1Gb 4-port 331FLR Adapter that is not being used, has not cables connected to any of the 4 ports, and all 4 ports are disabled in Windows (it is running win server 2012 r2).  The issue is in random intervals, sometimes as often as every few minutes, I will get alerts on OneView saying "All links down in adapter slot 0" spamming my email inbox and my colleagues' inboxes as well. Re-enabling and disabling the ports in windows seems to stop alerts from being generated for a random amount of time with no real consistency but these false alerts always end up coming back. Also worth mentioning that within the iLO GUI, all 4 ports for this network adapter and the status of the adapter itself show a status of "Unknown", which is consistent with other servers in my environment that have the unused ports disabled in Windows and do not generate these alerts on OneView.

I appreciate any inisght into this.

Thanks in advance!

quick edit: one of my seniors who I consulted on a similar issue a few weeks ago on a different server said the server might need to get power drained by unplugging the power cables and holding down the power button. On that server the solution for the same false positive alerts was to disable the ports in Windows (they had been left enabled) so thankfully I did not have to go out to the server's location. I could try that as a last resource, but it would require me to drive out to the client's site which is pretty far.

[TKop]

OV is receiving that alert from the iLO and thus displaying it.  It is expected that when they are disabled, the link down alerts shouldn't show on the server.  What version of iLO?  Guessing a support case will be needed to determine why the iLO is still throwing the alert even though disabled - in your case sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't it sounds.

[kelmana]

@TKop 

iLO firmware version is 2.80

[TKop]

A support case would be needed to help determine why the iLO is generating traps in this scenario.

[PatrickLong]

The latest firmware for this adapter has listed a single fixlist item "This product addresses an abnormal reporting on link status of HPE 331i Adapter under IML log."  I'm not sure it's directly relateded to the issue you're seeing with iLo alerting, on the false positive but it seems possible. - also I do not believe you mentioned what OS you are running on this server., but do note that per the release notes, HPE recommends HPE Broadcom NX1 1Gb Driver for Windows Server x64 Editions, version 219.0.1.0C or later for use with this firmware..

[TKop]

That firmware note is intriguing and trying it may be worth a try, if possible.

[DamianKozlowski]

very interesting, I have never encountered anything like it.