ASR Detected by System ROM

[Ayman Altounji]

We have 20 machines configured with Windows 2000 on DL380's. System Rom is dated 11/08/00. Array firmware is 1.42. Using the latest SSD from Compaq web site. The last 4 out of 6 we built using the same process as the first few are blue screening and permorming an ASR for no good reason we can see. No applications have even been installed yet.

[Ayman Altounji]

Even though there are no known issues with running Windows 2000 on the DL380, here is some general information on ASR: The Automated Server Reset (ASR) is a feature of the bios where if the server should lock up due to a software malfunction, the server detects the lockup and forcibly restarts the server via a Non Maskable Interrupt. Common causes are software processes that get 'hung', excessive network traffic that cause delays in excess of your timeout value for ASR. The timeout value is set by default to 10 miniutes.
Some troubleshooting tips - you may want to monitor what processes were happening at the time - for example was a backup in progress or was large amounts of data being moved across the network?
Adding new software (or updates) can trigger an ASR sometimes when server software conditions change to cause the delay detected.
Very rarely (but possible) are the hardware causes for ASR. Check network activity - if a NIC is beginning to fail, it can cause a packet storm or fail to recognize packets, which could result in a delay which in turn could trigger an ASR.
If you're running monitoring software (Like Compaq Insight Manager) you could set it to notify you when the server reboots.