DL360 "overheat" warning and reboot when InstallShield Wizard for Lexmark printer driver is run

[Nathan P. Emch]

We have an HP DL360 running Windows Server 2003 which we use as a print server. We have never had any problems with it up until earlier today when we tried to extract the drivers for a Lexmark T630. When we ran the InstallShield Wizard to extract the downloaded drivers the fans in the system started to ramp up their speed as if the system temperature was rising. Within 30 seconds we had a warning that the system was overheated and it would now reboot.

It took us a few minutes to figure out that it was being caused by the self-extracting archive. If we ran the Wizard and let it sit at the initial "Next" screen we would hear the fans start to ramp up their speed, and if we closed out of the Wizard before the system rebooted then the fans would ramp back down and everything would go back to normal. We monitored the system temperature via Insight Manager and it did not appear to increase at all. Also, we checked the CPU utilization while the Wizard was running and it was steady at 50%. We duplicated the problem by running several different Lexmark driver packages but we have been unable to duplicate this issue with any other executable or install package.

Any assistance or ideas that any of you may have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Nathan P. Emch
Network Technician
Jackson Kelly PLLC

[HGN]

Hi

This looks like the install shield is having clash with the hardware which is triggering a high temperature alert even if this is not there. Is it doing this only for this Lexmark install or have to tried to install some other printer driver just to make sure the system is behaving properly.

Rgds

Gopi

[Nathan P. Emch]

We have tried a few other driver packages from other vendors as well as a few application install packages. The Lexmark packages are the only ones that cause this issue. I have tested several different Lexmark install packages for different models of printers and all of the packages made using the InstallShield Wizard cause this issue.

The strangest thing about it is that the "install package" is actually just a self-extracting archive using the InstallShield Wizard. All it does is ask you for a location where it dumps the driver files. We have installed the drivers without incident after getting the files extracted; it is the executable itself that is causing the issue, not the drivers.

Below is a link to one of the drivers that can be used to consistently duplicate the issue on our DL360. It is not an application installer, it is just a self-extracting archive. If anyone out there has a DL360 in a test environment running Server 2k3 I implore you to run the package yourself and see if you can duplicate the issue. If you leave the Wizard running at the "Next" screen that comes up initially then the issue should start to occur rather rapidly (about 15 seconds). Closing the program should cause the issue to subside.

http://www.downloaddelivery.com/srfilecache/Lexmark_AAG_Win2000_PCL_en.exe

FYI, our DL360 is running system ROM version P31.