DL380 G10 System Battery (that keeps real time clock functioning) check and questions.....

[Doooh]

Hello.   I have an DL380 G10 in production.  I am not on site.

Q1).  How do you check the status of the system battery remotely via iLO 5?  This is the internal system battery that keeps the time and date accurate.   I assume during a power failure.

Q2).  What happens if the battery is dead and the server loses it's correct time and date?   Will the server go haywire?

Q3).  If I had someone onsite.  Is there a simple way to test the status of the system battery?

Thanks!!

[rabindra11sharm]

Dear  Doooh

there some steps to know about CMOS battery or System battery which is a round in shape and have 3.2 Volts DC power.

• Check the voltage: Open the computer's case, remove the CMOS battery, and use a digital multimeter to measure its voltage. A healthy CMOS battery should have a voltage of around 3 volts. If it's below 2.5 volts, you should replace it. 
• Check the boot process: Unplug the computer's power supply cable and leave it off overnight. In the morning, plug it back in and turn it on. If the computer boots without issues and you don't need to set the date and time, the battery is likely fine. If you need to set the date and time, or if the BIOS settings reset, the battery might need replacing. 
• Check for error messages: Look for error messages related to CMOS or BIOS settings during startup. 

Some other signs of a failing CMOS battery include: 

• The computer's time and date are incorrect or reset to a default date after restarting
• BIOS settings keep reverting to default values
• The computer has boot issues, such as failure to POST or boot loops
• You see error messages related to CMOS or BIOS settings during startup
• The computer has hardware detection problems
• Boot times are noticeably longer then normal.
• iLO reports error massage in IML log.
• amber LED glowing infront of the server as system health degraded.

If CMOS battery / system battery got faulty,  Simply power off the server. remove power cord. press and hold power button of server for 10-15 Sec. remove top cover of the server. locate the circular metal coin battery on system board. check its position properly, remove it and replace with new one. power cabe re connect, power on the server. press F9 for system menu/ RBSU menu/ BIOS settings, rectify the BIOS settings date and time settings, boot order, any special configurations if you have. select save settings and exit from the menu to boot the server into OS.

Hope, I could provide you with clear and helpful instructions. If you have any more questions or need further assistance, don't hesitate to ask. I'm here to help!

Have a great day!!

[Cali]

And let me say, that in over 30 years, I never changed a System Battery.
The Server must be very very old, if this happens, I wouldn't expect that from a Gen10 server.

Cali

[Doooh · Accepted solution]

Thank You Rabindra.  Thank you Cali.  

Just to close things off.  The G10 server is a spare server that had been sitting a long while (not sure how long).   When my engineer went to deploy/swap it out and put in production.  He noticed the real time clock set to some stupid date in the future, like the year 2182.  He has never seen the clock off by such a large date.  Anyway, he reset and put in production.  We only have this single server in production.  Which is why I was hoping there was a way to check via iLO and not have to power down or pull the plug.    In the end we pointed to this pic (screenshot below)  from the iLO of SubSystem and Devices as evidence System Battery is good.  (See BIOS / Hardware Health = OK.)  Plus we could find no alarms.

See BIOS / Hardware Health

I also found something in the iLO userGuide.  But, I think it only applies to an HPE technician via remote support. 

HP iLO 5 user guide link

[Sunitha_Mod]

Hello @Doooh,

That's Awesome! 

We are glad to know that you were able to find the solution and we appreciate you for keeping us updated.