HP Proliant DL180 G6 server stuck at standby, no start up

[ScottBouch]

Hi all,

I bought an HP Proliant DL180 G6 2nd-hand from Ebay in November 2017, and it's been running fine for the last 2 years at my home, it's running Ubuntu and used as a home media & CCTV server. However, now it won't start up and is stuck in standby mode. Nothing has changed, it just wouldn't start up again after a shut down.

When I connect the mains the following occurs:

- The power button glows solid amber indicating standby mode.
- The system health LED lights amber (non-critical error) for a couple of seconds, followed by solid green (healthy) for a few seconds,then goes out.
- The green BMC LED on the main board also flashes (indicating BMC activity). - Dual PSU green LEDs don't illuminate (but these only light when running, so no surprise).

However, after this point, then pressing the power button does not result in anything happening, basically it's stuck in standby mode and won't start up. Tried short and long button presses, and no joy.

I've been reading the manual, and online posts, and gave the following a try.

I have tried power-cycling it (mains on / off) with the J27 maintenance jumper in all positions;
- A (clear CMOS),
- B (clear password),
- C (recovery BIOS),
- D (recovery BMC),
- E (RTC reset).
Nothing improved.

The CMOS battery is healthy at 3V.

The RAM sticks are all in the correct slots according to the manual.

UID LED's don't light when the ID buttons are pressed, but I imagine these wouldn't until the server powered is on.

I have cleaned out the small amount of dust accumulated, but it wasn't bad.

Can you suggest any other way to get this machine out of standby mode and booted again? I've not tried pulling the CMOS battery, as I didn't want to risk having to re-load the BIOS and the extra world of pain that would entail.

Many thanks, Scott.

[AmRa]

Hi 

Please follow the below action to isolate the issue.

Action1:

Reseat all the possible server components.

Action2:

Bring the server to the base/bare minimum hardware configuration by removing the additional hardware components, external devices (For example 1 Processor, 1 pair of Memory etc.).

NOTE: Do not install any expansion board, PCI cage, Hot-plug backplane board, Hot-plug hard drive, Non-hot-plug hard drive, Optical drive, cache module or board etc.

If server is powering ON and giving display with new parts keep adding one by one remaining component and perform below steps. Once server powers ON with full configuration, perform Action2.

Action3:

Power DOWN the server, remove power cord and clear the NVRAM using system maintenance switch number 6. Once done, power ON the server and do the below setting in BIOS:

Select the Advanced menu.

Scroll down to IPMI and press the ENTER key.

Scroll down to the System Event Log and press the ENTER key.

At the Clear System Event Log selection, press the ENTER key to toggle between Enable and Disable. Select Enable.

Press the F10 key to save the changes and exit the BIOS Setup. Recycle the server once BIOS setting is done.

Regards

AR