HP Proliant ML110 G6 Breaks down offen

[Peter Ahlgren]

Hey

I have just installed a brand new HP ML110 G6 server with 10 Gb og Ram.
I have intalled Small Business Server 2011 standard on the server.
My problem is that one ore two times pr every 24 hours, the server just stop responding.
I cannot get a RDP session to the server. When i try to connect by the ILo interface is sayes that the server is in standby mode.

When this issue occur the harddrive led is lightning all the time. The only thing i can do is to turn off the power to the server and start it again. In the Eventviewer i can see the when this issue is happening i got an Kernel Power event error. But nothing else.

The server is running fine, and is it not running dry from memmory.
I have limited the use of memmory on the SQL server instance.
And i have also upgraded the server to the latest firmware.

Iss there anyone that know how to resolve this issue, ore maybe some off you have seen this behaviour before.

Best Regards
Peter

[Johan Guldmyr]

Hey, some ideas..

The Easy Setup CD has some diagnostics on it, would you be able to try to run those?
There is also a CD called memtest86 that you can boot on and run some quite good memory tests.

[Anthony Halvorson]

I've had this problem before, but not on your particular server. My memory is a little foggy going back that far, but I think my issue was with the power. Either my power supply was acting up or it just couldn't sustain enough power for everything to run with high demand. And yes, when it froze up, I couldn't do anything and the HDD light would stay on.

[Michael A. McKenney]

Put on the latest firmware and drivers. You can download memtest86 ISO and test the RAM.

[Peter Ahlgren]

Hey again

I will try to exchange the psu to a new one.
Is there any idea in installing the PSP Pack for the ML110 G7 server, onto this ML110 G6 server.

I have tryed to start the psp pack, hp update manger, and it highlights many drviers, for installation onto the ml110 g6 server. So it semms like that the psppack for g7 server is compatibel with the g6 server, is this true?

[Peter Ahlgren]

Hey again

I have also posted a thread on Microsoft Technet forum, and there is another person, that have the exact same problem as me. Here is what he wrote:
--------------------------------------------
I have the exact same fault... we bought an ML110 G6 about 2 months ago and eventually installed it for our customer 3 weeks ago. It is an ML110 G6 with SBS 2008 and 6GB RAM, also a Smart Array P212 disk controller.

Within a day the server had hung and we had to reset it, no help in the event log. By the next day the same had happened overnight. We spoke to HP and ran various diagnostics (HP Offline Insight Diagnostics) looping for days but no errors and no crash - while booted off the HP CD.

If you change the power settings when in windows so the screen stays on you will see nothing except the mouse stops responding... infact everything stops but there is nothing interesting happening.

After getting nowhere with HP we bought a replacment ML110 G6 and installed the same RAM and storage controller and guess what.... same problem.

I took the new server we bought back to our office and with just the 1GB of RAM it shipped with and the single 250GB SATA disk installed installed Server 2008 R2 and the latest HP drivers/firmware. It ran completely stable... we put in the 3x 2GB memory modules in (a configuration supported by HP) and the thing strated crashing again.

Also found out that if you load up the CPU it crashes very much faster... like 5 mins. It doesn't do this with a single 2GB memory module, but of the 3 2GB modules we have any work fine on their own. We got entirely new RAM from HP (same part number but different manufacturer) and still with 4GB or more RAM installed it crashes quickly... especially under load.

I used the free tool LinX which is a frontend for Intel's Linpack Stability Test program to load up the server (CPU and Memory stress tool) and it just falls over in the same way but in a few minutes.

HP keep saying have you tried the latest firmware like parrots which isn't helpful. Since this appears to be the same in SBS 2008 (Windows Server 2008 x64) and a base Windows Server 2008 R2 but doesn't happen booted off the HP Easy Start CD (a linux boot disk) It's got to be a windows / driver issue but I have been left stumped and now with 2 servers with the same fault despite slightly different OS's.

-------------------------------------------

I think that HP is not very glad fore giving out usefuel support on this issue.
If HP moderator read this, i will encourge HP to thake some king of action in this matter. I have been selling HP product fore years but i am very disapointed in there support manners in this case.

Some one please help

[Michael A. McKenney]

Did you try taking the server back to SBS 2008? Could it be 2011 causing the glitch with driver support. HP does want latest firmware and drivers installed.

Do you have the server on a UPS? Did you test the UPS for a bad battery? Do you have the server on its own circuit?

[Johan Guldmyr]

I would suggest that you call HP Support and direct them to this thread then, maybe that would help them understand your issue.

Sometimes you have to be quite forceful to get them to help you out when it's something extra 'tricky' going on. It might be worth asking for an escalation or something like that.

As for something a bit more productive..

This is a bit time consuming, but if you have the possibility/time, one idea would be to try another supported OS (RHEL, SUSE or Win2k3 if the problem is on SBS2011 and Win2k8) and try to reproduce the issue there.

[rpmsys]

Peter:

Followed you from Microsoft Technet, as I posted there I have ML110 G6 12GB Ram I have stayed for up to 13 days, but recently after some Windows updates only 36 hours. We are running SBS 2011, this last time user just power cycled server, prior hang I was able to get into ILO but still had to do hard reset. Don't recal it happening during the day but usually in the middle of night or Sunday afternoon. Only have 5 users, so not too much CPU Load. I will be placing a HP Support Call as HP Partner tomorrow to log issue maybe request a motherboard replace or something, really annoying.

Rolando

[Peter Ahlgren]

Hey again

I think and hope now that my problem is solved. My server have now been online for 3 hole dayes now.
Before it restarted several times a day.

I have call a local HP Service Provider, and ordred them to replace powersupply, and mainboard, on the HP Warranty program.
And now the server is working just fine, with the 10GB of ram.

So i think that there could be some memmory issues on some off the mainboard, in this product line.

I hope that my solution can bennefit, some off you that also have the problem.

Best regards Peter

[rpmsys]

Peter,

I will do the same immediately, thanks for the info.

[Johan Guldmyr]

If you have the possibility: if you could record the serial number/revision number on the PSU/system board, that might be helpful for other people reading this thread. Are they different after replacing?

[rpmsys]

Peter, Motherboard was replaced and I was up for 6 days, now I lost connection to my server not sure why down yet. Power supply was not replaced. How has your server been running?

[rpmsys]

Managed to telnet into server iLO, power was up but server not functioning, appears to be same symptom.

[Peter Ahlgren]

Hey

The server has been up and running, with only 1 restart since the mainboard and powersupply was replaced.

I found out that the onsite HP technican, didnt upgrade the firmware on the new mainboard, so that firmware was very old.
I think that the newest firmware on the mainboard, and the new powersupply has done the diffrent.

The server is stabel now.

[rpmsys]

Well server hung again, had to power cycle. It was up for 11 Days, 16 hours, 43 minutes,last event record is of Sharepoint Foundation Search Warning, it seems that is the last event at least the last 2 times. Going to call HP and see what they suggest, maybe power supply. Frustrating!

[rpmsys]

Peter:

What is the latest, I am having little luck with HP, I have asked to have the motherboard replaced again.

Maybe this time I will install less memory to see. 

Did you not test with SBS 2008 how about SBS 2003.  I told HP I did not think it was the OS.

[havix]

Wow, I thought I was the only one.  I installed SBS 2011 Essentials about 3 weeks ago and have two hard locks since then.  I get nothing on the display but the ml110 G6 is still running with no error lights.   I have to do a hard power cycle for it to come back up.   I added an additional 8GB of HP RAM to the system to total 10GB so that might be a similarity.  I also have installed 2 additional Seagate drives in a RAID-1 for backup purposes so I assumed it was the drives causing the issues but I haven't tried running the server without them. Also, before deploying I ran it through  3-4 passmark burn in tests without any issues.  

Anyone make some headway on this?  It's embarrasing deploying a brand new server to a small business and having lockup issues.

[twhite_1]

I'm also having the same issues. Purchased 2 Proliant ML110 G6 servers and both of them are practially useless. Tried to return them to the reseller who said that I have to deal with HP on the issue. Several months later, 3 motherboard replacements, and 42GB of RAM later, we have 2 nice step stools. Both servers would crash at different times during boot. I was unable to even install an OS on these servers because it would crash during the install. Used the recommended HP Ram and still got the same issues. When the first motherboard was replaced, I was able to install an OS and the server was actually stable for a while. Suddenly, it would lock up after a few days of running, under a relatively light load. Had to manually power it down and the screen was unresponsive. The other server I had no luck whatsoever. On both server, had the max of 16GB of RAM. The one that was actually "running" for a while, as I stated before, eventually started to  crash. On the other one, I have to use 8GB, using only 2 populated DIMM slots for me to install an OS. But it would also start to crash at different times, sometimes in the OS and sometimes during boot. I've been on the phone, chat, etc with HP for too many hours and still no resolution. Ended up purchasing 2 ML160 to replace the ML110 and they been running like champs. HP should fess up to whatever is the issue with these machines and offer a replacement  to those users experiencing these issues.

[CTWN]

Adding memory, updating ILO, firmware, adding memory, firmware, insight manager, ad nauseum.

It has helped with all the updates but the fact is this doesn't restart itself after crashing.  That's all I ask.

Using ILO I can see Timer Interrupt, Uncorrectable ECC and DIMM (different channel) events.  To me this is a failed memory subsystem.  I tested the memory and got no problems but thinking more memory would help have completely changed to 4 x 4GB Kingston modules and again, it seemed to make a difference but it still happens.

I've spoken to HP a couple of times and it's always the "update firmware" BS.  Not good enough.

[colliema]

This is a very enlightening thread...

I've been struggling with the same issues with my ML110 G6 server, running WHS 2011. After making sure the BIOS and all drivers were up to date, I spent weeks playing around with what appeared to be a memory issue. I've tried several "compatible" combinations of memory (1,2, 4 and 8GB), runs stable with the original inadequate 1GB HP DIMM, hangs at least once every 24hr period with (2) 1GB HP DIMMs.

I did notice that looking in the system logs under the advanced tab in the BIOS setup after one of the hangs, a "OS Critical Stop" entry was logged with a "6F - Sensor specific" tag. This appears to happen with each hang. Can anyone tell me how to track down the cause for this error?

[colliema]

As an update, I enabled the "Clear System Event Log" selection under the BIOS setup menu /Advanced/IPMI/System Event Log and the system has run stable for days. May be part of the answer...

[thebase]

Hello, try to disable the "memory interleaving" from BIOS, this fix for me ;)

Roberto

[MP-Redtree]

Hi everyone

I have a ML350 G6 and an ML330 G6 with the same issues, Both SBS 2011 with SP1

the steps so far on the ML350 are as follows

1) Disabled the HP Automatic Server Recovery

the server now hangs for a short while and does not reboot.

2) Diabled AV

made little difference.

3) Disabled all HP services,

I'm stable at the moment but will feed back on this later.

The ML330 we are going to stop the HP services one at a time to see wich one may be causing the issue.  We have other servers on SBS2011 ith no problems, the main difference is the HP software.

Hope this helps someone.

[MP-Redtree]

I'm going to disable the "memory interleaving" from BIOS on the ML330 as Roberto suggested and will post back about this in the next few days.