ML350 G5 SBS Box Freezing

[Chris Devine]

I have an ML350 G5 quad core server running SBS 2003 RC2 with a E200i Smart Array Raid controller with 4GB of RAM. The server is also running SQL server 2005 and Eset NOD32 AV. During setup and install everything run well but about a week into production it started freezing up completely and has to be switched off and restarted. It seems to happen around once every 2 days.

The system just completely locks up with no error in the event log (it just stops logging when it locks up)

We can then restart the system OK (sometimes we have to start in safemode and disable some services and then restart (probably caused by the dirty shutdown!)

We have completely swaped the server with a new identical ML350 G5 - we just moved the existing HDD's and every thing else is new (server, ram, raid controller, power supply etc)and the problem is still there, so it looks it is not hardware related.

Any clues or advice would be much appreciated.

[sanesh vig]

Could be caused by the firmware of the HDDs

Please use the following link to make a firmware maintanence CD and run this on the server.

This should update the firmware of the HDDs as well

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=1121586&prodNameId=3279711&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-26a0f9e294764a91b76b282f2a

[Walter R-T]

I didn't want to hijack your thread Chris so I've created my own one, but we are having what I think may be a very similar problem. Please have a look at

http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1185055

and see if the symptoms I describe are the same as you are experiencing.

Many thanks,

Walter

[Chris Devine]

Thanks Guys

I ended up doing the following 3 things

1. Updated the e200i smart array controller firmware to v 1.66.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=nz&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=1121586&prodNameId=3279711&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-12ffe40b05604ee38c6a3c3475

2. Update the win server 2003 driver for the e200i to v 6.8.0.32

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=nz&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=1121586&prodNameId=3279711&swEnvOID=1005&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-e8be8b8ea03540ee9efb75ce46

3. A storport update from MS
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932755

and so far so good we are 5 days without a lockup (they were happening nearly every day).

Cheers
Chris

[Kris Stacey]

Hi Chris

I am a engineer for HP in New Zealand.
I had the exact same problem.
After much swapping of parts and scratching of heads, it appears that there is a known conflict with the Quad core CPUs and some RAID controllers Vs the NOD32 antivirus software.
I haven't seen this documentation myself but i uninstalled the NOD32 software and the server now has no more freezing issues.
Something to keep in mind if the issue comes back.

Things I did before learning about the conflict:

Changed System Board
Changed PSU
Changed CPU
Changed Array Controller
Updated all firmwares and drivers

Even after all of this the problem still existed.