At this point, the entire Commission is ready to try anything to get this to
work.  I can certainly bring it up and give it a try.  Is this a documented
problem somewhere?  And why would it not occur on a Compaq system built
using the same step-by-step procedures?

-----Original Message-----
From: Morgan, Joshua [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 9:25 AM
To: NT 2000 Discussions
Subject: Spontaneous Reboots on Dell w/Win2K with NO TRACE! Absolute
Mystery! 

Can you go one night with file locking removed on one of the servers?

Since I disabled file locking (thanks to Ed Esgro)  I have not had any
troubles

This would be a sure fire test I would think




Joshua Morgan
PH: (864) 250-1350 Ext 133
Fax: (413) 581-4936
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



-----Original Message-----
From: Szlucha, Chris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 9:22 AM
To: NT 2000 Discussions
Subject: RE: Spontaneous Reboots on Dell w/Win2K with NO TRACE! Absolute M
ystery!


No memory dump file but the server is set to record one.  We have set it to
mini dump, and to full dump and we get nothing.

We have seen the article to which you refer in your other message and we
aren't running this version of Backup Exec, but we have passed this on to
Dell since they have a closer relationship with Veritas, and Dell comes back
stating that they have certified out version of Backup Exec already, since
they are a reseller and recommend it for their systems.

We do have a sneaky suspicion that Backup Exec may be the culprit, but I
didn't want to poison the well by bringing this up to this forum until
someone else did.  We've had blinders put on ourselves too many times once
we find something that even remotely looks like the culprit, and I didn't
want to do that here.

All great suggestions, folks!  Keep 'em coming and maybe something new will
crop up that will be the Golden Egg!  (I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!) :)



-----Original Message-----
From: Morgan, Joshua [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 9:13 AM
To: NT 2000 Discussions
Subject: RE: Spontaneous Reboots on Dell w/Win2K with NO TRACE! Absolute M
yste ry!

In your C:\winnt directory do you have a Memory.dmp file?




Joshua Morgan
PH: (864) 250-1350 Ext 133
Fax: (413) 581-4936
[EMAIL PROTECTED]



-----Original Message-----
From: Szlucha, Chris [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 9:01 AM
To: NT 2000 Discussions
Subject: Spontaneous Reboots on Dell w/Win2K with NO TRACE! Absolute Myste
ry!


Ok, here is something that we've been working on that has gone all the way
up to Michael Dell himself that I'd like some input on from you guys.

Has anyone seen spontaneous reboots on Dell systems where there is
absolutely no trace left anywhere in either the Windows environment nor the
hardware environment (Dell ESM logs)?  Dell's "top engineers" and 5 of us
here at the SEC have been working on it for literally 3 months, almost every
day, to no avail.

Here's the configuration:
Hardware:
Dell 2550
Dual PIII 1133 Mhz (BIOS v A05)
2 GB RAM
PERC 3 PCI RAID Controller
4 72 GB Fujitsu Hard Drives
Intel 8255x-based Integrated Fast Ethernet NIC
DRAC-II card
External PowerVault 128T LTO Tape Library connected via Adaptec AIC-7899 PCI
SCSI card



Software:
Windows 2000 Server w/ SP2
Terminal Services for remote admin
Veritas Backup Exec v8.6
Remotely Anywhere
Dell Server Agents as follows-
Dell OpenManage Server Agent v. 4.3.0 (BLD_2922)  
DRAC-II Server Monitoring SNMP MIB Agent v. 2.0, Firmware v. 2.40  
Dell OpenManage Array Manager v. 3.0
Network Associates NetShield 4.5, current engine and DATs Executive Software
Network Undelete v. 2 WQuinn Associates Storage CeNTral v.4.1 build 461

We use these servers only for file and print serving with no other funny
software installed and no "unnecessary" services running.  All flash-able
components have been flashed to the current level and drivers are
up-to-date.  And during the installation of Veritas Backup Exec, we have the
Veritas drivers installed for the backup devices.

These servers reboot at random and leave no trace in the event logs, nothing
in the hardware logs about any hardware issues.  There is no blue screen and
no Dr. Watson events, no system dumps, literally NOTHING to trace this to
anything or give us any indication as to where to start looking.

We have picked apart our build process, which BTW works absolutely perfectly
on a Compaq server, and Dell has even taken one of our rebooting systems
back to their labs for analysis, again to no avail.

The failure rate for us was somewhere around 75-80% on these machines.  It
seemed for a while to be hardware, as we could sometimes replace the
motherboard and memory and have the systems work again.  But then we had
repeat performances of the reboots.  Systems will reboot sometimes
immediately, sometimes they run for a month and a half before rebooting.  We
have stress-tested these systems using 2 or 3 different stress test
packages, and these reboots haven't replicated in the lab but once.

This is a real head-scratcher.  Any thoughts?  And remember, the easy things
have more than likely already been thought of and tried, but I'm willing to
entertain any ideas (and so is Dell at this point).

Thanks all!
-Chris

------
You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp
To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%%

------
You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp
To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%%

------
You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp
To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%%

------
You are subscribed as [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp
To unsubscribe send a blank email to %%email.unsub%%

------
You are subscribed as [email protected]
Archives: http://www.swynk.com/sitesearch/search.asp
To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to