server reboot

[chrbb]

Just before lunch (12.06 to be precise) my domain server rebooted itself, first I realised was that at the exact moment it rebooted a class was trying to logon. When I went to the server room (storecupboard) to see what had happened the UPS was showing as running on battery power but the computer was displaying running on ac power and charging.

Did anyone else's server reboot today - sophos? I've checked logs and can't find anything relevant. There was no power cut but if there was the server would run on the ups.

Anyone any ideas?

[Guest Guest]

Sure your ups is set up right? I know when i started ours wasnt and all it was was a "10mins extra battery" as it didnt tell the server to shutdown or anything lol

[FN-GM]

Maybe you have a faulty motherboard? My old computer randomly restarted its self, it was the motherboard it was fine when replaced.

[webman]

It could be overheating, so check fans and airflow are working and not obstructed. I'd also run memtest86+ on it too to see if there are any problems with the RAM.

[chrbb]

It's the first time it's happened hopefully not a motherboard, although still under warranty. The ups is an apc one with powerchute software, all seems well with power meter showing fully charged. Although after the server rebooted the battery meter was 87% but charging, whilst the ups was showing running on battery.

The server had rebooted not shut down.

[FN-GM]

Ok it might be a "one off". If it carries on doing it run the server without the UPS to see if it is that or not.

[localzuk]

chrbb where abouts are you? We had a power cut today which caused things to have a bit of fun...

[DMcCoy]

Is there a CRT attached to the UPS? If so, see if it overloads (the red usage light will come on for a second) when you turn it on. I once went on to battery power which caused a popup, making the screen switch on - this shuts down the ups if it overloads on battery power.

 

I think a more likely fault could be that the battery is dead (They last 2-3 years). If it is then it won't sustain power during a battery test causing connected devices to lose power during the 10 second test.

[Ric_]

It wasn't something as simple as a helpful MS update was it... in the past they have been known to reboot servers despite being told not to.

[tech_guy]

It wasn't something as simple as a helpful MS update was it... in the past they have been known to reboot servers despite being told not to.

 

Yeah, we had that happen once - check the event log to see what was going on just before the reboot.

[chrbb]

Checked the event viewer and windows and sophos logs, I do have a crt monitor plugged into the ups, maybe I'll try having that straight to the mains and just have the server on the ups. Hopefully I can take the monitor off the ups without switching everything off again.

[john]

I think a more likely fault could be that the battery is dead (They last 2-3 years). If it is then it won't sustain power during a battery test causing connected devices to lose power during the 10 second test.

I would agree with that, I had one and it used to do that, took me a couple of weeks of the entire networking going dead around the same time to twig that it was when it did its self test. :oops:

[mattx]

Checked the event viewer and windows and sophos logs

 

And what did they say, if it was a UPS test, it should put a entry in the event log.....

Not sure what UPS you have but ours show the load and also the battery status.

[Ric_]

Checked the event viewer and windows and sophos logs

 

And what did they say, if it was a UPS test, it should put a entry in the event log.....

Not sure what UPS you have but ours show the load and also the battery status.

 

Surely if the server logging the event is connected to the UPS, the event won't be written to the log because it caused it to reboot

[mattx]

Surely if the server logging the event is connected to the UPS, the event won't be written to the log because it caused it to reboot

 

Even if the server has managed to last at least 3 to 5 seconds after the UPS test, there should be something in the event log.

[ Did a test an an aging UPS a while back and the server lasted all for about 2 seconds - still logged it ]

There again, it may not depending on how the UPS is setup....

[webman]

How is the UPS connected to the server to communicate with Powerchute software? Depending on the type of UPS and connection it will be a specific type of serial cable for the different messaging protocols used.

[chrbb]

Usb connection.

I think it's a problem with the ups, although it's only 3 months old and is the second we've had, the first had a battery failure after 3 weeks. When I used the server last week I noticed a warning sign very briefly appear on the taskbar like the one you get when a laptop is running on battery power and needs to be plugged into the mains.

I'm going to disconnect the crt monitor to see what effect that has.

[Joedetic]

Please please please don't use USB for UPS!!! Wherever possible, use serial...or buy with serial!

 

It's stupid of APC and other manufacturers to build them into the devices tbh. If your USB driver fails or the USB root hub dies then that's it...server bounces itself.

[zag]

MS released their patches on Tue, you server rebooted itself on a wednesday! sounds a likely cause to me.

 

One thing, why not just make a second domain controller out of a nice fast workstation, we did that and its so nice having a dedicated backup for logging in. If you setup DNS well, it wont make any difference if one is rebooted.

[Jobos]

If it's MS updates then set the DC to download and install updates at night. That way it wont bother anyone.

[maniac]

If you can check the logs on your UPS look for high or low line voltages which sometimes force the UPS onto battery power, if only for a short period of time. Depending on how your UPS software is set up, this can sometimes cause the attached server to shutdown or reboot.

 

We'd recently been having 2 of our servers shutting down on us, luckily they are both non-essential servers. On closer examination we realised it was APC network shutdown shutting them down, and examination of the logs reveiled a high line voltage at the time they shutdown.

 

Both the servers that shutdown were set to shutdown immediatly on powerloss (as they are non-essential, so closing them down gives longer runtime for the rest) Changing this time to 30 seconds has stopped them shutting down for anything else except total power loss.

 

Mike.

[CyberNerd]

Windows will update whenever MS tell it to, and turning off updates doesn't help.

http://windowssecrets.com/2007/09/13/01-Microsoft-updates-Windows-without-users-consent

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=774

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/operating_systems/windows_updates_sneaky_updates.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/07/09/13/1259202.shtml

[Grommit]

MS released their patches on Tue, you server rebooted itself on a wednesday! sounds a likely cause to me.

 

One thing, why not just make a second domain controller out of a nice fast workstation, we did that and its so nice having a dedicated backup for logging in. If you setup DNS well, it wont make any difference if one is rebooted.

 

Would that work if the DC with the FMSO roles failed ?

[enjay]

I do have a crt monitor plugged into the ups, maybe I'll try having that straight to the mains and just have the server on the ups.

If you do that, make very sure that the UPS shutdown commands are working properly. If you have a power-cut long enough to drain the batteries, you will want the server to shut down; this is very difficult to do manually if you don't have a monitor!

[Joedetic]

Laptop, switch, remote desktop