It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 10:04 am

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]

Recent News:



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 10 posts ] 
Author Message
PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2014 10:40 am 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 9:57 am
Posts: 6
Thanks: 1
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
I can boot by EX-485 and it works fine but after about 5 -10 mins the drives are not accessible and the console freezes up. I can power off and back on and it will work again for the same period and freeze up again.
I have removed the drives and rebooted lights are blue with the health being solid white. When I have all the drives in and its working or frozen all the lights are blue and the NIC is blinking.
Not sure if the event logs help but I do have them if needed.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  

Attention Guest: Remove this ad by Registering with the MediaSmartServer.net Forums. It's Free!
PostPosted: Wed May 14, 2014 9:50 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
I am curious if something is actually pegging the servers CPU. Things like the Media Collector, Media Converter, Twonky and the Drive Extender are all possible causes for this especially the media functions if they have a large task they are processing as they can be CPU intensive which is why I never bothered with them on my HP MSS Servers and yes I have a collection of them so I have every model series HP Sold.

You could also have a hard drive acting up to and that will show up in your logs if you have HomeServerSMART installed on your server but if you can get on the server before it freezes up on you then you can see HomeServerSMART and see if its reporting issues with the drives and these would be physical hardware issues not file system issues which WHS would report and if a drive was flagged as bad you would see it in your Drive Light Bars which you are not indicating.

If you can make a Remote Desktop Connection to your server and get on the desktop then you can load up the task manager and see if the CPU is getting Pegged or not. If you can identify what's pegging the CPU then you can disable that function temporarily that is of course if I am correct in the CPU getting pegged.

Your post title indicates DISCONNECTS FROM NETWORK but I am not clear on this. Your router's DHCP Listing would be a good indicator if the servers connection was lost and so to would be the client with the WHS Icon turning grey. My gut tells me your servers CPU might be getting pegged and if that happens then it would become unresponsive until the task at hand finishes if it ever finishes and if your performing a Hard Shut down where you hold the power button in to turn the server off you run the risk of corrupting the hard drives if they are being written to so I hope your able to tap the power button and that the server shuts down properly.

Hope this makes sense....

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
The following user would like to thank Comp1962 for this post
geegan
PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 12:37 pm 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 9:57 am
Posts: 6
Thanks: 1
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
I decided yesterday to perform a recovery on the server as I figured this would alleviate issues related to the OS. I have completed this process and the server appears to be running properly. As for the disconnecting from the network I don't recall whether the server was online at the time it was inaccessible but I believe it was still listed in the DHCP table so maybe is not network issue but rather bogged down with task running. I do have the logs prior to the server be inaccessible and I don't see harddrive issues however their is a bunch of warning and errors of which I cannot decipher.
My plan is monitor the server of the next few days and turn off all services you mentioned as I really only use this a file server and secondary backup as this point as I have crashplan.

Thanks for the information and hopefully this is the end of my troubles.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 3:03 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
Happy to hear you got it sorted out even thought you went through a recovery process to get there. Should you need additional help please feel free to ask.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Thu May 15, 2014 3:53 pm 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 9:57 am
Posts: 6
Thanks: 1
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
I do have one more interesting issue. On the server console the HP Media Smart page/tab is all white while the other are there and work fine. Did something happening during the OS load and is there is an easy way refresh it vs a complete recovery?


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri May 16, 2014 5:02 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
Not quite sure on this but if you started disabling services you may have caused that problem to occur or you may have a missing or corrupt file which displays that page on the console. I do not have WHSv1 loaded on an EX485 so its not possible for me to try to recreate the issue your looking at and the soonest I could take a look would be a week from now but I would need to know which version of the HP Software is actually running on your server. For example the stock disks start at version 2.0 but later an update from HP would arrive for their v2.5. Then there is a the v3.x which HP Sold for a very brief time before discontinuing the upgraded offer. So I would need to know which version your running so I could install the correct version on to my EX485 which is currently setup to run WHS2011.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 9:51 am 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 9:57 am
Posts: 6
Thanks: 1
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
After completing all the recovery processes I am now back to the same issue with the server crapping out. I went back to your note about services pegging the servers CPU and this seems like a reasonable cause since its connecting fine to the network but it craps out after period of time 10+ min. I do have Toolkit 1.1 installed which can provide me a event log but I am not sure how to decipher the results as I do see errors and warnings. The server no longer has a remote access since I no longer pay for this service.
I have turned off all services that I could. Media Sharing, Twonky, Streaming, Itunes Server, Video Converter, Media Collector. I am running v.3.3.1.

I was able to make a remote desktop connection using a Win 7 laptop and put the task manager and the HP server console status windows side by side. In patiently watching both the CPU Utilization was jumping all over the place. The task manager was able to show the processes running but I don't know how to make sense of this.
Oddly enough the server is still accessible after 30 min now.

As far as the memory usage I see the searchindexer.exe is taking up 233K of memory so I am not sure if this is normal.

Anything you can do to help would be greatly appreciated as I want my server back.


Attachments:
File comment: Screenshots of the servers task manager and status monitor. One with all processes and one without.
Server Screenshots.pdf [412.07 KiB]
Downloaded 872 times
Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 1:25 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
It appears your running a clean system meaning no ADD-IN Overload although the HomeServerSMART ADD-IN is very useful for monitoring the health of the drives.

There are certain WHS Services which will typically place a heavy load on the CPU when active they are DE and QSM but those are necessary components for your server. I believe from time to time you will see your CPU load increase but not for long periods of time and then settle down. The stock Celeron and the E5200 if you have upgraded the processor tend to run on the hot side in the 50c area and there are processors which do run cooler and are more efficient but they require a BIOS Modification in the EX485 to handle them.

If your server overheats because of the fans not doing a proper job then the server will shut down and often this will appear in the event logs as the server shutting down without a reason much like if you encounter a power failure and the server abruptly powers down which occurs if you do not have a UPS connected to the server with software configured to shut the server down after a period of time.

Not sure where your located but with the weather getting warmer the ambient air temperature may be playing a factor too and location could be a problem if you have the server in a location where it can not breath properly this you will know if the server starts shutting down without any valid reason.

The other thing to keep in mind is the PSU because if it overheats it too will just shut down. The PSU has a small 40mm fan to help keep it cool so its important to know if that's working. Also if there is dust accumulation inside the PSU the dust would be insulating the components causing them to over heat and again shut down. You can blowout the PSU and you do not need to open it to clean it. Again the PSU Fan is very critical that its working properly to keep the PSU cool and running within temperature range. The other thing to keep in mind about PSU's is if they are not able to keep up when under a load they will just simply shut down. Sometimes this happens right away other times they run for a short period of time then just shut down. Sometime failing components like Hard Drives can put a stress on the PSU and so knowing the hard drives are in good working order is important and Home Server SMART helps and if your drives are starting to run hot its either a drive issue or a fan issue. Sometimes drives get hot when they are first turned on and this is a good indication they are about to fail.

As for the Event Logs there are many things listed that are difficult to figure out for most of us and many are just informational in nature but its the more critical events that one should take a closer look at. Sometimes when I am working on a server with an issue I will only want to look at the most recent events so after reviewing the what the event logs have to offer I will clear them out so I can start looking at the events that occur now. I should mention that I will make notes of the events which most often show up and try to figure out their cause but most often its the events which are showing up right there in then that I try to look closely at and figure out why they are occurring which often mean time to review what info Microsoft has and most often time to do some GOOGLE Searching because as a smart person once said GOOGLE is your friend. You can try BING but I personally get better results with GOOGLE.

Last thing about the fans that comes to mind is there are ways to speed them up and HP controls them in the BIOS and because they want to keep the noise level down they do their best not to ramp up the fans until its actually necessary to do so. For many this works out well but if you don't have a DEBUG Board then you can't get into the BIOS so the other way is to modify the fan wires and for that their is one leg you can terminate to get the fans to run at 100% all the time but I am not certain off the top of my head which leg to terminate but I know if you search the forums the information is there or if your familiar with PWM Fans then you will know the answer right away. For me on the EX485 I have worked with I have done the fan speed change in the BIOS to keep the wires proper.

Now there is a lot written above and not everything there will be your problem but I just wanted to cover a few things for you to look at and keep in mind while your actively troubleshooting your issue.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 3:27 pm 
Offline
Newbie
Newbie

Joined: Tue May 05, 2009 9:57 am
Posts: 6
Thanks: 1
Thanked: 0 time in 0 post
Thanks for the info. Knock on wood the server has been running since I terminated all the services this morning at 10am so this is longest it has been running. I installed the Smartserver add-in and one of my drives has 145 bad sectors. I will take it out and run the native repair software for that drive. The second drive has only 2 bad sectors. Drives temps are at 41C and 42C so heat does not appear to be an issue. I did have the PSU replaced last year which I think got fried during hurricane Sandy (I live in coastal NJ).
I'll let you know how I make out.


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
PostPosted: Fri Jun 06, 2014 7:03 pm 
Offline
Moderator
Moderator
User avatar

Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 7:10 pm
Posts: 5157
Location: Georgia, USA
Thanks: 86
Thanked: 704 times in 682 posts
The drive temperatures will vary depending on the drives you have in the server, server fan speed, age and condition of the drives, server activity and the ambient air temperature around the server.

Your drives are on the warm side. They should be running in the 30-39c temp area depending on the conditions as I have mentioned about. Typically my MSS Drives will run in the low 30"s when idle and in the higher 30's when they are active. I took a peek at my EX485 and saw the temps at 36-38c. In my Highlander Server the idle drive temps are typically mid to high 20"s and when active will jump into the 30's. The 5400 RPM drives for example will run about 3c cooler then the 7200 RPM drives.

I would recommend replacing the drive with the 145 Bad Sectors and I would keep a close eye on the one with 2 Bad Sectors to see if its condition worsens. After you remove the drive with 145 bad sectors you could try a full zero format on the drive then a full format and then see how the drive tests out. Its a rather long process but if the turns out clean and error free then you may want to add it back to the server but keep an eye on things because often the issues will return and WHS is very sensitive to drive issues.

_________________
Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8


Top
 Profile  
Thanks  
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 10 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 7 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 9 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group