Dell PowerEdge Server Hangs at "Remote Access Controller Detected"
I have been called in to take a look at a Dell PowerEdge server that doesn't always boot up. Sometimes, in fact usually, when booting it up, it will hang at "Remote Access Controller Detected." The only thing we can do at this point is hold in the power switch until it powers off, then power it back up, and hope it proceeds normally through bootup. Today, it repeated the hanging process about 6 or 7 times, then finally proceeded to boot up successfully.
During diagnosis, we have tried pressing F2 to go into Setup, and it says "Entering Setup," but then just hangs there.
I can't swear to this, but MAYBE when we press F12 - PXE, it will boot up. We're not sure if this is a cause-effect or just a coincidence.
We are very hesitant to take it down more than is absolutely necessary for fear that the motherboard, processor, controller, etc. is failing, and the hard-power-off is not great for the electronics.
We do not need the RAC, so if we can disable it, and that helps with a more consistent boot-up process, we're all for it.
We waiting to gather more information before we take it down even one more time, even if to just take the cover off... but we understand that we might be making a mountain out of a molehill, and this may be a problem with a very easy solution.
Can someone provide some advice on this scenario?
During diagnosis, we have tried pressing F2 to go into Setup, and it says "Entering Setup," but then just hangs there.
I can't swear to this, but MAYBE when we press F12 - PXE, it will boot up. We're not sure if this is a cause-effect or just a coincidence.
We are very hesitant to take it down more than is absolutely necessary for fear that the motherboard, processor, controller, etc. is failing, and the hard-power-off is not great for the electronics.
We do not need the RAC, so if we can disable it, and that helps with a more consistent boot-up process, we're all for it.
We waiting to gather more information before we take it down even one more time, even if to just take the cover off... but we understand that we might be making a mountain out of a molehill, and this may be a problem with a very easy solution.
Can someone provide some advice on this scenario?
vivigatt
It seems like a hardware failure to me. Motherboard, CPU... I am not familiar with the RAC, but if it fails at boot time or generate some kind of interrupt storm or something similar, it might very well prevent the system from booting up, so I would disable it. As I would disable everything not actually used, such as serial and parallel ports, audio, even PXE if not really needed.
What model are we talking about? Various models have different "RAC's", some of which can be disable, and others of which can only be removed. The error may mean one thing on one system and something unrelated on another.
It seems linke hardware i would recomend you check your power supply wattage (WATT).
i happend in cases when proper current is not provided to motherboard.
usually in servers 750 WATT power suppy is used.
If u can borrow a power supply. u can check this issue.
and if u can disable the remote access controller on board, if not used then it must work .
try to check the boot sequesce as well and disable all other which are not required.
i happend in cases when proper current is not provided to motherboard.
usually in servers 750 WATT power suppy is used.
If u can borrow a power supply. u can check this issue.
and if u can disable the remote access controller on board, if not used then it must work .
try to check the boot sequesce as well and disable all other which are not required.
ASKER
PowerEdgeTech, it's a Dell PowerEdge 2800, dual power supply... I haven't brought it down and taken the cover off primarily because I just didn't want to bring it down any more than is absolutely necesary.
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ASKER
Thanks, all, for your advice so far... have not been able to get back onsite to test these solutions, but should be able to in the next 10 days.
How's it going golferski?
ASKER
Thank you for checking back, PowerEdgeTech... coincidentally, we've got next week, finally set aside to be able to bring this server down and run some tests. We first wanted to get a good virtual image of the OS just in case. We've got that now, and can move about a little more safely.
We'd like to give you an update after next week, if that's ok. Nice links, by the way. Thanks.
We'd like to give you an update after next week, if that's ok. Nice links, by the way. Thanks.
Cool ... let us know :)
ASKER
We are still trying to work with the virtual image... we've got one, using VMWare Player, but are currently hung up trying to figure out how to do incremental updates to it before we down this server.
ASKER
I should add here that we never really did get the chance to test this recommendation fully... due to a severe bout of power ups-and-downs the server crashed, rendering it un-bootable or repairable by Windows. We shelved it.