Server Alarms and Shuts Down (Not Heat)

[Mikensan]

9 hours ago, Grimm Spector said:

So... I tried that, and once the ubuntu was installed to another disk, the whole thing won't boot. Server starts, but the boot options are all blank, and I manually add another one in, even has me select what efi file I want to boot from, and the ubuntu install is for some reason the only option...and then it doesn't boot from it, and all the boot entries are blank again when it reboots. I have no idea why, nor how to fix this...

 

Edit: I managed to get around this by disabling the ability in the BIOS for the entire disk controller that disk was on to boot, and suddenly I could boot to windows again, it's like if certain boot options are on, others are entirely impossible to reach which is very ridiculous and frustrating. Of course this hasn't solved the shutting down after being on for a few minutes problem.

Well I was aiming more towards just booting from the CD/USB in live mode, sans installation to keep it simple.

[Grimm Spector]

2 hours ago, Mikensan said:

Well I was aiming more towards just booting from the CD/USB in live mode, sans installation to keep it simple.

Booting from the USB might be possible, I finally made it do that to do the install, which was nice. Though I was using the "live" distribution, and booting from the USB didn't appear to be an option, the only option was to install it. Maybe I grabbed the wrong version, I'll take another look. Testing with another UPS now to see if it's other power issues...

[Mikensan]

32 minutes ago, Grimm Spector said:

Booting from the USB might be possible, I finally made it do that to do the install, which was nice. Though I was using the "live" distribution, and booting from the USB didn't appear to be an option, the only option was to install it. Maybe I grabbed the wrong version, I'll take another look. Testing with another UPS now to see if it's other power issues...

I typically use the full CD even though it's quite large, not sure what could be wrong. Using ubuntu 17?

[Grimm Spector]

2 hours ago, Mikensan said:

I typically use the full CD even though it's quite large, not sure what could be wrong. Using ubuntu 17?

Their live build was 18.04 live-server ISO, I'll look for a 17 full CD version, though I've had it on this UPS for about 3.5 hours now  with no reboots under minimal loads. So maybe this entire building is terrible and this has just been a power issue the entire time. Will update here soon, going to try some stress tests.

[Grimm Spector]

2 hours ago, Mikensan said:

I typically use the full CD even though it's quite large, not sure what could be wrong. Using ubuntu 17?

Well, 4 hours in, did some very minor AIDA64 benchmarks, and it was sitting idle after and it went belly up and turned off like before. So it's not just a power issue.  On to the live ubuntu attempt...this is so frustrating.

 

There is no 17 available on the site anymore, only 18 and 16, and it's not clear what allows me to do a live CD image.

 

Edit: I dug up what may be the right version, will let you know how it goes when I know.

Edited May 4, 2018 by Grimm Spector
New info

[Grimm Spector]

1 hour ago, Grimm Spector said:

Their live build was 18.04 live-server ISO, I'll look for a 17 full CD version, though I've had it on this UPS for about 3.5 hours now  with no reboots under minimal loads. So maybe this entire building is terrible and this has just been a power issue the entire time. Will update here soon, going to try some stress tests.

Hmm not sure why, but try Ubuntu without installing doesn't appear to be an option even with this image, though it is the server image, maybe you were suggesting the desktop variety? Thought that just had the GUI and was otherwise similar.

 

This has however shown me that for whatever reason when Windows 2016 Server installed it did so in BIOS legacy mode and not in UEFI mode, which is super weird...I am not sure why. I wonder if it's possible this is a badly installed OS issue? Now that I've got USB working-ish I may try to reinstall windows via USB. Perhaps PXE wasn't able to do installs in UEFI mode.

[Mikensan]

10 minutes ago, Grimm Spector said:

Hmm not sure why, but try Ubuntu without installing doesn't appear to be an option even with this image, though it is the server image, maybe you were suggesting the desktop variety? Thought that just had the GUI and was otherwise similar.

 

This has however shown me that for whatever reason when Windows 2016 Server installed it did so in BIOS legacy mode and not in UEFI mode, which is super weird...I am not sure why. I wonder if it's possible this is a badly installed OS issue? Now that I've got USB working-ish I may try to reinstall windows via USB. Perhaps PXE wasn't able to do installs in UEFI mode.

Sorry yes, the desktop edition is what I was suggesting. Yup the main differences are just what packages are loaded. In order to install something in UEFI the media being used must be UEFI bootable. I don't have a ton of experience with PXE but as old as it is I don't imagine it supports UEFI. 

[Grimm Spector]

39 minutes ago, Mikensan said:

Sorry yes, the desktop edition is what I was suggesting. Yup the main differences are just what packages are loaded. In order to install something in UEFI the media being used must be UEFI bootable. I don't have a ton of experience with PXE but as old as it is I don't imagine it supports UEFI. 

Yup, that's my thinking too, which explains why I couldn't boot to anything when I installed that UEFI version of Ubuntu server...though just now changing some BIOS options it decided it was going to shut off without any error. So I think either the board is bad, or maybe the RAM? Hope it can be just the RAM because finding a replacement board seems unlikely within my budgetary means...

 

To test the RAM I guess I'll have to get Windows running again and load up memtest or something.

[Grimm Spector]

1 hour ago, Mikensan said:

Sorry yes, the desktop edition is what I was suggesting. Yup the main differences are just what packages are loaded. In order to install something in UEFI the media being used must be UEFI bootable. I don't have a ton of experience with PXE but as old as it is I don't imagine it supports UEFI. 

Strange, I can see the USB to boot, but it won't boot, though it was booting from the linux efi files fine ... So, think it may be a RAM issue? :-\ 

[Pyramiden]

Is there a tool for reading the temps when you are booted into Windows?
I still think this could be a temperature related issue. I have a 160GB Velociraptor that makes my Microserver shut down because it is unable to cool that device. The same happens if you place an HDD next to the inlet temperature sensor, which makes the server think that the inlet temperature is 40 degrees, and it would also shutdown.

If such a tool does not exist you could use a heat sensitive camera, or one of those spot meters to measure the temperature of the various heatsinks.
Alternatively you could open the case and point a big fan at the case to see if the server stays alive longer with more airflow to the whole case.

Edit: The three Noctua fans in the middle are for cooling the CPU? In that case it could be the case that your RAID controller does not receive enough cold air, since it is heated by the processor first. Those controllers can get really, really hot.

 

[Mikensan]

This CD has a few hardware diagnostic utilities: http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

 

You can test RAM with it