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I have a HP Proliant DL380 G7 Server, actually I have many. They all seem to work just fine and have for years except this box which is giving me a headache. It has been sitting collecting dust for over a year when I had a mission for it, so booted it up. I am noticing some strange things, mostly that on occasion it won't POST.

When it will not POST the fans will turn on to 100% usually and iLO will report than the system is OFF even though the heartbeat is on and obviously the fans are trying to make a tornado. Do a power cycle by actually pulling the plug is the only way to get it out of this state. If I press and hold the power button but keep power to the system, it will just re-enter tornado-heartbeat-but-OFF mode.

After giving it juice again, it will fail to boot, every time. It will turn on, heartbeat starts, all signs are normal. Then after a little bit, all the DIMM LEDs turn on all at once and the system health goes to "critical". I am red/green colour blind, so the LEDs are of no help to me other than on or off, but it looks to change from the nice colour to the angry colour. Unplug power again. I can then flip switch 6 on the 10 position switch to get it into maintenance mode. Re-apply power, turn on. Wait 3-4 minutes until I hear it beep meaning it got past POST. Usually at this point I can see video of the HP Logo. Turn it off again. Pull the power again. Flip the switch #6 back to off. Plug the power back in, boot up and all is well. It will run this way seemingly indefinitely until I do some cold boots and at some point will fail spectacularly like this.

My guess is the NVRAM keeps getting corrupted? Bad CMOS battery? Bad Mobo? Ideas?

Nick
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Had a 380 G7 with the exact same symptoms. It started off happening intermittently, then became more often until it just simply wouldn't boot. A motherboard replacement fixed it.

Genericname12
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Repair the server or replace it.

There's no reason to think that what you're doing to get it running is normal, especially since you have one that's exhibiting these issues, versus plenty of examples of working units.

What type of answer are you seeking?

ewwhite
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  • What the root cause of the issue is so it can be fixed. – Nick Jul 19 '17 at 20:06
  • My guess is that the NVRAM is bad, or just mildly leaky. A few minutes with a soldering iron and the correct part may be all the board needs. – Nick Jul 19 '17 at 20:07
  • Nobody actually repairs these components. They're swappable and modular for a reason. How much is your time worth, though? – ewwhite Jul 19 '17 at 20:37
  • Well I have 2 new ones coming that will be used, but I think it is stupid to throw away an entire chassis when a couple cents of silicon is all that has a problem. My time is expensive, but we only have 1 Earth. – Nick Jul 19 '17 at 23:46