Dell PE2850 issue - Black Screen of Death!

[TigerDivision]

Hi all!

I hope someone can help me solve this annoying and weird problem I am experiencing on a Dell PE2850 rack server which is hosting our Domino 6.5 mail server running under W2K3. From time to time this server crashes with an entirely blank black screen of death. No error messages are displayed and no errors recorded in the event logs. Nothing. The only solution is to do a cold boot of the server.
I have installed the latest Dell firmware updates of the RAID controller card. I cannot understand what is causing this server to crash. It has already done this twice in 2 weeks already. Any comments would be much appreciated!

Thanks!
Pierre

 

[maultier]

There's not enough detail to tell if the machine is still up at the point where you get the black screen. One thing I would consider is a flaky power supply. One of the redundant supplies may have an issue that takes both supplies off line... then .. black screen and no log entries.

 

[TigerDivision]

Thanks for posting. What is strange is that when this occurs the power lights are on but you can'tdo anything except to press the power button for a cold boot.

 

[TOuellette]

Have you checked Event Viewer for any system or application errors? This could help you find the cause. Also check to see that the fans are all working properly as well as the heatsinks being on properly. I have seen a similar problem that was caused by the proccessor(s) overheating.

 

[maultier]

Just ran into this on one of my 2650's. Black Screen.. everything looked ok. Able to telnet into the machine. Recycling the kvm brought the screen back. Yanked the power supplies on that chassis and moved them to another... if it comes back, at least I'll have done something that I can eliminate or blame.