Proliant DL350 - Connecting a Monitor does nothing

[bigAPE]

I have a client running Win2K Server on a Proliant DL350. The server is rack mounted with power and NIC connected. They connect to the server via Terminal Services in Administration mode as needed to administer the box. Problem is that Terminal Services is not responding and they need to get onto the machine to find out whats wrong (and install VNC for the time being).

When they connect a portable LCD monitor (plus keyboard and mouse) to the rear of the server they get nothing on the monitor. they tell me they have also tried a CRT with no effect.

The server is running some critical applications including SQL Server, all of which are running fine, and they dont want to just "pull the plug".

Any suggestions as to why the monitor wont power up. They tried connecting to a Dell and it worked fine. Failing that any suggestions on how to shutdown and reboot the server gracefully.

Thanks in advance for any help

APE
answersATbigapeDOTcoDOTuk

 

[ntinlin]

Does the server have a remote insight board installed?

If so they need to connect the monitor to the VGA port on the RIB, not the one on the server itself.

Also suggest for a quick fix they go to

http://www.dameware.com

and download dameware remote control trial. this can do an on-the-fly install of itself unlike VNC so they will be able to access the console. They have to be using an account that has admin rights on the box when they do the remote install though.

I use it here and it is a great piece of software.

Neill

 

[bigAPE]

Cheers Neill,

I will send this info over to the client. I assume that The DameWare Mini Remote Control installation is run from a client pc and during the install you have to point it to the server you want to install it on using an admin account.

What would happen if the Remote Insight software was installed and someone later removed the Remote Insight Board. I don't know that this has happened, but I can imagine that the lads in the MIS department of the clients parent company may well have done something like this. Would that really screw things up.

Out of interest, is that any sort of key combination or hardware reset button on the Proliant that will make it do a safe powerdown ?

Excuse my ignorance about Compaq kit.

APE

 

[ntinlin]

It is indeed. It installs itself as a service on the remote client. It's quite cheap as well since you pay per admin rather than per client if you buy it.

That is the point of the remote insight board. It doesn't need any software support on the server as such. The main idea of it is that you can remote control the server even when there is a problem with the OS.
There is a driver for it as part of the insight agents but if the board isn't there all you'd get is an error in the event log.

If the RIB was removed then the on-board video should come back on automatically on a DL.

No hardware safe shutdown method without a RIB. However they could always use the SHUTDOWN -s -m \\compname from a client with resource kit loaded which would do a remote normal shutdown of the server.

You can also stop services using Computer Management from a W2K or XP client, just point it at the server. This would allow you to shutdown SQL etc. gracefully and then do a hard shutdown if necessary.

Hope this is helpful
Neill

 

[bigAPE]

Hi Neill,

I have confirmed that the machine does have a RIB (at least we think so). The client tells me that even though the monitor sockets looks the same "the cable wont fit on". I asked her to try again and check the pins

I have managed to get onto the server now with DameWare and VNC.

I think the Terminal Services issue is down to the RDP Listener not running. I have disabled/enabled it, deleted and recreated it, checked all the Reg settings and files mentioned in the MS Support post abou this with no effect.

More concerning now though is that the server wont reboot when using Start>Restart or Reboot. Screen just goes grey until you click with the mouse and then the desktop comes back to life.

I have started a bnew thread with this issue in the Windows 2000 server forum.

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?SQID=860027&SPID=96&page=1

 

[TheLad]

Your customer is not looking at the COM ports instead of the VGA port on the RIB are they?

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[bigAPE]

God I hope not.

All the Compaq Insight software is installed, but interestingly when I tried to change the function asigned to the chassis Power button using the Compaq tool it told be I would have to use the Windows Power Options contorl panela. When I looked at that it only had "Power Off" as an option when what I need is to have it perform a polite Shutdown of Windows.

 

[ntinlin]

Surely even customers can work out the difference between 15 pin and 9 pin and male and female sockets.
Hmm. Maybe not.

 

[bigAPE]

I'm awaiting a response from them now. They dont seem to place a high priority on this. As far as they are concerned the machine is working perfectly with the exception that the now cant shut it down.

Personally, I would shut SQL and the Apps down, wait few minutes and then pull the power plug on it. Whats the worst that could happen ?

 

[ntinlin]

Worst - it wouldn't start up

But very unlikely if you do as you said. NTFS is a transactional system after all, it's supposed to deal with such circumstances.

 

[bigAPE]

Jesus, don't say that.

I dont think I have ever heard of a Windows 2000 server not recovering from a hard reset, providing all applications and services are stopped. Unless there is something else wrong of course, like corrupt sectors on the disk.

 

[TheLad]

Can't you just press the power button and it will initialise a shutdown? Most Windows systems should be configured with this as standard?

-----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[bigAPE]

You would have thought so, but the Windows Power Options Control Panel applet only gives "Power Off" as an option and the Compaq Power Management utility says that it cant be used because the server supports ASPI (or whatever its called)