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Biggest lockup mystery EVER

N

nanaki333

Diamond Member
OK. I've got this server, it's been driving me nuts forever. When I first installed everything to it, it would freeze randomly after being on for so long, or it would freeze by running a defrag on the raid array or copying lots of files to the array. It did not do this in safe mode though, which leads me to believe it's something software related, but what? I've done all the hardware replacements. Here are the specs:

MSI MS 9130 with dual s940 opties, both opties replaced and mobo has been replaced too
2GB of kingston ECC DDR, replaced a few times
promise sx-4m, replaced with the same card and now a completely different brand
had 3x SATA 80GB drives in raid5, now has 3x 160)
had 1x 40GB IDE as the main OS drive, now has 1x 80GB SATA
had antec PSU, got a thermaltake in there now
had an ati ragefury, geforce 2 (mx something) and now an old trident PCI video card (yes, all drivers were completely removed prior to new cards)
the tape and dvdrom drive have been unplugged just to make sure they weren't causing it
has all microsoft updates done
just updated the via chipset drivers

The server is running Windows2003. The big things it has running are Exchange 2003, Symantec & iHatespam. None of those are causing it cause it did the whole lockup thing before any of that was installed.

There's nothing in event viewer that's of any help. It's a hard lockup. Have to power off and power back on.

Anybody have ANY idea of what else I can try? Lockups are happening more frequent than before. I'm at my wits end with this garbage. 🙁
 
Did you run chkdsk on your boot drive? I had similar problems when there was bad sectors on my drive.

(Although I don't know what I'm talking about... I had to take my broken computer to a repair shop for them to tell me that, but I had the same symptoms)

Edit: Oh, just read through again and saw that it didn't happen in safe mode. So the drive probably isn't the problem, but it couldn't hurt to try, right?
 
Also have the Windows Task Manager open, check the Performance Tab and let it run to see if all the value are in normal range.
 
Everything is in order. Only thing taking up a load of memory is the exchange store, which is quite normal.

Also, before anyone says it, CPU temps are fine. 41c and 38c generally.
 
Then RMA the whole system if you could. It happened once at my work place when Dell had to replace the whole system (same problems) with an upgrade model.
 
it's a custom built machine. i KNOW it has something to do with software or drivers somewhere. anyone point me to a STABLE windows 2003 chipset driver maybe? the machine works fine under safe mode, i can transfer whatever and defrag whatever without problem. if i do it in regular windows, that's a guarentee to freeze.
 
I would start from scratch. Test the system without RAID5 first. If the lock up still happen, start to pull more hardware out (memory, HD ...)
 
Are these SATA HD's of the RAID variety?

If not, its not unusual for poor performance (random errors) to occur,
with standard drives.
 
Originally posted by: LiLithTecH
Are these SATA HD's of the RAID variety?

If not, its not unusual for poor performance (random errors) to occur,
with standard drives.
Click to expand...

"had 3x SATA 80GB drives in raid5, now has 3x 160)"
Shouldn't be a problem
 
yeah. it makes no sense. i was thinking it was either the drives or the raid card i had in there. the one i had which was replaced via RMA awhile ago, was a promise technologies one. i thought maybe their drivers didn't like my motherboard chipset, so i just got a different brand all together. i have to look up what i have now, but it doesn't even require drivers. you just build the array through the card's bios and that's it. the computer just sees it as a regular HDD. pretty neat, but didn't fix the problem. 🙁
 
My thought is either hard drive or chipset drivers, or a fluctuating electrical power. The PSU has been replaced, is it large enough? How clean is the electrical power supplied by the building? It may help to obtain a battery backup with Automatic Voltage Regulation or line conditioning.
 
it's on it's second UPS. i thought that was bad too for awhile so got another one on there. there's another server in the same closet using it's old UPS and it's been up for over a month since the last reboot. this is the most frustrating thing i've ever dealt with.

the PSU has been replaced. according to the UPS it's hooked to, even under full load, the power has gone maybe 280watt. the old PSU was a 480 and the new one is a 550.
 
Originally posted by: nanaki333
Anybody have ANY idea of what else I can try? Lockups are happening more frequent than before. I'm at my wits end with this garbage. 🙁
Click to expand...
Since you asked.....

As you likely know, VIA chipsets have a history of compability problems. The last VIA-chipset motherboards I used were two identical name-brand motherboards, both of which had identical lockup issues with Windows XP. After trying all the VIA updates and patches, I finally gave up, sold both boards, and went back to Intel-chipset boards (which worked perfectly).

It seems like you've replaced just about everything else. At this point, I'd replace the motherboard with a non-VIA chipset board.
 
yeah, that's what i was trying to avoid though. replacing a board in a win2k3 server with a completely different chipset won't be that forgiving.
 
Originally posted by: nanaki333
the PSU has been replaced. according to the UPS it's hooked to, even under full load, the power has gone maybe 280watt. the old PSU was a 480 and the new one is a 550.
Click to expand...

You could try a better PSU. I've seen quite a few 450-550 antec PSUs lock up systems and eventually die pretty fast. The systems they were in weren't that powerful too. I wouldn't trust thermaltake either when it comes to PSUs unless I was "absolutely" sure it's a good PSU. I would try something like this enermax .

Other than the PSU I would try what RebateMonger said.
 
Originally posted by: nanaki333
yeah, that's what i was trying to avoid though. replacing a board in a win2k3 server with a completely different chipset won't be that forgiving.
Click to expand...
I've moved SBS 2003 across various Intel chipsets. It requires a Repair Install, which, so far, has worked for me. YMMV.

I don't KNOW that your VIA chipset is what's causing your problem. It's just that you seem to have hit most of the other possibilities. You've said that you had these problems ever since you built the Server, and the problem occurs even with multiple hardware configurations. That points to a low-level problem.

One other thing that you didn't mention was the networking card. Malfunctioning NICS or networking drivers can randomly freeze Windows. Have tried disabling any existing NIC and installing something like a $10 Realtek 8129-based NIC?
 
you know, i was telling myself that friday about the whole NIC thing. before i was leaving to go home i was looking right at it. it never occured to me before because it was onboard and was technically replaced when i swapped the board. that doesn't mean squat if it's the drivers or the way the NIC acts to begin with. i'm going to try that tomorrow when i go in.
 
I'd definitely give a new NIC a try.

A few years ago, I had a brand-new motherboard that would randomly freeze under a fresh install of Windows 98. It turned out that the built-in drivers for the onboard Realtek NIC were known to be bad. They'd made it into the released Windows 98 CD.

The PC would randomly freeze. And I mean RANDOMLY. It'd just be sitting there. One minute it was working, and the next minute Windows was totally frozen.
 
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