Dell 7010 randomly shutting down

[Mike A.]

Have an older Dell 7010 i5 used as a BI server that's randomly shutting down. As in hard power off say once/twice/three times at random times from an hour to several hours apart every few days or so. Other times will run fine for a week or more. No error, blue screen, etc. on shutdown that I've seen, just a hard quick down as if you'd hit the power button. No beep codes or other errors on restart. Not related to outside power loss, sits right by my desk and runs on the same power as several others. Not much running on it - BI and a few trivial servers (time, ftp, backup). Not running out of memory or disk.

I've looked through various logs but don't see anything obvious. Is there a particular log that would track some sort of software/OS-directed shutdown or hardware shutdowns due to error/heat/etc.?

Any ideas how to track the cause otherwise?

 

[fenderman]

Have an older Dell 7010 i5 used as a BI server that's randomly shutting down. As in hard power off say once/twice/three times at random times from an hour to several hours apart every few days or so. Other times will run fine for a week or more. No error, blue screen, etc. on shutdown that I've seen, just a hard quick down as if you'd hit the power button. No beep codes or other errors on restart. Not related to outside power loss, sits right by my desk and runs on the same power as several others. Not much running on it - BI and a few trivial servers (time, ftp, backup). Not running out of memory or disk.

I've looked through various logs but don't see anything obvious. Is there a particular log that would track some sort of software/OS-directed shutdown or hardware shutdowns due to error/heat/etc.?

Any ideas how to track the cause otherwise?

Look at event viewer.
Most likely a power supply or its over heating - ensure the fans are clean.

 

[Mike A.]

Yeah, looked through that and don't see anything that really stands out. Lots of random stuff but very few errors and nothing that looks relevant. Fans and case intakes I've already cleaned. Fans seem to be working fine.

I'll have to wait until it does it again and then check it when I have a good time reference to look against.

 

[IAmATeaf]

Ext time it occurs open it up and reseat all of the power connectors inside it. By reader I mean unplug and the replug as opposed to just pushing on them.

 

[Mike A.]

Just to close the loop on this since I know others run these old Dell machines as BI servers...

After lots of messing around with it the cause appears to be some interaction of the machine and the Tripp Lite UPS that I have connected to it. Specifically the USB connection between the two. Not sure exactly why. UPS/computer work fine together. It's only when the USB monitoring cable is connected between the two that things get flaky. Leaving the USB cable disconnected it does not show the same effect. Another USB cable tried does the same. I *think* what's happening is that the computer is seeing something as an erroneous signal to shut down even though the UPS is operating normally and showing good power. Happens with or without the Tripp Lite monitoring software installed. Also seems specific to the Tripp Lite. Connected in the same way to another Cyberpower UPS I've not seen the same. Odd since I've run these two together in the same way for years with no similar problems. I guess something involved may have changed with a more recent update.

Anyway, maybe saves someone some frustration...

 

[mikeynags]

Does the Tripp Lite software have an event log you can review? Wondering if there is some type of event where it thinks it needs to shut down the system. Is the system actually being shutdown or do you see events in the eventviewer that say something like the previous shutdown was unexpected?

 

[Mike A.]

Tripp Lite's PowerAlert software does have a log of sorts under the advanced setting but nothing comes up there or anywhere else in any other log that I can see. Yes, it actually shuts down.

I'm done screwing around with it at this point. Swapped UPSs across machines where they've both been working fine for a week or so now. I'm going to take it and call it done.

 

[fenderman]

Tripp Lite's PowerAlert software does have a log of sorts under the advanced setting but nothing comes up there or anywhere else in any other log that I can see. Yes, it actually shuts down.

I'm done screwing around with it at this point. Swapped UPSs across machines where they've both been working fine for a week or so now. I'm going to take it and call it done.

I know you have resolved it on your end but perhaps the pc had a PFC power supply that requires pure sine. That would not explain why it worked for long on the tripp lite or why it works on the cyberpower (which may or may not be pure sine) but over the years degradation in the power supply or the ups may have resulted in the shut downs.