[AccessD] A real puzzler

[John W. Colby]

The server has had this problem for years including when it was sitting 
in my office.  It is now in a professional "hosting" company in Albany 
NY, which SUPPOSEDLY has handled all of those power issues for me.  It 
has been progressively worse over the years.

The memory has ECC and the motherboard can use it.
The power supply was my thought and I have replaced with a huge(er) 
one.  Still could be it of course.  The fact that the system reboots 
under NO LOAD is the puzzler there.  I would expect a PS problem to 
surface under max load.  PLUS, in the most recent upgrade,  I have 
DROPPED the number of disks in the system by moving from (16) 1 TB 
drives to (8) 3 tb drives.  While the new drives use slightly more power 
individually, as a whole it is significantly less.

In the course of upgrades I have replaced all disk drives and SSDs. THAT 
was not a fun task as you can imagine.  I had to insert a second RAID 
controller, add big drives, build out the volumes, and then detach and 
move the SQL Server data files (and other stuff as well).  Then detach 
the old drives and put on the shelf for awhile, while I tested the whole 
system.  All of which did not affect the problem.
I have replaced the power supply with a bigger unit.  I have replaced 
the motherboard.  Decided at the least I would have a spare.
Have run memory tests.

I moved the system into the server room in Albany NY (I live in NC) a 
couple of years ago when I was working in Raleigh Durham and so, sadly, 
I cannot just go into the server room and physically work on the 
system.  The up side is that it is in a managed environment with AC / 
Power / Internet all conditioned.

Perhaps I am fixated on and thus can't see past... the system will stay 
up indefinitely as long as I am flogging the system.  When the system is 
idle it will reboot several times a day.

I am pretty well convinced that there is some kind of software issue, 
and that I should do a windows / SQL Server reinstall.  I am terrified 
of doing that however because of the whole windows / SQL Server "user / 
security" issue, which I do not fully understand.  I could end up with 
databases that I can no longer access.

Not to mention that the server is a thousand miles away in a server 
room, which makes physically visiting it problematic, and a reinstall 
definitely requires physical access.  And I can't afford to just throw 
in a second system (it is rather powerful and expensive) to do a clean 
install on and migrate over to.  That is in fact the ultimate solution 
but ... OMG the cost.

John W. Colby

On 8/8/2015 4:53 AM, James Button wrote:
> Power supply problems - as in maybe external causes - a nearby fridge-freezer
> motor/compressor
>
> Could also be failing memory - triggered by power management of some device
>
> First - check the power management - anything set to go to idle?
> My first physical 'test' would be a second PC on the same supply socket - both
> failing points to the external source
> Then - add in a voltage recorder - looking for momentary drops may effect one
> output of a PSU that is not in the best of condition
> Then - maybe replace the PSU
> After that - it's going to be memory - maybe pulling individual modules
>
> JimB
>   
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: AccessD [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Bill
> Benson
> Sent: Saturday, August 08, 2015 3:36 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: Re: [AccessD] A real puzzler
>
> Tried uninstalling, wiping registry, reinstalling? Could you still keep
> your data if you did that? I have no experience from a dba perspective but
> this might be a way of determining whether it is something in your registry
> versus potentially a hardware or Bios problem.
>
> There appear to be some suggestions and analytics here for similar symptoms.
>
> https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/1d13ac99-88cf-4e
> d1-97d8-7d33d463f111/server-2008-r2-random-reboots-eventid-41
> On Aug 7, 2015 10:21 PM, "John W. Colby" <jwcolby at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> My SQL Server spontaneously reboots.  In the past it was once a month,
>> then once week or two.  Now it is several times a day.
>>
>> UNLESS SQL Server is exercised heavily, and then it will not reboot.
>>
>> That is counter intuitive.
>>
>> If the issue were a memory issue, SQL Server using all of the memory (and
>> it does) would find and trigger such errors.
>> If it were a heat issue, SQL Server using all of the processors (and it
>> does) would cause more heat.
>>
>> Etc.
>>
>> If I stop the service(s) it still reboots.
>>
>> I am at a loss, not only as to cause, but how to troubleshoot.
>>
>> Any words of wisdom?
>>
>> Dual chip mother board.
>> Two AMD processors each with 8 cores (15 cores total)
>> 80 gigs RAM
>> Windows 2008
>> SQL Server 2008
>>
>> --
>> John W. Colby
>>
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>>