Proliant DL350 - Connecting a Monitor does nothing

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

Do they have a RIB or RILOE board installed and configured ?

It sounds like the box may be hanged, and a power cycle may be the only
thing that helps.

There are some tricks they can try to remotely reboot the server though, and
these should be tried before the hard powercycle is performed.

Does the box have IIS installed?
Does the box have all its insight agents installed?
Is it configured for SNMP SET's ?
they may be able to reboot the machine via SNMP.
try the shutdown.exe tool from the resourcekit.

- LC

"Al" wrote in message
m...
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

with the exception that they dont have NO VIDEO to see what they are doing,
you outlined a similar approach to where i was going with my post.

But, I prefer to collect information and respond appriately.

- LC

"MattD.." wrote in message
...
On Tuesday 08 Jun 2004 19:11, the murky waters churned and seethed, the
dark
weeds parted and the water took on the sinister, shifting visage of Nut
Cracker. The great maw opened and the following was heard:

Do they have a RIB or RILOE board installed and configured ?


That was my first thought. However, providing nobody has attempted a
login,
the machine should be fairly easy to bring to a graceful halt.

CTRL-ALT-DEL
ALT-U to select the username field
Enter username with local admin privileges.
TAB to shift focus to the password field.
Enter password of above account.
Hit ENTER. Wait for a bit for the desktop to load. Experience should tell
you how long.
Hit either CTRL-ESC or the windows key.
Up one press on the cursor keys.
Hit ENTER.
Hit S for shut down.
Hit ENTER. The server should do a graceful shutdown.

All this assumes no RILO or RIB fitted, taking over from the on-board
graphics. It's also a bit hit-and-miss because it assumes the machine is
still sitting on the login prompt, which may or may not be the case, and
that the machine sees the keyboard. This is one of the reasons I believe
MS
server products should have an SSH and command-line shutdown as standard,
rather than one having to install the former as a third-party service and
the latter from the resource kit.

The other option is to shut the machine down/reboot using Insight, if it
is
installed. A quick port scan with NMap or similar will tell you this (port
2301 should be up, although it probably only contains a redirect URL to
the
ssl port which, IIRC is 2381. It's been a while since I've used these,
since most of my admin tasks are carried out over SSH).
--
MattD..

mattd145 atoneteldotcom

Cheers LC,

Do they have a RIB or RILOE board installed and configured ?

Unknown although, after posting this issue to another forum, someone
informed me that if they do then the monitor will need to be connect
to the RIB instead of the onboard VGA. I have passed this onto the
client and I'm waiting to hear back from them.

I do remember seeing something like "remote insight lights out" on the
delivery docet for the server, but that was a good couple of years ago
and the IT team at the clients parent company may have removed the
board since then (they can be like that sometimes)

It sounds like the box may be hanged, and a power cycle may be the only thing that helps.

Nope, the box is 100% operational and all other services appear to be
running fine. Only Terminal Services appears to either be down or
rejecting connections

Does the box have IIS installed?

Yes and running three functional ASP/SQLSRV apps

Does the box have all its insight agents installed?

Unknown (see above)

Is it configured for SNMP SET's ?
they may be able to reboot the machine via SNMP.

Unknown and I believe that is beyond the expertise of the onsite team
to accomplish.

try the shutdown.exe tool from the resourcekit.

I tried using this via VPN and it came back "Error 5: Access Denied".
I supplied the correct account name and password of the core admin
account.

This (Terminal Services refusing the connection) all started after the
server was rebooted. Is it possible that the reboot completed the
installation of some security updates from the Windows Automated
Update service which have disabled Terminal Services ?

Thanks for your support,

Al

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Nut Cracker" wrote in message ...
Do they have a RIB or RILOE board installed and configured ?

It sounds like the box may be hanged, and a power cycle may be the only
thing that helps.

There are some tricks they can try to remotely reboot the server though, and
these should be tried before the hard powercycle is performed.

Does the box have IIS installed?
Does the box have all its insight agents installed?
Is it configured for SNMP SET's ?
they may be able to reboot the machine via SNMP.
try the shutdown.exe tool from the resourcekit.

- LC

"Al" wrote in message
m...
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