RE: Unidentified Whistle

Dell fans kick into over-drive at certain points during startup, sometimes
when the server is working hard or the room gets hot - I've heard PC
fans/power supplies make some crazy sounds when they're failing.

I had a hard drive go out on a Compaq server a few years ago; it started by
making a squeeling sound when it was spun up, shortly after was screaming all
the time.

I'd pop the case and try to find the source.


"spm" wrote:

I have recently inherited support for a new client's SBS, and have a
strange issue...

Server is a Dell PowerEdge 1800 with a Dell CERC SATA 1.6.6ch RAID
controller, running RAID5 with three disks (no hot spare) for a total
of 300GB storage, split into two partitions: an 8GB system partition -
drive letter C - and a second partition - with drive letter W - of
around 290GB.

Having been firefighting issues from the undersized system partition
and moved off everything I can, the time has come to re-size it to 30GB
(space being taken by resizing and moving the other partition). Took
two full images of each partition (using Acronis TrueImage Enterprise),
verifed all the images, and started an offline re-partitioning using
GParted (from a Parted Magic build).

Started by resizing/moving the W partition, which GPartEd estimated
would take up to 24 hours. Yuk. About an hour into this (just before I
was leaving site), the Dell box started emitting a constant,
fixed-pitch whistle. The re-partitioning seemed to continue OK, but not
only was the whistle a worry and an interference to work, but the box
is in the owner's home and would have prevented the family from
sleeping. I had no choice but to kill the re-partitioning, with a view
to restoring backup images to newwly created, suitably-sized partitions.

The whistle stopped on powering down (naturally), but now recurs under
predictable, reproducible circumstances: on boot-up, the whistle starts
precisely as the "LSI Logic MPT BIOS" banner appears on screen and
lasts for around 30-40 seconds up until the moment the OS startes
booting (whether that be SBS on the RAID array, or a CD-based boot OS).
This is the exact behaviour on every boot up.

Has anyone any experience of anything similar, or can shed some light
(or plausible theories) on this?

I am of course mindful of a hardware issue, but have not come across a
sound quite like this one. In the meantime, I have a restore of the W
drive in progress - it has another 8 hours to run, apparently - just in
case the server will continue to be useable. A call to Dell is in the
pipeline, but as the Easter break has started now here in the UK, this
is going to have to wait a while.

--
Regards,
Steve.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Unidentified Whistle
    ... Server is a Dell PowerEdge 1800 with a Dell CERC SATA 1.6.6ch RAID ... split into two partitions: ... only was the whistle a worry and an interference to work, ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Dell PowerEdge 700 with SBS2003 Standard
    ... I'd make the decision regarding OEM without regard for installation - Dell ... If you call server support and choose the ... choose a 16gb OS partition and the rest unpartitioned free space. ... If you get the software and can install ...
    (microsoft.public.backoffice.smallbiz2000)
  • Extending a mirrored partition
    ... We have a Dell PowerEdge 750 server in a RAID 1 mirror configuration that is ... partition but after reading the MS warning about contacting your hardware ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.setup)
  • Re: Unidentified Whistle
    ... I am somewhat surprised that it turns off on boot, however--unless this was a pre-existing issue and someone had set it up to be silenced on OS boot? ... Server is a Dell PowerEdge 1800 with a Dell CERC SATA 1.6.6ch RAID ... split into two partitions: ... only was the whistle a worry and an interference to work, ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Server Migration - from old server to new server
    ... If you have Dell install it, be sure you mandate the size of the OS partition, and you can deal with the rest. ... I prefer to install it myself, as I can specify what partitions/drives to install the components and don't have to move them later. ... If you are also not using SharePoint, or SQL, then you may be better off with standard Windows Server 2003. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)