OT: Hardware, IBM 3650 M2 Won’t Power On

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I’ve never seen anything like this. We moved it from the data center yesterday, and this morning I plug it in, and it won’t power up. I find a manual for it online, and it says that on plugging it in, wait 3 minutes. The power button will flash 4x/sec, then slow down to once a sec, and at that time you can power it up.

Well, it never stops flashing at 4x/sec. I’ve connected a network cable, wondering if it’s in wake-on-lan; I’ve tried connecting to it via its management port, and *zip*.

I’m not going to do, as several folks’ posts that I googled (been at that for hours), cut the cable and solder in an on/off switch. I have taken the lid uff, reseated the PSUs, and the cable connecting to the front panel, and nada.

Anyone got any ideas?

mark

16 thoughts on - OT: Hardware, IBM 3650 M2 Won’t Power On

  • Jason Welsh wrote:
    a) Please don’t top post. b) ‘T’ain’t funny, McGee. They don’t have the budget, and they need this server *now*… it’s one of their compute nodes, and at least one person is dead in the water.

    mark, incredibly frustrated with this stupid system

  • you can’t afford a replacement for a 6-8 year old server (new in 2009), yet someone who is presumably being paid is not able to work. whats that costing?

  • John R Pierce wrote:
    Let’s see:
    1. the server was working fine before we moved it out of the datacenter
    yesterday afternoon.
    2. You’re suggesting that they can say “ok”, and we run down to Microcenter and
    buy a new one today, and plug it in today, right?
    3. This is a US federal government agency; we run machines until they die, or
    we can justify replacing them. And then it takes a month or two
    (if we’re
    lucky before all the approvals, and then it gets shipped. I would imagine
    it’s like that in any large corporation, too.

    mark, who’s looking for suggestions to help, not be criticized for
    not just buying another, as though, as a contractor, I had *any*
    authority to do that (contractors DO NOT)

  • I assume that you have tried an alternate main power lead in a different socket.

    If you have then it sounds as though the power supply is crowbarring on initialisation.

    I would remove internal components until it powers on correctly.

    Regards, Mark Woolfson MW Consultancy Ltd Leeds United Kingdom Tel: +44 113 259 1204
    Mob: +44 786 065 2778
    —–Original Message—

  • old hardware often doesn’t survive moves, or even power/thermal cycles
    (powering off long enough to get cold, then back on).

    does that server have an IPMI/BMC or some other sort of lights off management? can you raise that, or was it never configured ?

  • From what I remember the 3650 M2 has got some diagnostic LED’s on the rear panel.

    Do these turn on and cycle?

    Regards, Mark Woolfson MW Consultancy Ltd Leeds United Kingdom Tel: +44 113 259 1204
    Mob: +44 786 065 2778
    —–Original Message—

  • John R Pierce wrote:
    I know, and I’m afraid of that. Still, the googling I did seems to suggest that there are issues with the idiot diagnostic panel that pulls out – the power button’s on it, but pulled out, shows diagnostics. I’ve tried pushing the “remind” button, that tells it “yeah, I know there’s an error, boot anyway”, and I’ve tried pushing the tiny, tiny thing that I think sends the system an NMI. No joy.

    That’s what I was saying – I tried connecting to it from another server in the rack, and it’s supposed to show a web page, but I can’t ping it, and firefox times out trying to connect to the default IP of 192.168.70.125.

    mark

  • Mark Woolfson \(Notebook\) wrote:
    The PSU’s each have three LEDs: showing ac good, dc good, and no error. There’s a blinking green in the back, and that’s it.

    The pull-out panel shows nothing, and the two LCD codes show nothing, just the cycle of figure-8’s.

    mark

  • Just for grins, pull off the cover and look at the electrolytic capacitors on the motherboard. Look for ones with the tops pushed up instead of being flat. This can cause all sorts of odd behavior. Often the machine with a blown capacitor will continue to run till it is powered off. Mostly I see this on Dell machines but have seen it on other machines as well. They are pretty easy to unsolder and replace. There are lots of pictures of failed electrolytic capacitors on the web. You can get decent capacitors cheap on Amazon. I understand the problem when the powers that be will not allow you to spend money. Now I work in a lab and have nice soldering equipment available and can get away with a lot more than a production environment. Maybe if your boss sees you taking a soldering iron to the machine he will let you buy a new machine. :-)

    Bob Styma

    Mark Woolfson \(Notebook\) wrote:
    The PSU’s each have three LEDs: showing ac good, dc good, and no error. There’s a blinking green in the back, and that’s it.

    The pull-out panel shows nothing, and the two LCD codes show nothing, just the cycle of figure-8’s.

    mark

  • Styma, Robert (Nokia – US) wrote:
    Thanks, that’s a thought. The cover’s already off…. But forget that, no soldering here.

    mark

  • Thanks, that’s a thought. The cover’s already off…. But forget that, no soldering here.

    mark

    I’d try a power drain next. Unplug it, short the prongs on the plug together, hold the power button down, wait a bit. Maybe try powering it on with one PSU alone then the other, if that’s an option.

    –Pete

  • … Thanks, that’s a thought. The cover’s already off…. But forget that, no soldering here.

    Mark

    In any case, if you can identify bad components on the board. You can avoid wasting more time than necessary and have justification for replacement.

  • a default IP like that only works if the host connecting to it is on the same IP subnet and physical LAN segment, unless your routers know to route 192.168.70.0/24 to that physical segment. set a laptop to
    192.168.70.10 mask 255.255.255.0 and plug a ethernet cable in directly between the IPMI/BMC management network port and the laptop, THEN try and connect to the web thingie.

  • Are you saying that if I plug a cable in an unused port on one server, use ifconfig to give it an IP of 192.168.70.10, and plug the other end into the problem server’s management port, and try to ping it, it won’t work?

    mark