Boot Problem - Looking for new PSU?

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Dark_Falcon

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 30, 2006
Messages
67
I am having some intermittent boot issues with my NORCO 4220 WHS Server (see sig). I believe the issue is related to an underpowered PSU and I would like to get some recommendations on PSU's that would accomodate my setup (specifically I'm concerned about getting a PSU that can support my 20+ 2TB 7200RPM HDs).

Here's a little history in case this helps with PSU recommendations or further troubleshooting recommendations...

I recently reinstalled the OS and everything appeared to work okay for a couple of weeks. I have not made any software/hardware changes since the reinstall. The issue that I'm having is that I'm now getting an intermittent black screen after POST but before OS startup (I don't even see the initial WHS screen but the POST appears to run to completion).

My only thought is that the PSU is underpowered and it's failing during bootup.

Note: I have successfully booted a couple of times (more failures than successes) and everything appears to work okay until I power down again. This is why I suspect that the PSU is underpowered and simply cannot handle the initial power up although the controller cards are supposed to perform a staggered power up (i.e. not power up ALL HDDs at the same time).

As always, I appreciate the input on the PSU and any other advice on troubleshooting this particular issue.
 
To fully rule out a possible PSU issue, have you tried disconnecting the power to 5 or more of those drives?
 
With WHS it's kind of difficult to do that. I'm concerned that it will drop the disks as defective/failed. I know that I can pull one drive for a couple of minutes and put it back and WHS will auto recover. However, I'm not sure what happens when I drop a group of them on bootup. Do you know if it would auto recover if I re-insert them after bootup?
 
Dark_Falcon said:
Do you know if it would auto recover if I re-insert them after bootup?
Click to expand...

Not 100% sure to be honest.

How about this: Disconnect the OS drive as well. That way you won't boot into WHS and let WHS find out that drives are missing.
 
I'm not exactly sure what that will prove. The POST appears to complete and work fine. I get 'OK' messages on all the controllers etc.. It's the OS startup that isn't completing.

Oh, btw, I forgot to mention that I have taken the OS drive out of the server case and ran some chkdsk tests etc on another machine.. It appears to checkout okay. Besides, it does startup okay....on occasion.
 
Dark_Falcon said:
I'm not exactly sure what that will prove. The POST appears to complete and work fine. I get 'OK' messages on all the controllers etc.. It's the OS startup that isn't completing.
Click to expand...
Yes but removing the OS drive would prevent the potential WHS issue you were talking about earlier i.e not auto-recovery of the drives. Now if you disconnect the OS drive, boot from a Linux live CD or even another spare drive with any free or trial OS on it, that'll help determine whether you have an OS issue or not.

The thing is that the situation you've described doesn't exactly match that of a PSU issue. Considering that your CPU is relatively low power and the fact that the 650HX is a single rail PSU, which makes it more suitable to handle a large boot-load than multi-rail PSUs, that doesn't scream PSU issue just yet. Thats why I recommend that you disconnect 5 or moe drives from the PSU. If you're still seeing the blank black screen even while booting from a Linux Live CD or a different OS drive with 5 or more drives removed, then it's not a PSU issue.

Alternatively and if you're feeling like gambling with data, disconnect all 20 drives from the PSU save the OS drive and boot into the OS. If you can boot successfully multiple times in a row, then you do have a PSU or possible mobo/controller issue.
 
Thanks Danny for all your input.

After much fiddling around with things and having it powered down for a while, I was able to get it to boot completely. At this point I think I'm just going to try to keep it up and see if it crashes or not. If not, I'm going to assume it's something to do with the boot process itself (i.e. power up or ???).

If I have an issue when I reboot again I will follow your advice to try to narrow down the exact issue that's occurring.

As an aside, if you were going to recommend a PSU for this build would you recommend something with a higher rating or not.

More Info about this Issue and Possible resolution:

I did some searching earlier for boot issues similar to this. I came across an issue relating to Network and Connection issues that caused this type of boot issue in older versions of Windows (i.e. Windows XP). On a whim I did unplug my ethernet connection to my router during the last boot and that was when I got the clean boot.

One more tidbit of info. that may point to Network/Connectivity issues... When I got back into the OS I did notice that an Internet 8 security update did get downloaded/installed last night just prior to the forced reboot that initially froze on restart. It may be a coincidence that these are both Network/Connectivity related or it may not.

Right now I'm just going to leave the server on to check for stability after boot. If I run into this issue again during boot, I will probably explore the Network issue first and then proceed to your recommendations as required. I just wanted to post this extra information in case it helps someone else troubleshoot this weird issue. Thanks again for your input.
 
Just a thought as I'm not sure.

But it seems that some online calculators give 20Ws or so per HDD for power. So 20 HDDs comes to 400W of power.


Again, I dont know for sure and I know most of the online PSU calculators are junk but just a thought.
 
Dark_Falcon said:
As an aside, if you were going to recommend a PSU for this build would you recommend something with a higher rating or not.
Click to expand...
Not really. With 22 drives plus controllers plus your relatively low power CPU, a solid and non-defective 650W PSU with 50A+ on the +12V rail should easily handle that setup. Thats why I don't think it's a PSU issue just yet.
 
Danny Bui said:
Not really. With 22 drives plus controllers plus your relatively low power CPU, a solid and non-defective 650W PSU with 50A+ on the +12V rail should easily handle that setup. Thats why I don't think it's a PSU issue just yet.
Click to expand...

What does an HDD typically draw for power?

Curious so I had to ask.
 
Ironhand said:
What does an HDD typically draw for power?
Click to expand...
Once up and running hard drives don't use that much power. Usually 10W or less. However it's at boot when hard drives draw as much as 2A or 24W. But that quickly tapers off to the 10W figure even when the drives are being used.

However the above numbers will be different depending on the drive. Some drives use less power than others obviously.
 
Well....
After much deliberation I've come up with a 'solution' to this issue. Due to some other challenges with 32bit vs 64bit driver issues on both the server and my client PC's, as well as some other issues with WHS V1, I'm going to go ahead and upgrade the server software to WHS 2011 / Drivepool / Stablebit Scanner. Hopefully, this will help me rule out the software issue.

I know that the according to some of the responses I have received, the PSU is probably an unlikely issue. However, I have done some research and I'm still concerned that even if it's not the issue, if I add additional harddrives or anything else, I may exceed it's specs. Therefore, I would still like some opinions on solid PSU's that have a consistent track record that are rated between 750 to 1k Watts (at least this is what all the calculators on other sites call for). I know that the 'wattage' ratings can be misleading and that's why I'm asking for the assistance.

Thanks again to all those individuals that share their time and knowledge to help us tinkerers out.

P.S. I will post a follow up to let everyone know if I still have the issue after the software upgrade. In theory, if the issue still exists, then it would indicate hardware. Essentially, I believe this would the big bang approach to what Danny is suggesting as a testing method to rule out software.
 
FYI....I know this is an old thread, but I have seen this issue on other sites with various 'solutions' that seem to be inconsistent at best (as was the case when I changed the PSU etc.).

Anyways, here is what permanently fixed this issue.

I went ahead and upgraded to WHS 2011 with no stalling on the initial boot up. However, once I added in all of my 20+ drives I began experiencing the intermittent boot issues again. I decided to upgraded the firmware on the AOC-SASLP-MV8 cards to see if that had something to do with it. Apparently it did. I have now rebooted over 20 times (due to update installs etc.) and have not failed to boot a single time.

Hope this helps someone......
 
Thanks for the update man. This should help someone in the future.
 
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