HCHTech
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 4,492
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA - USA
I have a client with 2 physical servers (with a smattering of server VMs split among the 2). I got an alert last week about a CMOS battery needing replaced in one of them, so I scheduled a maintenance window for today to take care of that, plus some other tasks on the to-do list (upgrading the BIOS to get the new TPM certificate, installing the latest version of iDRAC, etc.)
I decide to tackle the battery first. I export the settings from iDRAC, power down the VMs, power down the server, remove the power cords from the supplies, then take it apart and swap the battery. Naturally, Dell put the battery underneath one of the riser cards, so that's a little obnoxious, but whatever, I guess. I get it back together, reconnect it to power, slide it back into the little rolling rack they have and power it up. I swear, every time I have to do system-level stuff to a server, I hold my breath until it comes back up again. Been doing server stuff for 15 years or so now, and it never changes.
Anyway, fears realized - it didn't come up. The console is trying to do a PXE boot and iDRAC says "no physical drives detected" in the storage pane. I didn't even TOUCH the RAID card or drives! The whole rest of my day mucking around with this flashes before my eyes, my heart rate doubles and I start mentally making the list of what to do, hoping the backups are available and good, reviewing my phone call with the owner - all of it.
Luckily, it occurs to me after the initial panic attack subsides that I should just check to make sure I didn't accidentally unseat something, or put the riser cards back in in the wrong order, or something equally stupid. I couldn't find anything loose or unhooked, but took out the cards plugged into the riser, and took out the riser to examine it. I put the riser card back in, reinserted the 3 cards connected to the riser and then buttoned everything back up again. This time, it started normally. I think it took a good 30 minutes for my heart rate to go back down to normal - the rest of the work all went normally, thank goodness. 1:00 isn't too early for a beer or two is it?
I decide to tackle the battery first. I export the settings from iDRAC, power down the VMs, power down the server, remove the power cords from the supplies, then take it apart and swap the battery. Naturally, Dell put the battery underneath one of the riser cards, so that's a little obnoxious, but whatever, I guess. I get it back together, reconnect it to power, slide it back into the little rolling rack they have and power it up. I swear, every time I have to do system-level stuff to a server, I hold my breath until it comes back up again. Been doing server stuff for 15 years or so now, and it never changes.
Anyway, fears realized - it didn't come up. The console is trying to do a PXE boot and iDRAC says "no physical drives detected" in the storage pane. I didn't even TOUCH the RAID card or drives! The whole rest of my day mucking around with this flashes before my eyes, my heart rate doubles and I start mentally making the list of what to do, hoping the backups are available and good, reviewing my phone call with the owner - all of it.
Luckily, it occurs to me after the initial panic attack subsides that I should just check to make sure I didn't accidentally unseat something, or put the riser cards back in in the wrong order, or something equally stupid. I couldn't find anything loose or unhooked, but took out the cards plugged into the riser, and took out the riser to examine it. I put the riser card back in, reinserted the 3 cards connected to the riser and then buttoned everything back up again. This time, it started normally. I think it took a good 30 minutes for my heart rate to go back down to normal - the rest of the work all went normally, thank goodness. 1:00 isn't too early for a beer or two is it?
