iDrac not responding on multiple servers

Pascone,

Draining the flea power would have been one of my suggestions as well. I would recommend shutting down the server, remove the power cables and drain the flea power again. THen remove the server cover and locate the NVram jumper (located next to the integrated storage slot on motherboard) move the jumper over and restore power, boot to clear the NVram. Once completed then power down and restore the jumper to its original location. Reapply the ower cables, but let the server sit for 2 minutes prior to powering on (lets iDrac initalize). Power on and let me know what you see, if it is still hanging then try holding down the identification button for 15 seconds to reset the idrac.

Let me know what you see.

Hey Chris,

Thanks for your post. I went through all of your suggestions but no luck. I would think it was a dead mother board but it's strange it happened on all 3. One thing, the servers all automatically power on when the cables are connected so I couldn't wait for the iDracs to initialize per your suggestion. I immediately powered them down after applying power and let them sit for several minutes.

Thanks again.

Was there a power event or anything, also are the 3 systems tied together by a power source (shared UPS/APC)?

Thank you, would you clarify where you're seeing the amber light, as well as if you have taken this to minimum to post, including everything externally connected as well?

Hey Chris,

Thanks for your response. The 3 PowerEdge's aren't tied together. I have tried different plugs in our build room which I assume are different circuits.  To my knowledge there was no power event.  They were our ESXi cluster and were upgraded and placed on the shelf in operational order I am told.

Hey Chris,

None of the servers post.  Just the messages I list in the opening message of the  thread.

The blinking amber light is the system identification button.

There are no externally connected devices accept the VGA and keyboard/mouse.

Thanks,

Jeffrey

It's what it is pointing to, but the odds of all 3 systems motherboards failing simultaneously are astronomical, unless there was possibly a power event relative to just those 3 systems.

If you have another R420, you could test the motherboard that way, also if the R420's have the iDrac ports card installed try removing it and see if that has an effect.

Could the problem be bad motherboard on all of the 420's? Would replacing them fix the problem?

Well googling this error and it seems there are a lot of us out there with this "strange" issue. I've tried all the things listed as well (powered off over night) on my good working machine until I patched it with BIOS / OS Drivers / RAID FW .. Seems after the reboot it can't find the iDRAC7 (not initializing) then you get to "Lifecycle Controller disabled" (because it can't find the iDRAC. Fans running at HIGH speed (no iDRAC to monitor) and I cannot run the URGENT iDRAC patch because the system cannot see iDRAC >>  (This update package is not compatible with your system). Now the server is out of warranty but was working just fine. In my 20 years working on Dell's this one is probably my top issue with basically no fix? Anyone have the magic fix? It scares me to "patch" any more servers.

So I have made some progress. I found out if I let server cycle through the boot process a few times it will eventually post. Unfortunately the iDRAC is still in error mode so the fans are screaming. I am not concerned about the functionality of the iDRACs in this particular instance since it's a lab  but I do need these servers to run a little quieter. Again it's odd it happened on 3 servers which were all on the shelf?

Is this really an iDRAC issue or something more sinister? The iDRAC is on a daughter-board I could replace inexpensively if that would help?

Well I can get the the F1 screen and get the OS to come up and work just fine, but wit that error I cannot put this into a live environment. I'm just stumped. I'm now trying the "Recovering the iDRAC" .p7 option but I canto get the SD card to recognize at all. any ideas how to get this to work? I formatted the SD card and have the .p7 file on it but noting. https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/how12633/poweredge-idrac-recovery-procedure-with-firmimg-d7?lang=en