Lenovo RS210 manual General Checkout, Checkout procedure, About the checkout procedure

Chapter 3. General Checkout

You can solve many problems without outside assistance by following the troubleshooting procedures in this Hardware Maintenance Manual and on the Lenovo Web site. This document describes the diagnostic tests that you can perform, troubleshooting procedures, and explanations of error messages and error codes. The documentation that comes with your operating system and software also contains troubleshooting information.

Checkout procedure

The checkout procedure is the sequence of tasks that you should follow to diagnose a problem in the server.

About the checkout procedure

Before you perform the checkout procedure for diagnosing hardware problems, review the following information:

vRead the safety information that begins on page 1.

vThe diagnostic programs provide the primary methods of testing the major components of the server, such as the system board, Ethernet controller, keyboard, mouse (pointing device), serial ports, and hard disk drives. You can also use them to test some external devices. If you are not sure whether a problem is caused by the hardware or by the software, you can use the diagnostic programs to confirm that the hardware is working correctly.

vWhen you run the diagnostic programs, a single problem might cause more than one error message. When this happens, correct the cause of the first error message. The other error messages usually will not occur the next time you run the diagnostic programs.

Exception: If multiple error codes or system-board LEDs indicate a microprocessor error, the error might be in the microprocessor or in the microprocessor socket. See “Microprocessor problems” on page 58 for information about diagnosing microprocessor problems.

vBefore you run the diagnostic programs, you must determine whether the failing server is part of a shared hard disk drive cluster (two or more servers sharing external storage devices). If it is part of a cluster, you can run all diagnostic programs except the ones that test the storage unit (that is, a hard disk drive in the storage unit) or the storage adapter that is attached to the storage unit. The failing server might be part of a cluster if any of the following conditions is true:

–You have identified the failing server as part of a cluster (two or more servers sharing external storage devices).

–One or more external storage units are attached to the failing server and at least one of the attached storage units is also attached to another server or unidentifiable device.

–One or more servers are located near the failing server.

Important: If the server is part of a shared hard disk drive cluster, run one test at a time. Do not run any suite of tests, such as “quick” or “normal” tests, because this might enable the hard disk drive diagnostic tests.

vIf the server is halted and a POST error code is displayed, see “Event logs” on page 19. If the server is halted and no error message is displayed, see “Troubleshooting tables” on page 50 and “Solving undetermined problems” on page 103.

vFor information about power-supply problems, see “Solving power problems” on page 102.

vFor intermittent problems, check the error log; see “Event logs” on page 19 and “Diagnostic programs and messages” on page 68.

© Lenovo 2009. Portions © IBM Corp. 2007, 2009. 15