The plot thickens
By john on Jan 25, 2009 in Apple, featured
I wrote earlier about one of my XServes that had problems with a kernel panic on boot. While I still have NO idea what the underlying cause happens to be, it seems to have corrected itself.
Earlier today, on a hunch, I went and booted the server. I figured the worst that would happen is another Kernel Panic. This time, instead of the expected text output informing me the kernel had a mental breakdown I was greeted with, after a short delay, the login prompt.
My best guess, and it’s just a guess nothing more, is that this is a temperature issue. It was VERY cold last night, to the tune of about 0 degrees. Also note that, at the time this started, the garage door had been left open (and yes, my server rack is in my garage). My best guess – at this point – is that the server had a difficult time booting at such temperatures. Once things warmed up a bit during the day the problems disappeared.
This is, however, just a guess. The machine could crap out and start kernel panic’ing again at any time for all I know. I sincerely hope it does not.
I have not cut my network over to start using it as the gateway again yet. That is a project for either tomorrow or Tuesday, depending on the stability of the system.
I’ll update here as more information becomes available.
[Update]: The issue was temperature. The temperature around the rack was approximately -3 degrees F. For those that happent to have read the specs on XServe operating temperatures, the low end of it is about 53 degrees warmer than my rack was. Oops. Apparently you CAN get a computer too cold 
. Helluva problem to have, though.
Popularity: 30% [?]
Post a Comment