Windows 2003 Server goes to Sleep?

  • Thread starter Thread starter S Sainsbury
  • Start date Start date
S

S Sainsbury

I have a windows 2003 R2 Server running Exchange 2003. Initially the server
ran fine, however shortly after upgrading exchange to Enterprise version we
started to have connectivity issues.

At somepoint during the night the server drops its connection, this usually
happens around 21:00 and causes the backup to fail (backup runs from 18:00
too 22:00).

The server then appears to be in sleep mode until the first user in the
morning attempts to access email, after about 5-10 mins of trying to connect
to email the server appears to wake. The server will then work 100% until
the evening and again will loose connectivity at somepoint, anywhere between
18:00 too 22:30.

This has been ongoing for months and every attempt at a resolution has
failed, a break down of attempted fixes....

Changing Backup Times
Reinstalling Backup Agent
Changing NIC config
Changing Teaming config
Disabling Teaming
Changing Switches
Changing Exchange Config

The only thing that seems to have some impact is leaving the server logged
on at the console, by doing that 95% of the time the backup will complete and
usually there are no connectivity issues in the mornings, however it does not
always seem to work.

I have trawled the internet and can find no answers, we have dones all the
obvious things like checking powersave etc, we have infact completely rewired
all the switches and changed switch config as that was though to be the
possible cause.

There is also nothing to indicate a problem on the server itself, nothing in
the eventlog to go on, the only thing left is a complete rebuild, but this we
want to avoid.

The problem only affects the first user on site in the morning and any users
working late at night, hence why its been possible for this problem to
continue for so long.

Does anyone have any ideas?
 
S Sainsbury <SSainsbury@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> I have a windows 2003 R2 Server running Exchange 2003. Initially the
> server ran fine, however shortly after upgrading exchange to
> Enterprise version we started to have connectivity issues.
>
> At somepoint during the night the server drops its connection, this
> usually happens around 21:00 and causes the backup to fail (backup
> runs from 18:00 too 22:00).
>
> The server then appears to be in sleep mode until the first user in
> the morning attempts to access email, after about 5-10 mins of trying
> to connect to email the server appears to wake. The server will then
> work 100% until the evening and again will loose connectivity at
> somepoint, anywhere between 18:00 too 22:30.
>
> This has been ongoing for months and every attempt at a resolution has
> failed, a break down of attempted fixes....
>
> Changing Backup Times
> Reinstalling Backup Agent
> Changing NIC config
> Changing Teaming config
> Disabling Teaming
> Changing Switches
> Changing Exchange Config
>
> The only thing that seems to have some impact is leaving the server
> logged on at the console, by doing that 95% of the time the backup
> will complete and usually there are no connectivity issues in the
> mornings, however it does not always seem to work.
>
> I have trawled the internet and can find no answers, we have dones
> all the obvious things like checking powersave etc, we have infact
> completely rewired all the switches and changed switch config as that
> was though to be the possible cause.
>
> There is also nothing to indicate a problem on the server itself,
> nothing in the eventlog to go on, the only thing left is a complete
> rebuild, but this we want to avoid.
>
> The problem only affects the first user on site in the morning and
> any users working late at night, hence why its been possible for this
> problem to continue for so long.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas?

When the server is napping, what do you see at the console itself? What do
you have to do to wake it up?
What about the BIOS? If this happens when nobody is logged in, it won't be
the usual "power settings" culprit.
 
"S Sainsbury" <SSainsbury@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:48610AC3-044F-4DF7-9F8A-83676F5B6535@microsoft.com...
>I have a windows 2003 R2 Server running Exchange 2003. Initially the server
> ran fine, however shortly after upgrading exchange to Enterprise version
> we
> started to have connectivity issues.
>
> At somepoint during the night the server drops its connection, this
> usually
> happens around 21:00 and causes the backup to fail (backup runs from 18:00
> too 22:00).
>
> The server then appears to be in sleep mode until the first user in the
> morning attempts to access email, after about 5-10 mins of trying to
> connect
> to email the server appears to wake. The server will then work 100% until
> the evening and again will loose connectivity at somepoint, anywhere
> between
> 18:00 too 22:30.
>
> This has been ongoing for months and every attempt at a resolution has
> failed, a break down of attempted fixes....
>
> Changing Backup Times
> Reinstalling Backup Agent
> Changing NIC config
> Changing Teaming config
> Disabling Teaming
> Changing Switches
> Changing Exchange Config
>
> The only thing that seems to have some impact is leaving the server logged
> on at the console, by doing that 95% of the time the backup will complete
> and
> usually there are no connectivity issues in the mornings, however it does
> not
> always seem to work.
>
> I have trawled the internet and can find no answers, we have dones all the
> obvious things like checking powersave etc, we have infact completely
> rewired
> all the switches and changed switch config as that was though to be the
> possible cause.
>
> There is also nothing to indicate a problem on the server itself, nothing
> in
> the eventlog to go on, the only thing left is a complete rebuild, but this
> we
> want to avoid.
>
> The problem only affects the first user on site in the morning and any
> users
> working late at night, hence why its been possible for this problem to
> continue for so long.
>
> Does anyone have any ideas?
>


As a suggestion for a quick fix. It sounds like around 4 hours after the end
of business, so some power saving software in server is perhaps causing the
problem. Would it be possible to make a scheduled task say every hour to
stop the server going to sleep, e.g. antivirus, defrag, smaller backups? If
it still happpened in the middle of a task then it wouldn't be going to
sleep so that narrows the problem.
 
Thanks for your response, due to the time the server goes to sleep the office
is closed, so unfortunatly I dont get to see whats happening on the console,
however the console would be logged off.

If I happen to be the first user on site in the morning then it usually
requires me to logon at the console, however this can take a minute or so for
the server to respond, once logged on its then ok. However if a user is
first in then it takes between 5-10 mins of trying to use outlook before it
will connect to exchange.

I should also mention that when the server does go to "sleep" it is not
idle, a full system/exchange backup (backupexec) is running, also if the
backup is put on hold the problem still exists.

I dont think its powersave settings either, simply because the server is not
idle and no powersave settings have been set.

In order to try and keep the server "awake" and to help identify when/where
its loosing connectivity I had set a constant ping with logging from the
server to a DC and also from the DC to the exchange server and from a
workstation to the server, the connection was still dropped and there was no
pattern.

Im also not aware of any tasks that are run during the problem hours which
may affect the server or network, other than scheduled backups.

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" wrote:

> S Sainsbury <SSainsbury@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> > I have a windows 2003 R2 Server running Exchange 2003. Initially the
> > server ran fine, however shortly after upgrading exchange to
> > Enterprise version we started to have connectivity issues.
> >
> > At somepoint during the night the server drops its connection, this
> > usually happens around 21:00 and causes the backup to fail (backup
> > runs from 18:00 too 22:00).
> >
> > The server then appears to be in sleep mode until the first user in
> > the morning attempts to access email, after about 5-10 mins of trying
> > to connect to email the server appears to wake. The server will then
> > work 100% until the evening and again will loose connectivity at
> > somepoint, anywhere between 18:00 too 22:30.
> >
> > This has been ongoing for months and every attempt at a resolution has
> > failed, a break down of attempted fixes....
> >
> > Changing Backup Times
> > Reinstalling Backup Agent
> > Changing NIC config
> > Changing Teaming config
> > Disabling Teaming
> > Changing Switches
> > Changing Exchange Config
> >
> > The only thing that seems to have some impact is leaving the server
> > logged on at the console, by doing that 95% of the time the backup
> > will complete and usually there are no connectivity issues in the
> > mornings, however it does not always seem to work.
> >
> > I have trawled the internet and can find no answers, we have dones
> > all the obvious things like checking powersave etc, we have infact
> > completely rewired all the switches and changed switch config as that
> > was though to be the possible cause.
> >
> > There is also nothing to indicate a problem on the server itself,
> > nothing in the eventlog to go on, the only thing left is a complete
> > rebuild, but this we want to avoid.
> >
> > The problem only affects the first user on site in the morning and
> > any users working late at night, hence why its been possible for this
> > problem to continue for so long.
> >
> > Does anyone have any ideas?
>
> When the server is napping, what do you see at the console itself? What do
> you have to do to wake it up?
> What about the BIOS? If this happens when nobody is logged in, it won't be
> the usual "power settings" culprit.
>
>
>
 
I dont think the server being idel is an issue as it goes to sleep usually
during a backup, however I set a scheduled task to start a ping every hour
and the server was still problematic this morning.

"Greg O" wrote:

>
> "S Sainsbury" <SSainsbury@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:48610AC3-044F-4DF7-9F8A-83676F5B6535@microsoft.com...
> >I have a windows 2003 R2 Server running Exchange 2003. Initially the server
> > ran fine, however shortly after upgrading exchange to Enterprise version
> > we
> > started to have connectivity issues.
> >
> > At somepoint during the night the server drops its connection, this
> > usually
> > happens around 21:00 and causes the backup to fail (backup runs from 18:00
> > too 22:00).
> >
> > The server then appears to be in sleep mode until the first user in the
> > morning attempts to access email, after about 5-10 mins of trying to
> > connect
> > to email the server appears to wake. The server will then work 100% until
> > the evening and again will loose connectivity at somepoint, anywhere
> > between
> > 18:00 too 22:30.
> >
> > This has been ongoing for months and every attempt at a resolution has
> > failed, a break down of attempted fixes....
> >
> > Changing Backup Times
> > Reinstalling Backup Agent
> > Changing NIC config
> > Changing Teaming config
> > Disabling Teaming
> > Changing Switches
> > Changing Exchange Config
> >
> > The only thing that seems to have some impact is leaving the server logged
> > on at the console, by doing that 95% of the time the backup will complete
> > and
> > usually there are no connectivity issues in the mornings, however it does
> > not
> > always seem to work.
> >
> > I have trawled the internet and can find no answers, we have dones all the
> > obvious things like checking powersave etc, we have infact completely
> > rewired
> > all the switches and changed switch config as that was though to be the
> > possible cause.
> >
> > There is also nothing to indicate a problem on the server itself, nothing
> > in
> > the eventlog to go on, the only thing left is a complete rebuild, but this
> > we
> > want to avoid.
> >
> > The problem only affects the first user on site in the morning and any
> > users
> > working late at night, hence why its been possible for this problem to
> > continue for so long.
> >
> > Does anyone have any ideas?
> >
>
>
> As a suggestion for a quick fix. It sounds like around 4 hours after the end
> of business, so some power saving software in server is perhaps causing the
> problem. Would it be possible to make a scheduled task say every hour to
> stop the server going to sleep, e.g. antivirus, defrag, smaller backups? If
> it still happpened in the middle of a task then it wouldn't be going to
> sleep so that narrows the problem.
>
>
>
 
This morning give a little more insight into the problem, I had issues as
normal with the exchange server being unresponsive, again after logging on it
was fine, however I noticed we had the same problem with another server, this
is a new NAS device, normally this issue would have gone unnoticed but I have
a test virtual exchange server and its "disks" are held on the NAS, this
morning the Virtual server was down due to loosing connection to the NAS.

So it looks like the problem maybe more than 1 server, which leads to a
bigger issue.

I have today tried to document/diagram the switches and port mappings to
help understand where the problem may lie, but I can see no common
"connection". The servers with issues are on seperate switches, they are
different hardware platforms, different server roles etc.

I suspect this problem maybe beyond this news group as it could be network
related, but any pointers would be helpful.

"S Sainsbury" wrote:

> Thanks for your response, due to the time the server goes to sleep the office
> is closed, so unfortunatly I dont get to see whats happening on the console,
> however the console would be logged off.
>
> If I happen to be the first user on site in the morning then it usually
> requires me to logon at the console, however this can take a minute or so for
> the server to respond, once logged on its then ok. However if a user is
> first in then it takes between 5-10 mins of trying to use outlook before it
> will connect to exchange.
>
> I should also mention that when the server does go to "sleep" it is not
> idle, a full system/exchange backup (backupexec) is running, also if the
> backup is put on hold the problem still exists.
>
> I dont think its powersave settings either, simply because the server is not
> idle and no powersave settings have been set.
>
> In order to try and keep the server "awake" and to help identify when/where
> its loosing connectivity I had set a constant ping with logging from the
> server to a DC and also from the DC to the exchange server and from a
> workstation to the server, the connection was still dropped and there was no
> pattern.
>
> Im also not aware of any tasks that are run during the problem hours which
> may affect the server or network, other than scheduled backups.
>
> "Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]" wrote:
>
> > S Sainsbury <SSainsbury@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> > > I have a windows 2003 R2 Server running Exchange 2003. Initially the
> > > server ran fine, however shortly after upgrading exchange to
> > > Enterprise version we started to have connectivity issues.
> > >
> > > At somepoint during the night the server drops its connection, this
> > > usually happens around 21:00 and causes the backup to fail (backup
> > > runs from 18:00 too 22:00).
> > >
> > > The server then appears to be in sleep mode until the first user in
> > > the morning attempts to access email, after about 5-10 mins of trying
> > > to connect to email the server appears to wake. The server will then
> > > work 100% until the evening and again will loose connectivity at
> > > somepoint, anywhere between 18:00 too 22:30.
> > >
> > > This has been ongoing for months and every attempt at a resolution has
> > > failed, a break down of attempted fixes....
> > >
> > > Changing Backup Times
> > > Reinstalling Backup Agent
> > > Changing NIC config
> > > Changing Teaming config
> > > Disabling Teaming
> > > Changing Switches
> > > Changing Exchange Config
> > >
> > > The only thing that seems to have some impact is leaving the server
> > > logged on at the console, by doing that 95% of the time the backup
> > > will complete and usually there are no connectivity issues in the
> > > mornings, however it does not always seem to work.
> > >
> > > I have trawled the internet and can find no answers, we have dones
> > > all the obvious things like checking powersave etc, we have infact
> > > completely rewired all the switches and changed switch config as that
> > > was though to be the possible cause.
> > >
> > > There is also nothing to indicate a problem on the server itself,
> > > nothing in the eventlog to go on, the only thing left is a complete
> > > rebuild, but this we want to avoid.
> > >
> > > The problem only affects the first user on site in the morning and
> > > any users working late at night, hence why its been possible for this
> > > problem to continue for so long.
> > >
> > > Does anyone have any ideas?
> >
> > When the server is napping, what do you see at the console itself? What do
> > you have to do to wake it up?
> > What about the BIOS? If this happens when nobody is logged in, it won't be
> > the usual "power settings" culprit.
> >
> >
> >
 
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