Server stops accepting connections

[ReH]

I am not sure how to better describe this phenom.

I have a windows2000 server SP4 that is basically a windows shares server.
Its been having a problem for a long time in that for unknown reasons, it
just stop accepting connections of any sort. You can't browse to it, you
can't \\computername to it, you can't ftp to it, you can't remote registry
to it, you can't even login at the console as it appears the GINA is
stopped... or something... you're left with a blank blue screen at the
console (not bsod, just blue from the stock win2000 desktop color). You can
ping it however

I haven't put much thought into it as this has been a very sporadic
condition. A simple reboot and everything is fine for weeks/months. Now I
am dealing with an issue where even after a reboot I get condition
immediately.

There aren't viruses on it as no one uses it as a workstation and trendmicro
serverprotect is functioning. safemode boots fine. services that start
automatically, do start ok. I don't think its hardware because if it was I
would expect a whole system freeze and as such, ping wouldn't be working.

Is there a particular service that could be failing that would cause this?
Its such an odd issue and hard to define in a google search so I haven't
been getting far there or MS's KB.

I am going in tonight to boot into safe mode and remove everything in the
network settings and recreate it all, though I don't think that is it.

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading!

KW

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am not sure how to better describe this phenom.

I have a windows2000 server SP4 that is basically a windows shares server.
Its been having a problem for a long time in that for unknown reasons, it
just stop accepting connections of any sort. You can't browse to it, you
can't \\computername to it, you can't ftp to it, you can't remote registry
to it, you can't even login at the console as it appears the GINA is
stopped... or something... you're left with a blank blue screen at the
console (not bsod, just blue from the stock win2000 desktop color). You can
ping it however

I haven't put much thought into it as this has been a very sporadic
condition. A simple reboot and everything is fine for weeks/months. Now I
am dealing with an issue where even after a reboot I get condition
immediately.

There aren't viruses on it as no one uses it as a workstation and trendmicro
serverprotect is functioning. safemode boots fine. services that start
automatically, do start ok. I don't think its hardware because if it was I
would expect a whole system freeze and as such, ping wouldn't be working.

Is there a particular service that could be failing that would cause this?
Its such an odd issue and hard to define in a google search so I haven't
been getting far there or MS's KB.

I am going in tonight to boot into safe mode and remove everything in the
network settings and recreate it all, though I don't think that is it.

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading!

KW

Checking the Event Viewer would be a good starting point.

 

[ReH]

Yes, I seemed to have left that out.

Absolutely nothing in the event viewer. It literally happens out of the
blue.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

This sounds pretty serious. I suspect that one of your services
is falling over. You might try this batch file to get a handle on
the issue:
@echo off
:again
echo %date% %time% >> c:\log.txt
net start >> c:\log.txt
echo ================ >> c:\log.txt
ping localhost -n 300 > nul
goto again

You could, of course, use the Task Scheduler to run a similar
batch file once every few minutes. However, the since the Task
Scheduler might be affected by your problem it my stop logging
events just when you most want them logged . . .

 

[ReH]

Thanks Pegasus, thats a good idea.

I brought it up in safe mode, did absolutely nothing and rebooted it and its
fine again.

This server once was a domain controller. Since its demotion over 6 month
ago the lockups are much less frequent, but I was hoping the issue sourced
in something DC services related.

I would love to reformat it rebuild it but what to do with 150gbs of data
spead around 100 shares....

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Your problem points to a fundamental issue. Good server design
dictates that the OS resides on one drive and that all data is kept
on a different drive, perhaps even a different disk. Makes
reloading Windows a piece of cake!