Lukas Beeler’s IT Blog

I’ve had interesting problems today with a HP DL140 G2. The machine crashed, and it wasn’t possible to bring it back online using the integrated iLO 100. The iLO 100 had no problems in it’s event logs.

I restarted the machine a few times, and the machine brought the message that a critical error was encountered, and the system thus halted - right after the BIOS welcome screen. I tried to enter the BIOS, but failed a few times. The third one worked, and i looked at the event log in the BIOS. There were several error messages regarding voltage, but they were over a year old. I deleted all error messages, rebooted the machine until it halted again, and then entered the BIOS again. This time, there was an error Message regarding ECC Memory being defective.

I turned the machine off, set it on a table, and opened it. The problem was obvious immediately: The Northbridge cooler no longer was attached to the Northbridge. A tiny little metal nook which held the cooler in place was not found immediately - it was later located in the RAM slots.

I’m sure that i am the first and only person who opened this machine in the last few months. The Northbridge cooler obviously broke off by itself, indicating cheap manufacturing as being the problem.

This machine is a year old by now. Warranty expires tomorrow. Luckily we’ve opened a case today, and hope we can get a fix soon. I’m very interested on how this plays out with HP.