Chapter 3. General Checkout; Checkout Procedure; About The Checkout Procedure - Lenovo ThinkServer TS200 6522 Hardware Maintenance Manual

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

This section contains a checkout procedure that you should follow to solve hardware problems in the
server.

About the checkout procedure

Before you perform the checkout procedure for diagnosing hardware problems, review the following
information:
v Read the safety information that begins on page 1.
v The diagnostic programs provide the primary methods of testing the major components of the server,
such as the I/O 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.
v When 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 light path diagnostics LEDs indicate a microprocessor error, the
error might be in a microprocessor or in a microprocessor socket. See "Microprocessor problems" on
page 55 for information about diagnosing microprocessor problems.
v Before 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 that share 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 that share 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.
v If the server is halted and a POST error code is displayed, see "POST error codes" on page 21. If the
server is halted and no error message is displayed, see "System-board switches and jumpers" on page
120 and "Solving undetermined problems" on page 110.
v For information about power supply problems, see "Solving power problems" on page 108 and "power
supply LEDs" on page 64.
v For intermittent problems, check the error log; see "Event logs" on page 19 and "Diagnostic messages"
on page 68.
© Lenovo 2009. Portions © IBM Corp. 2007,2009.
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