Subj : Re: Novell 4.11 reboot
To   : Leonard Erickson
From : Craig Healy
Date : Fri Jun 09 2000 02:50 am

-> -> It's possible that someone in the past had put a programmed
-> -> shutdown into it using PowerChute..
->
-> CH> I doubt it in this case.  It would have taken some malevolent elf
-> CH> follow me around and program that in all the machines I tried it
-> CH> Must be something in both those APC UPSs.  I don't even have
-> CH> PowerChute on these machines.
->
-> He's talking about using Powerchute to program the UPS, not the
-> computers.

Same basic answer.  This shutdown problem has happened on two different
Novell servers, a 3.12 and a new installation of 4.11.  The 3.12 had
worked for at least four years without problems.  The 4.11 was a new
installation by me last December.  Nobody else had access.  This
same shutdown problem also happens on a Windows NT machine chosen at
random from a dozen at work.  I simply swapped UPSs and the problem
followed.  Nobody else knew I did that, or would have cared.  The
last machine is my maintenance node on the BBS.  I wouldn't have
even discovered it was rebooting if I hadn't chanced to look at the
scandisk logs.  I discovered that Scandisk had run almost every
morning for literally months between 5:30am and 6am.  Since no
maintenance processes are scheduled in that timeframe, it wasn't
apparent to BBS operation.  I unplugged the machine from the UPS
and plugged it direct into the same wall outlet.  End of problem.

PowerChute isn't installed any any of those machines.  No UPS.NLM
either.  Scandisk quit running on the Win98 BBS maintenance node
when the UPS was taken out.  The WinNT machine no longer sat at
the login prompt when I arrived in the morning.

It looks like I have two different UPSs that shut off every morning
about dawn.  If the batteries were on the way out, then I'd think
this would happen at random times.  It's never happened outside the
5:30am to 6am time frame.  Yet I can't imagine anything in the UPS
that would have a clock.  Nothing else in the building is affected.
Only things plugged into either of these two APC Back-UPS 600 boxes.

I am totally baffled at this, but am going to simply replace the UPSs.
Then I'll contact APC which is about 30 minutes south of me in Kingston,
RI.  Maybe they have some answers..

Thanks for all the help and suggestions from everyone here.  This was
a truly baffling problem.

-c-

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