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Question

I just bought a used poweredge 4300 server. The system boots up to the login in screen with now problem so I'm sure the software and most of the hardware is fine. The problem I'm having is after about 30 seconds from when I first turn on the computer, it begins to emit a intermitent beep it beeps about every second and is the same pattren. It does not match any beep codes. I noticed that the fan light blinks orange, is this the cause of the beepeing. I know one of the hard drive fans is bad, so I disconnected it. Would it still cause the beeping?

caroth · Answer

The fan warning light would be caused by your bad fan. The beeping is your RAID controller, check your RAID configuration, you probably have a drive that got kicked out of the array and is in failed status that you have to rebuild.

droMac · Answer

Thanks. Thats what it was. Sandro

Kevand · Answer

I also have seen that problem, have you found a solution? I tried going through all my programs on the server to see if there were any settings that lead to that beeping, and there were a couple though they were all set to NOT work, and there were no details about any problems indicating the beep was on behalf of either of those programs.

Kevand

abrahamssip · Answer

im having the same problem here... ive tried "rebuilding" the config using Control-M during boot up but im still getting the same problem its very annoying...

Anyone knows how to Stop the speaker? and the Raid utility manager cannot detect now the HD's im getting no respond but before i can still boot in windows but now its completely messed up

Kevand · Answer

My problem was also the RAID controller though I had to upgrade the PERC bios and drivers, as well as others. Beeping went away. I suggest looking for all updates to firmware & bios's on your machine and upgrade them all. Watch the bootup to look for all your current versions.

DELL-GaryS · Answer

The beeping can be stopped! in the PERC console or PERC BIOS (LSI controllers only) select objects, physical devices, controllers, settings, alarm control. Options are enable, disable and silence. Silence only works till you reboot the server and will revert to enable at that point.

There are three different beep patterns:

on for 2 counts, off for 1: you have a FAILED array.

on for 1 count, off for 1: you have a DEGRADED array.

on for 1 count, off for 2: you have an array REBUILDING.

Please note that with large drives in huge arrays, the rebuilding may take quite a long time. I had one customer with the 40 MB/s PERC II rebuilding a 8x73 GB RAID 5 array that beeped for 26 hours after starting the rebuild.

If you are in the PERC console or BIOS and have started the rebuild with the alarm control still enabled, you cannot shut it off till the rebuild is complete!

I hope this helps.

DELL-GaryS

AlexDeLandgraaf · Answer

The beeping for the PowerEdge 700 SCSI adapter can be found under Objects / Adapter / Alarm Control. Having this switched on by default might have made sense to the designers, but searching through the manual to get em to keep quiet isn't that handy.

Anyway, thanks for the tips above, they got me on the right track.

PowerEdge Hardware General

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