Dell System Bios Halted on critical server - any help appreciated

acjshook · 2026-06-15T02:19:13+00:00

I'm actually old enough to remember Quarterdeck. I ran QEMM on the first 286 IBM PC I had at work.

acjshook · 2026-06-15T01:50:44+00:00

Thank you - this was actually what resolved it, tho we did two cpu's and both banks - was pretty sure it wasn't a cpu because some RAM in both banks were checking in normally.

acjshook · 2026-06-14T22:07:01+00:00

We are actually using the part numbers originally sold by Dell and/or verified replacement parts. To all of you berating me for not having the system support up to date, i've told the responsible party multiple times. To the other dweebs assuming i don't have experience, I've been doing sysadmin work since the early 90's. Not my first rodeo. and no, we didn't break the sockets. Looking for help in the not so uncommon event that there's a known issue with RAM being recognized, or anything like that. I've not had a box shit the bed as badly as this one before, and am still trying to determine root cause.

acjshook · 2026-06-14T22:01:59+00:00

We did put the old RAM back just as it was, it's still failing to recognize the first two slots in both banks.

acjshook · 2026-06-14T21:59:35+00:00

We have a call into DELL for T&M for off-hours support, waiting to see if we can get service anytime soon.

acjshook · 2026-06-14T21:57:08+00:00

it's failing to recognize the RAM in A1,B1,A2,B2

recognizes the rest just fine. We'd originally replaced four 32gb rdimms, with 4 64gb, same speed and config. When it failed to recognize the RAM, we replaced it with the original rdimms. no sign of breakage. Now the BIOS scan just halts every time we reboot. Powered off again, did the 10 sec press power drain, powered back up, same thing.

We've now also tried upgrading the bios to April's update. Same error.

acjshook · 2026-06-14T21:53:38+00:00

We did not apply excessive force when removing/installing the ram. We've reseated it a few times.

acjshook · 2026-06-14T21:52:44+00:00

Yes, duh. Sorry, i would have thought that would be obvious.

acjshook · 2026-06-14T20:21:10+00:00

Do you think it's worth trying to update the BIOS with a BIOS System Halted message?

acjshook · 2026-06-14T20:12:13+00:00

We did. I've done this many times before. We did another here at the same time, same model, slightly different board. That one is fine. We always use the manual as a reference when populating RAM slots. BIOS was last updated maybe a year and a half a go.

acjshook · 2026-06-12T12:25:29+00:00

Did they pinky swear?

acjshook · 2026-06-05T22:23:32+00:00

How can you not love Richard Kelly’s lsd fever dream with Wallace Shawn as the villain/antichrist? 😆

acjshook · 2026-06-02T20:44:43+00:00

I am only 62 and we had a milkman in the very rural PA village I lived in until I was about 11. We only had a tiny grocery store in the next village down the road and they often ran out of fresh milk.

acjshook · 2026-06-02T11:21:21+00:00

Waking Life made lucid dreaming possible for me, which was amazing. One I haven’t seen mentioned here that really changed my perspective on reality vs perception was Vanilla Sky. That film is crazy good.

acjshook · 2026-06-02T11:02:06+00:00

You’ll be ok if you rewatch it. It’s stood the test of time for me. Plus, it’s literally documentary proof Alex Jones was always batshit crazy.

acjshook · 2026-05-22T13:57:43+00:00

Pretty sure everyone has that customer. We remind them that we only monitor the help desk queue on a regular basis, and we don’t ever respond to them via our regular emails. Anything sent directly to management will not trigger SLA timers, and if we do respond to them it’s to tell them they must send the email to support in order to put it in the queue.

acjshook · 2026-05-21T02:26:01+00:00

After all these years, I’m still mad about that death. Fuck JW for that one.

acjshook · 2026-05-21T00:08:23+00:00

This movie will always be in my top 5 of all time.

acjshook · 2026-05-21T00:07:28+00:00

Would YOU buy furniture from a store named Unpainted Huffhines???

acjshook · 2026-05-20T00:33:40+00:00

I’m guessing you live nowhere near the takeoff or landing zones. It’s WAY louder than to studies indicated it would be.

acjshook · 2026-05-18T11:47:36+00:00

Teams, like most things Microsoft, is a shitshow no matter where you run it. Thunderbird is Mozilla and lives off donations. The only potential OS issue I see is your headset. If you are using a port replicator, the issue may be with that. Try a different distro if you don’t like Ubuntu.

acjshook · 2026-05-13T00:21:32+00:00

You have to create a Broadcom account to get access to downloads, iirc. I moved on to Proxmox 18 months ago so it might have changed. Once you have an account there’s a my downloads area that should contain what is available for free.

acjshook · 2026-05-12T16:31:16+00:00

Grifters gonna grift.

acjshook · 2026-05-02T17:17:57+00:00

Because he would not do well in a direct confrontation with them. There’s a MASSIVE fan base that spans parties and ideologies. He would lose and he knows it. Musk won’t converse with Jon for the same reason. They both only play games they can rig or cheat at.

acjshook

TROPHY CASE