A systems administrator is troubleshooting a physical server that hosts a critical database application. The server experiences random lockups, becoming completely unresponsive and requiring a hard reset. The lockups occur intermittently, sometimes days apart, but seem more frequent during periods of high utilization. The administrator has reviewed the OS event logs, which show no specific errors preceding the unexpected shutdown events. While inspecting the server, the administrator notes that the chassis feels unusually warm and the internal fans are spinning at maximum RPM. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the random lockups?
The correct answer is CPU or GPU overheating. The combination of symptoms, including random lockups under high utilization, an unusually warm chassis, and fans operating at maximum speed, strongly indicates a thermal issue. When a CPU overheats, the system can become unstable and lock up to prevent permanent hardware damage. The high fan speed is the server's automated response to try and dissipate the excess heat.
A failing power supply unit (PSU) is a plausible distractor because PSU faults can cause random shutdowns, especially under heavy load. However, this choice does not as directly explain the specific thermal symptoms (warm chassis and max fan RPM) as overheating does. Intermittent memory errors can also cause random lockups, but they are typically not correlated with high server load or temperature and often produce specific memory-related error codes in logs or on a blue screen, which were absent in this scenario. A misconfigured RAID controller would more likely cause storage-specific I/O errors, data corruption, or boot failures rather than a complete system freeze without any related log entries.
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What causes a CPU or GPU to overheat?
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How can a systems administrator identify and prevent overheating in a server?
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Why does the server's fan spin at maximum RPM during thermal issues?