SQL Server makes our server reboot!

[Guillaume Senneville]

hi,

we are having this weird problem that can be reproduced easily on 2
out of 2 servers where we've tried:
- we run a SQL Server 2000 stored procedure that processes 2.5 million
rows (big procedure with many cursors)
- when it hits an area of procedure (not always the exact same place,
but in the same area) , the server reboots

I've tried to debug the problem but:
- there are no event log except when it restarts to say 'previous
system shutdown unexpected'
- the blackbox trace I've created is empty
- the perfmon log stops a few seconds before the reboot and shows no
out of whack counter
- we've had the hardware checked by an IT guy and everything looks
fine

The only thing we can see that might have changed is that the disks
and data files were reorganized ..but that's on one machine. On the
other machine were we copied the database to test, we did not do that
and it still rebooted.

I've also run DBCC CHECKDB and everything looks fine. I've scanned all
the hard drive for bad sectors. We've tested the CPUs for overheating.
I've monitored the virtual memory to make sure there was enough.

Any help will be appreciated, we are out of ideas!!

thanks
Guillaume
ps: we are using win2000/SP4 and SQLServer 2000 SP3

[Erland Sommarskog]

Guillaume Senneville (go*****@candg2.com) writes:

we are having this weird problem that can be reproduced easily on 2
out of 2 servers where we've tried:
- we run a SQL Server 2000 stored procedure that processes 2.5 million
rows (big procedure with many cursors)
- when it hits an area of procedure (not always the exact same place,
but in the same area) , the server reboots

I've tried to debug the problem but:
- there are no event log except when it restarts to say 'previous
system shutdown unexpected'
- the blackbox trace I've created is empty
- the perfmon log stops a few seconds before the reboot and shows no
out of whack counter
- we've had the hardware checked by an IT guy and everything looks
fine

Well, there are two ways to and you will probably not like any of
them:

1) Open a case with Microsoft. If indeed an error in SQL Server is
causing Windows to reboot, then you should befunded for the case.
Same if the error in Windows.

2) Take a stab of the procedure and rewrite it to use fewer cursors
and to more set-based operations.

Oh, you should also review your crash-dump options for Windows, so
that you save a memory dump when Windows goes down the drain. There is
a program WinDbg that you can download from Microsoft.com to analyse
crash dumps.

My gut feeling is that it is after all a hardware problem, probably a
bad memory board somewhere.

--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, so****@algonet.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinf...2000/books.asp

[Matt]

Guillaume-

Did you ever get any closure on this issue? We are experiencing the
same problems and I'm attempting to find an answer. Regards.

Matt

[Erland Sommarskog]

Matt (mm*******@gmail.com) writes:

Did you ever get any closure on this issue? We are experiencing the
same problems and I'm attempting to find an answer. Regards.

Since I assume that the answer that I posted in reply to the original
question die not help you, I suggest that you describe your situation in
a posting here.
--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, es****@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinf...2000/books.asp