Velocity Tech-nically

Taking your loved one out for a bite, or would you rather buy lots of bytes with a Dell PowerEdge R620 or R720XD!!

Hi, I'm Nate with Velocity Tech Solutions in Roseville, MN. I'm here to teach you, how to clear the event log on your Dell R710, R810, and R910 servers, also if you need to get rid of that troubling Amber LCD screen on the front of your server.

When it comes to the 11th generation servers, there are 2 ways to clear the event log. 1 of them does NOT require a restart, which is nice if your server is up and running. If your server is not booting into the OS, or if the iDRAC web interface is not working, there is a 2nd way involving the hardware that requires a restart. Let's go through each method one at a time.

1st Method: iDRAC web interface.

This method is great if you don't want to restart your server, your iDRAC is configured with a known IP address, and your machine is up and running. You can do this method without internet access, as long as you can access your server via an IP address.

To do this, the first step is to log into the IP address using your web browser. Mine is set to the default setting, which is 192.168.0.120.

Now you'll be prompted with your user ID and password for your iDRAC. You should know this information, but if this is your first time accessing your iDRAC this way, the defaults are “root” for the username, and “calvin”, all lowercase, for the password. Make sure the drop-down box says “this iDRAC” and then click submit.

At the next screen, if you have never been to this web interface before, it will most likely ask you to change the default username and password. If you see that screen, do this now and go through your typical company's protocol for storing and remembering passwords.

After the login, you will come to this screen (main page for iDRAC web interface). You need to navigate to....The Dashboard.

a) On the right side of the dashboard, there are a few quick launch tags.

Click on View system event log.

Here's a chance to see what is in your event log. Just make sure that nothing in the log is unexpected.

Click “clear log”. At this point, your event log should be cleared. You can log out of the iDRAC if you have nothing else to do here. Wait a few minutes, and the LCD screen on the front of your machine should go from Amber to the standard blue, indicating that there are no persistent errors at the moment. If after a few minutes, the screen is still amber, make sure to go through the errors using the buttons on the screen. If you are still getting an error, it could be that the problem is persistent and something in your machine is not ideal and needs to be fixed before clearing the event log will bring the screen back to standard blue. An example of this would be if your raid cables were missing or plugged into the wrong ports. In that instance, the LCD Amber error light will not go away until the machine has detected new Raid cables in the machine and then the machine is rebooted again.

One last thing to note here is that if you open the lid on your server, but have no other errors when your machine boots up, you will get an Amber LCD screen for only a minute while the machine boots and the error will say “intrusion”, but this will go away after about a minute and the LCD screen will go back to blue.

2nd Method: Hardware way, using Ctrl + E on bootup

For this method, the first thing we need to do is restart the server. Make sure you have your company’s permission before you continue.

Once you are rebooting, you will see a splash screen for either Dell or the maker of your machine.

Then you will get to the next POST screen, which displays all the information of your machine and starts listing options. The option you are looking for will say “Press Ctrl + E to enter remote access setup within 5 seconds...” at the bottom of your screen. Press Ctrl + E immediately when you see that.

If it worked, you will enter this screen. Simply use the down arrow key to navigate all the way to the bottom of the list where it says (THIS). Hit enter.

After 10 seconds, you will be given two options, to either view or clear the event log. You can clear it if you want, but this is a GREAT opportunity to see what is in the event log. If you are having issues with your server hardware, this is a great place to start looking, but if you simply need to clear it, just use the clear option and hit enter. Clearing the log should be instantaneous.

Once it's cleared, hit escape until you exit the Remote Access screen. At this point, your machine will continue to boot up as normal. Your LCD screen should go back to the standard blue soon if there are no persistent errors. If it remains Amber after a minute, use the arrows on the LCD screen to see what errors are still coming up.

This finalizes the steps you should take to clear the event log on the Dell PowerEdge Models: R710, R810, R910