It’s not always straightforward to diagnose a server problem. You look through the SQL Server Logs and Event Viewer for clues . There aren’t any obvious clues.
The steps I follow are:
1) Is it a SQL Server problem?Is it an OS shutdown ? Is it a hardware problem?
2) Write a report , outlining the facts.
3) Gather logs, kernel crash dump files
4) Send to server managers or vendor
5) Prepare for a failover (if necessary)
This is an example of events occurring recently. The conclusion was a hardware failure. Specifically a processor problem.
What’s interesting is the lack of log entries for a Processor failure .
All systems on a Production SQL Server SERVER1 were running OK – up to at 21:55 . Then an unexpected shutdown occured
There was then an unexpected server shutdown and Windows server was booted again at 15/06/2011 at 22:29
This caused backups to fail and nightly jobs to fail .
A series of Event Viewer messages :
15/06/2011 – 21:56
The system failed to register pointer (PTR) resource records (RRs) for network adapter
with settings:
Adapter Name : {0668572E-B074-4F48-8D2A-E2D5FF556AE9}
Host Name : SERVER1
Adapter-specific Domain Suffix : euprod.travp.net
DNS server list :
1
Sent update to server : xxx.xx.xx.xxx
IP Address : xx.xx.xx.xxx
The reason that the system could not register these RRs was because of DNS server failure. This may be due to a zone transfer lock on the DNS server for the zone that your computer needs to update.
You can manually retry DNS registration of the network adapter and its settings by typing "ipconfig /registerdns" at the command prompt. If problems still persist, contact your DNS server or network systems administrator. For specific error code information, see the record data displayed below.
15/06/2011 – 22:21:27
The previous system shutdown at 22:21:27 on 15/06/2011 was unexpected.
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How to report a SQL Server performance problem
Author: Jack Vamvas (http://www.sqlserver-dba.com)
