We have been struggling with an issue since the day this server (Server 2012) went into place. I'm unsure if the issue is Exchange or OS related but thought I'd start here. Hopefully someone can make some suggestions.
When the machine first went live, it was the DC as well as a file share and Exchange server. We had constant issues where the Exchange services would not start, or stay started. It ran so slowly, we could hardly do anything in the OS whatsoever. However, when it was fully functional, but still slow, you couldn't tell as a client in any way, just when working within the OS. Also, we had some crashes and it would often completely lock up.
We have since removed all functions, other than Exchange, to other servers, but the issue remains to some extent at least.
Sometimes it runs just fine, then sometimes I need to get on there for something and see that it is running horribly...and rebooting is a huge problem. Here are some noted issues:
- I received a BSOD yesterday, although it was the first one I believe. It took 25 minutes for it to "collect info" before restarting
- It usually takes 2-3 restarts before it actually starts all of the Exchange services. If I try to start them manually, they all time out trying to start.
- Each restart takes at least 30 mins. It hangs at "please wait" but mostly (15-25 min) at "applying user settings"
- Sometimes it gets to the ctrl-alt-del screen and freezes there. I can do absolutely nothing other than move the mouse. In those cases I need to do a hard reset.
- When it is running very slowly, there is no sign of what is causing it to be seen in the performance monitor, at least with the obvious cpu/ram. We also had MS involved at one point and they set up a monitor that ultimately led nowhere other than them suggesting we move the DC to another machine.
- Once it was no longer the DC it did run better for the most part (days/weeks at a time with no issue) but the overall trouble still comes back regularly and won't clear up till after a few reboots.
Awhile ago we tried (not sure why) pulling out the ethernet cable during reboot to see what happens. Turns out that it boots as quickly as you would expect to be "normal". It doesn't hang at applying user settings. However, we found that none of the Exchange services would start. I don't recall what we did next as no services wasn't helpful, but it was a clue of some sort. Yesterday when I had to go through the several reboots....at the the 3rd one I tried pulling the ethernet and it started right up. No Exchange services were started but when I plugged the ethernet back in they all started up on their own. It is currently running just fine.
FYI, the machine is a Dell PowerEdge T320 and has an Intel Xeon E5-1410 CPU and 16GB RAM.
Other things tried:
- Assorted hardware diagnostics came back with no issues.
- Tried swapping which of the two NIC ports we used.
- Nothing notable in the usual performance monitors but I also didn't look at the million that are available.
- The event viewer was very difficult to go through. Most times we get errors of the "free MBs sustained a value of" but leading up to the crash yesterday there were tons and I don't know which are really of value.
- The OS is up to date and Exchange is on CU2 I believe, but I don't know how to check. The version number is 15.0.712.4012
- I'm sure there was a lot more done back when the issue started but this is all I can recall at the moment and what is fresh from the issue yesterday.
I would greatly appreciate any help! Let me know what other info you need. At this point I need to try to solve it myself as the consultant who did the install basically washed their hands of it and really have no idea what's wrong. To me it sure seems like Server 2012 and Exchange 2013 are just incompatible!
Thanks!