Avocent

KVM issue with Proliant DL380 server

This was an interesting issue I recent run into. We had just put in some new servers at a location and we needed to reboot them to get them to work with the KVM(Star tech). This had happend before with this KVM and the servers just needed to be rebooted with the KVM focus on them. I scheduled some downtime and went through the reboot of each one. Each one came back up fine except for one, a HP proliant DL380 server, the keyboard and mouse still didn’t work after the reboot.  Went through another reboot and everything seemed fine during the boot, keyboard was working fine (I was able to get into BIOS and I was able to cycle num lock) but as soon as it got to the Windows splash screen the keyboard stopped working (unable to cycle num lock).  I tried a different KVM port and different KVM cable and had the same issue

After a little searching I found this post on the HP forums

 http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/foru…

Apparently It has to do with the keyboard port switching operating modes during bootup, the Star Tech KVM just couldn’t handle it. I will probably recommend a switch to an Avocent IP KVM, I have worked with them in the past and never had any issues plus it’s pretty awesome to be able to log into the web interface and manage all the servers remotely from the KVM.