I have a customer with an IBM xSeries 235 server with Windows Server 2003 they have been using for several years. They use external USB hard disk drives for their backup and recently, whenever they connect one to the server, it causes most functions on the server to freeze up. The keyboard and mouse still function, but most console functions, like right cilcking on My Computer to get the Manage menu, Shutting down, etc. do not respond. The server also becomes unresponsive to the users connected across the network. If the USB drive is already connected when the server is powered on, the system responds normally and is able to access the drive. The server has all the most recent IBM and Microsoft updates. I have tried changing out USB cables, power cables, adding a PCI USB interface and connecting to that, a different manufacturer's USB drive, but nothing changes the behavior. Also, the problem persists if I unplug the USB drive.
When I plug in a USB flash drive, it works normally, so it seems to have something to do with powered devices. It's probably coincidental, but the problem started immediately after an accounting program called Cyma was updated on this server. It uses a Pervasive database as its engine. The server also has a document imaging application called Laserfiche installed, which is a MSDE 2000 based application and it has Backup Exec 2010 and Sunbelt Vipre Enterprise, which are SQL Express 2005 based. I have not been able to find any correlation to issues with any of the software. The server works fine in all other regards, so I'm having difficulty getting access to it for purposes of killing memory processes to see if I can isolate the problem and I'm running out of ideas. I have resisted contacting Microsoft at this point because the customer would prefer to avoid the expense. Has anyone else seen anything similar or have any other suggestions for things I could try? Thanks in advance. Lewis Johnson ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
