Purple Screen Of Death - Exception 14

[igregoriou]

Greetings,

One of our ESXi hosts crashed recently with Exception 14. The server is a Dell PowerEdge R520 with a PERC H710p RAID controller (originally it had a PERC H310, but we replaced it with the H710p and everything was running fine for about two months until the crash). The controller manages a RAID10 array of 4 SAS disks and a RAID0 array of 2 SSDs.

I have checked the forums and discovered that most probably the Expeption 14 PSOD is due to a hardware issue. Is there any indication on the attached screenshot of the PSOD that can point me to the right direction? What does the "megasas_reset_fusion" line mean? Do you think it's a faulty RAID controller?

Thank you in advance!

[igregoriou]

I forgot to mention that the ESXi version we have installed is the customized iso from Dell, i.e. release 799733 A01.

[Linjo]

There is no screenshot attached and you are right, most common cause for PSOD is hardware problems.

Does the host come up after a reset?

Have anyhing changed lately in the configuration?

// Linjo

[igregoriou]

Hi Linjo,

Sorry for that, I thought I had attached the screenshot. Here it is!

As for your question, the host was running since the RAID controller replacement took place, so no other resets or configuration changes.

[suri123]

I had one while installing appliance..

http://www.null-byte.org/vmware/vmware-esxi-5-1-purple-screen-exception-14-beacon-probing/

[igregoriou]

Hi suri,

Thanks for the link.

In my case, the Network Failover Detection is already set to Link Status Only, so this is not the reason of the PSOD.