I have Win2k3 OS server. PowerEdge SC420. Past few months we have been having these random freezes, which need a hardkill and reboot. I have done the following a. CheckDisk on all the drives. b. Defragged all the drives. c. Ran the Anti Virus d. Increased the memory by 2 GB e. Has two built in fans for 1. Power Supply 2. Motherboard Heat sink. 3. A Cooling fan on the outside. Do you folks any idea why the server is freezing.

The server hosts a maximum of 10 Terminal Services clients. Most of the freezes happen at night when the load is least, or nobody is working.

This is the event viewer log (system) "The previous system shutdown at 1:46:50 AM on 7/22/2008 was unexpected." This was logged at 7: 56 when one of the staff switched on the computer. The entry prior to it is at 10.36 PM "The Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider service entered the stopped state." This is the event viewer log (Application) At 10.25PM "End Verify of 'D:' 'The operation was successfully completed.' Consult the backup report for more detail. " This was a backup operation of D Drive.

This could be hardware or software related issue, and the Event Viewer entries that you provided are insufficient to determine the cause of this problem. You need to go over the System and Application logs in details, especially around the time of the freezing occurrence (which you already isolated to the night time). Having a server freezing frequently, and being shutdown inappropriately, is not a good thing especially if it’s a PDC.