ESXi Host Power Off unexpectedly

Products

• VMware vSphere ESXi

Issue/Introduction

• ESXi host becomes unresponsive
• ESXi state is Power Off
• ESXi logs including vmkernel and vobd do not indicate power off is triggered by vSphere
• soft-off is observed from IPMI SEL log:

Record Id: xxx
   When: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS
   Event Type: 111 (Unknown)
   SEL Type: 2 (System Event)
   Message: Assert + System ACPI Power State S4/S5: soft-off
   Sensor Number: 170
   Raw: 
   Formatted-Raw: xx xx xx xx xx xx 

•    ESXi could be brought up by power reset

Environment

VMware vSphere ESXi

Resolution

• Power reset the ESXi host to recover
• Contact the server hardware vendor to further investigate the issue

Additional Information

https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article?articleNumber=408216