SK0-005 troubleshooting Practice Test 3 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A technician is troubleshooting a rack server whose fans are running at maximum speed continuously, even though the data center ambient temperature is within the recommended range and the server's workload is light. The front bezel is installed and all fan modules report healthy in the management interface. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause of the elevated fan speed?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

A temperature sensor is reporting an incorrect high reading, causing the thermal control loop to overcompensate. Continuous maximum fan speed with healthy fan modules, light workload, and acceptable ambient temperature indicates the thermal control loop is receiving a false high reading. A drifting or failed internal temperature sensor causes the platform to command maximum cooling to protect components, which matches every detail in the scenario. Fan profile misconfiguration is possible but less likely given the described normal operating history.

Answer

The BIOS fan profile has been set to Maximum Performance mode instead of an automatic or balanced profile

Answer

A missing or failed fan module has caused the remaining fans to compensate at full speed

Answer

The server's power supplies are undersized, forcing the fans to spin faster to cool the voltage regulators

Question 2

A server administrator is troubleshooting a RAID 5 array that has been performing poorly. The array consists of four 10,000 RPM SAS drives. The administrator notices that one drive is constantly showing a high number of reallocated sectors and the array is in a degraded state. The administrator replaces the failed drive with a new one of the same model and capacity, but the rebuild process is taking much longer than expected and is impacting performance. Which of the following is the MOST likely reason for the slow rebuild?

Accepted Answer

The array is still degraded because another drive is also failing, causing excessive error correction.. A RAID 5 array can tolerate only one drive failure. If a second drive is failing or has bad sectors, the controller will have difficulty reading data from the remaining drives, leading to a very slow rebuild. The high reallocated sectors on one drive prior to replacement suggest that the other drives may also be aging or failing. Monitoring SMART data on all drives is crucial. Replacing the second failing drive before the rebuild completes could prevent data loss.

Answer

The rebuild process is being throttled by the controller to minimize impact on production workloads.

Answer

The replacement drive is not on the hardware compatibility list (HCL).

Answer

The RAID controller is performing a background initialization that competes with the rebuild.

Question 3

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Linux server whose root filesystem has become read-only after a long period of heavy write activity. The administrator runs `df -h` and sees the root volume at 100% utilization, but `du -sh /*` totals only about 60% of the volume's capacity. The administrator suspects deleted files are still being held open. Which of the following commands should the administrator use to identify the processes holding deleted files open?

Accepted Answer

lsof +L1. When df reports a full filesystem but du totals far less, the missing space is usually held by deleted files that processes still have open. lsof +L1 enumerates exactly those descriptors, showing the PID and command responsible. Restarting or reloading the offending service releases the descriptors, the inodes are freed, and the space returns to the filesystem without requiring a reboot.

Answer

ls -l /proc/*/fd | grep deleted

Answer

fuser -m /

Answer

find / -inum 0 -print

Question 4

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Windows Server 2019 host where a line-of-business application fails to start, reporting that a required TCP port is already in use. The administrator runs `netstat -ano` and sees the port in LISTENING state, but the PID shown does not match any process visible in Task Manager's Details tab. Which of the following should the administrator do to identify the process that actually owns the listening socket?

Accepted Answer

Open Resource Monitor, select the Network tab, and expand Listening Ports to map the port to its owning process.. When a listening port's PID cannot be matched in Task Manager, Resource Monitor is the dependable way to correlate the socket to its owning executable because it shows image name, PID, and listening address together. Once the actual process is identified, the administrator can stop, reconfigure, or relocate the conflicting service so the line-of-business application can bind its required port.

Answer

Run `tasklist /svc` and match the PID from netstat to the listed service name.

Answer

Restart the Windows Management Instrumentation service and rerun `netstat -ano`.

Answer

Use `netstat -anob` from an elevated command prompt to display the executable name for each connection.

Question 5

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Linux server that will not complete the boot process after a kernel update. The system drops to a GRUB prompt and never reaches the initramfs stage. The administrator has console access and a rescue environment. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to restore boot? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Regenerate the initramfs for the installed kernel using dracut or mkinitramfs and verify the /boot partition has free space.. A GRUB prompt after a kernel update usually means the bootloader loaded but the selected kernel entry cannot find a valid initramfs, often because /boot ran out of space during the package install. Booting the prior kernel provides a working environment, and regenerating the initramfs with dracut or mkinitramfs restores the early userspace image the new kernel needs. Together these steps both recover and permanently fix the boot.

Answer

Change the root= parameter in /etc/fstab to point to the new kernel's UUID.

Answer

Reinstall the GRUB bootloader to the MBR or EFI System Partition using grub-install.

Answer

Run fsck on the root filesystem to repair journal inconsistencies caused by the interrupted update.

Question 6

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Linux server that boots and runs but becomes progressively slower until it must be rebooted every few days. An examination of logs shows the kernel has been killing processes to free memory, and the swap partition is filling up. Which of the following actions should the administrator take to resolve the issue? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use vmstat and ps to identify processes consuming excessive memory and terminate or restart them.. The server's symptoms of progressive slowdown, swap filling, and kernel killing processes indicate memory exhaustion due to one or more processes consuming excessive memory. The administrator must first identify the offending processes using tools like vmstat and ps, and then take corrective action such as restarting or terminating them. Reviewing kernel logs for OOM killer messages confirms which processes were targeted, guiding the resolution.

Answer

Configure a monitoring tool to alert when memory usage exceeds 80%.

Answer

Increase the swap space to twice the amount of physical RAM.

Answer

Add more physical memory to the server.

Question 7

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Windows Server 2019 that is experiencing intermittent network connectivity issues. Users report that connections to the server drop for a few seconds and then recover. The administrator checks the switch and finds no errors. Which of the following tools should the administrator use to capture and analyze network traffic to identify the cause?

Accepted Answer

Message Analyzer. Message Analyzer is designed for capturing and analyzing network traffic on Windows systems, providing protocol-level details that can reveal the cause of intermittent connectivity issues. Tools like Performance Monitor and Resource Monitor offer only aggregate statistics and cannot pinpoint packet-level problems. Network Monitor is outdated and not recommended for Windows Server 2019. Thus, Message Analyzer is the correct choice for this scenario.

Answer

Performance Monitor

Answer

Network Monitor

Answer

Resource Monitor

Question 8

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Linux server that unexpectedly rebooted. The administrator reviews system logs and finds that the kernel logged an 'Out of memory: Kill process' message just before the reboot. The administrator wants to prevent future occurrences. (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Increase the amount of physical RAM installed in the server.. The OOM killer fired because the system ran out of memory. The two most direct preventive measures are increasing physical RAM to raise capacity and adding or enlarging swap space to provide overflow. These address the root cause. Overcommit tuning and panic-on-OOM settings do not prevent exhaustion, and trimming services is not a targeted solution for this scenario.

Answer

Reduce the number of running services and daemons on the server.

Answer

Set the OOM killer to never kill any process by using vm.panic_on_oom=1.

Answer

Adjust the vm.overcommit_memory sysctl to allow more memory overcommitment.

Question 9

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Windows Server that has been exhibiting slow logon times and occasional application timeouts. The administrator suspects a name resolution problem and runs ipconfig /displaydns. The output shows numerous stale entries for decommissioned servers. Which of the following should the administrator do to resolve the issue?

Accepted Answer

Clear stale records from the DNS server zones and enable scavenging. Stale resource records for decommissioned servers persist in DNS zones and are served to clients until aged out or removed. Clearing those records and enabling scavenging fixes the root cause for all clients. Flushing the local cache, restarting the DNS Client service, or editing the hosts file only affects the local machine and leaves the stale data in place.

Answer

Run ipconfig /flushdns and then ipconfig /registerdns

Answer

Add static entries in the hosts file for the decommissioned servers

Answer

Restart the DNS Client service on the affected server

Question 10

A server administrator is troubleshooting a Windows Server 2022 host that has been running slowly. Task Manager shows high CPU usage by a process named 'svchost.exe (netsvcs)'. The administrator needs to identify which specific service is consuming the CPU. Which of the following tools should the administrator use?

Accepted Answer

Tasklist with the /svc switch. The 'tasklist /svc' command enumerates services hosted in each process, including svchost.exe. By matching the PID of the high-CPU svchost instance with the service list, the administrator can pinpoint the offending service. Resource Monitor, Performance Monitor, and services.msc do not provide this direct service-to-process mapping.

Answer

Resource Monitor (resmon.exe)

Answer

Services console (services.msc)

Answer

Performance Monitor (perfmon.msc)

Question 11

A server administrator is troubleshooting a server that has a RAID 5 array with three drives. One drive has failed, and the administrator replaces it with a new drive of the same capacity. After the rebuild completes, the administrator notices that the array is still marked as degraded. Which of the following is the MOST likely cause?

Accepted Answer

The new drive was not added as a hot spare or assigned to the array.. After replacing a failed drive, the new drive must be assigned to the array to trigger a rebuild. If it is not assigned, the array remains degraded. The correct answer highlights this common oversight.

Answer

The RAID controller needs to be rebooted to clear the degraded state.

Answer

The replacement drive is not compatible with the RAID controller.

Answer

The RAID 5 array has suffered a second drive failure.

Question 12

A RAID 5 array is degraded due to a failed disk. What is the best practice for recovery?

Accepted Answer

Replace the failed disk and allow the array to rebuild automatically. In a RAID 5 array, a single disk failure leaves the array degraded but still operational because parity data on the remaining disks can reconstruct the missing data. Best practice is to replace the failed disk and allow the controller to rebuild the array automatically from parity, restoring redundancy without downtime or data loss. This is the standard hot-swap recovery procedure and requires no backup restore because the data is still intact.

Answer

Replace the failed disk and restore from backup

Answer

Replace the failed disk and perform a manual rebuild from backup

Answer

Delete the logical drive and recreate the array

Question 13

A technician is troubleshooting a server that fails to boot. The server displays a 'Boot Device Not Found' error. The technician verifies that the hard drives are spinning and appear in the RAID controller's BIOS. What should the technician check next?

Accepted Answer

Boot order in BIOS. When a server reports 'Boot Device Not Found' but the drives are detected by the RAID controller, the most likely cause is that the BIOS/UEFI boot order does not list the RAID logical volume (or the correct device) as a boot option. The firmware is looking at the wrong device or has lost the boot entry. Checking and correcting the boot order is the logical next step before assuming OS or hardware failure.

Answer

Operating system files

Answer

SATA cable connections

Answer

RAID array status

Question 14

A server administrator is troubleshooting a performance issue on a VMware vSphere host. The host has multiple VMs, and one VM is experiencing high latency on its virtual disk. The administrator checks the datastore and sees it is a RAID 5 array of 4 SAS drives with 50% utilization. Latency for the VM's virtual disk is reported as 200ms. Which action would most likely improve performance?

Accepted Answer

Migrate the VM to a different datastore with SSD storage.. A virtual disk latency of 200ms on a RAID 5 SAS datastore at only 50% utilization strongly indicates a storage I/O bottleneck rather than capacity or memory pressure. Migrating the VM to an SSD-backed datastore dramatically reduces latency because SSDs deliver sub-millisecond random I/O versus mechanical SAS drives. This directly addresses the root cause without altering RAID geometry or VM configuration.

Answer

Add a second disk to the RAID 5 array (convert to RAID 6).

Answer

Increase the VM's memory allocation.

Answer

Change the virtual disk type from thin to thick.

Question 15

A server administrator is troubleshooting a physical server that randomly crashes once or twice a week. The administrator has already verified that the power supply is functioning correctly and has checked the event logs for critical errors. According to standard troubleshooting methodology, what should the administrator do next?

Accepted Answer

Run memory diagnostics (e.g., MemTest86) to test RAM.. After verifying power and checking event logs, the next logical step in standard troubleshooting methodology (CompTIA's six-step process) is to test the most likely remaining hardware cause of random crashes. Random crashes once or twice a week with no logged critical errors strongly suggest intermittent memory faults, which often do not produce OS-level event log entries. MemTest86 is the standard tool for testing RAM and is non-destructive, making it the correct next diagnostic step before escalating to more invasive actions.

Answer

Check network cables and switch connections.

Answer

Reinstall the operating system.

Answer

Replace the CPU with a known good one.