1st boot of Scale blank screen and NIC turns off

[AustinMatt]

• Motherboard make and model
  • Dell 0GM819
• CPU make and model
  • Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 @ 3.00GHz
• RAM quantity
  • 2 GB DDR2 800 MT/s (x4) total 8 GB
• Hard drives, quantity, model numbers, and RAID configuration, including boot drives
  • Boot Drive: PNY CS900 SSD 120 GB
• Hard disk controllers
  • None
• Network cards
  • Intel gigabit ethernet controller onboard device

I am attemtping to install TrueNAS Scale on a Dell Optiplex 755. The installation appears to be successful. When booting for the 1st time, I get the option to boot TrueNAS Scale, I see the scrolling of text for a few seconds and then the screen goes blank. I have also noticed that the NIC turns off, not more blinking lights. My router no longer lists that IP address, I cannot access the web interface nor can I ping the IP address. The funny thing is I can install TrueNAS Core just fine and everything works great. I have also successfully run Ubuntu 22 on the same machine. I think I meet all the minimum hardware requirements. Not sure what I would be missing at this point. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[PhilD13]

Scale is based on Debian. Can you install that on the machine and get it to run?

 

[AustinMatt]

I can install Ubuntu just fine and that is Debian based. Do you think that is the same? Or should try to install Debian?

 

[PhilD13]

Debian can give issues sometimes where something different like Ubuntu does not and that was why I suggested you try Debian. Or maybe the processor is just too old? Weren't the Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9650 out around 2008?

 

[AustinMatt]

@PhilD13 I took your advice and tried to install Debian 12, and basically the same thing happened. Everything appears to install just fine, but upon reboot, all I get is a blank screen. Except this time the NIC is blinking, but I am still unable to ping the IP. So, like @PhilD13 said, it appears to be a Debian thing. And yes the processor is old, but I think it's probably the best one you can get for this motherboard. Is anyone aware of any workarounds?

 

[danb35]

And yes the processor is old, but I think it's probably the best one you can get for this motherboard.

That might suggest that a 15-year-old system is just a little too outdated for this application. The front-side bus is going to kill any semblance of performance, too. TrueNAS is pretty resource-intensive, and the memory management in SCALE isn't the greatest. You might find that CORE works better, but the real answer is to use more modern hardware.