qwertymodo
Contributor
- Joined
- Apr 7, 2014
- Messages
- 144
I know that the ASRock C2x50d4i boards are pretty popular for NAS builds, but they have been plagued by the infamous AVR54 "18-month clock death" bug found throughout the entire C2000 line of CPU's. I've had 2 of these boards die on me, and despite hearing that they were planning to update their boards, I hadn't seen any confirmation that they had actually done so. Well, my latest RMA arrived today, and I can confirm that it contains an updated C0 stepping of the chip, which includes the AVR54 fix.
(Note the S-code SR3GR along the bottom edge, click for full-size image if you can't read it... or just take my word for it)
For more information, here's the official doc from Intel
AVR54 is listed as fixed in the C0 stepping on page 10 (Ctrl+F AVR54), and the S-codes for each processor are listed on the Component Identification table on page 16. It looks like the cpuid stepping flags may not have been updated for the C0 stepping, as they are reporting the same stepping code as the one listed for the B0 stepping, so pretty much the only 100% method for checking your CPU is to remove the heatsink, which is really easy on the ASRock boards (small die, and soldered to the motherboard, so it doesn't get stuck and you don't have to worry about ripping the chip out of a socket).
Just thought I'd post this here in case anybody was still wary of the C2000 boards. Other than the high death rate, they've been a solid NAS board for me. Just be sure you update the BIOS to avoid the other major cause-of-death with FreeNAS related to the watchdog timer event logging killing the BIOS flash.
(Note the S-code SR3GR along the bottom edge, click for full-size image if you can't read it... or just take my word for it)
For more information, here's the official doc from Intel
AVR54 is listed as fixed in the C0 stepping on page 10 (Ctrl+F AVR54), and the S-codes for each processor are listed on the Component Identification table on page 16. It looks like the cpuid stepping flags may not have been updated for the C0 stepping, as they are reporting the same stepping code as the one listed for the B0 stepping, so pretty much the only 100% method for checking your CPU is to remove the heatsink, which is really easy on the ASRock boards (small die, and soldered to the motherboard, so it doesn't get stuck and you don't have to worry about ripping the chip out of a socket).
Just thought I'd post this here in case anybody was still wary of the C2000 boards. Other than the high death rate, they've been a solid NAS board for me. Just be sure you update the BIOS to avoid the other major cause-of-death with FreeNAS related to the watchdog timer event logging killing the BIOS flash.
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