ASRock Rack C2750D4I BMC / Watchdog Issue

[JoshDW19]

iXsystems is proud to provide our customers the best enterprise storage systems and support. As part of our ongoing support, we have verified an issue with the firmware on the ASRock Rack C2750D4I mainboard in the FreeNAS Mini which affects the Board Management Controller, or BMC.


The BMC contains a hardware watchdog timer meant to detect a software lockup. The watchdogd daemon in FreeNAS 9.x pings the hardware watchdog every few seconds to show that the operating system is still running. When the hardware watchdog receives the signal from the watchdogd, the timer is reset and starts the countdown again. Unfortunately, some versions of the BMC firmware copy the configuration to flash every time watchdogd pings the hardware watchdog. These repeated writes to the BMC flash can cause premature failure of the flash memory, resulting in a system that does not boot. User data on storage media is not affected.


iXsystems has been in steady, constant contact with ASRock Rack and we are happy to say there is now a solution for this issue. In December of 2016, we provided a software fix starting in FreeNAS 9.10.1-U3 that mitigates this issue, protecting the motherboard from damage. ASRock Rack has now also provided BMC firmware Version: 00.30.00 which resolves the issue.


iXsystems stands behind the FreeNAS Mini, the FreeNAS Mini XL, and our customers. Please see the knowledgebase article for more information. If you have been affected, please contact the customer support department at 1(408)943-4100 or send an email to support@iXsystems.com. You can also leave a comment below.


Thank you for your patience as we continue to resolve this issue.

 

[diskdiddler]

Hey Josh, on top of this though, I thought the C2xxx intel chips had a known bug / fault which was breaking stuff, no?
https://www.servethehome.com/intel-atom-c2000-series-bug-quiet/

Wouldn't anyone owning one of these kind of want to get rid of it and hope for a Xeon-D or c3xxx series instead?

 

[Ericloewe]

Hey Josh, on top of this though, I thought the C2xxx intel chips had a known bug / fault which was breaking stuff, no?
https://www.servethehome.com/intel-atom-c2000-series-bug-quiet/

See here for details on that issue: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/freenas-mini-motherboard-clock-signal-issue.50582/

Wouldn't anyone owning one of these kind of want to get rid of it and hope for a Xeon-D or c3xxx series instead?

I'd say that FreeNAS Mini users would rather not pay more and have their units repaired under warranty. ;)

 

[okaenrique]

when FreeNAS 9.10.1-U3 release ?

 

[Ericloewe]

It has been out for quite some time.

 

[okaenrique]

It has been out for quite some time.

last version was 9.10.2-u2 , there is no U3

 

[Ericloewe]

last version was 9.10.2-u2 , there is no U3

9.10.1-U3 has been out for quite a while. The latest version is 9.10.2-U2.

 

[okaenrique]

Thanks