SOLVED Dead ASRock C2750D4I and poor customer service?

DaveY

Contributor
Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
141
Late to the thread, but your board is fried. My board did the same and ended up RMA. William said it was the power rails. I've yet to hear these boards run past 2 years. Mine died after 13 months. There's been a ton of posts here lately about the mobo dying so there is definitely a massive die off.

I actually started a thread asking people to report how long their Avoton board lasted before dying. https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-long-your-asrock-c2550d4i-or-c2750d4i-lasted.45445/

Was hoping to use it as leverage against ASRock and get them to fix the board.
 

nickt

Contributor
Joined
Feb 27, 2015
Messages
131
Yes - there's no doubt at all that my board is toast. I tend to think that my symptoms fit better with the dead flash RAM problem, rather than any kind of issue with power rails, but either way, it's dead.

I'm glad to hear you were able to RMA your board. I'm still battling non-existent support from ASRockRack global (Taiwan based). After a couple of weeks, I finally got a response (with William's help). They asked for the details they needed to get the RMA process started, which I provided. But that was a week ago, and now it's gone back to radio silence. Daily prompting for updates doesn't help. Incredibly frustrating.

Fixing the board sounds like a good idea. I'll be stoked if / when I finally get an RMA going, but I'm rather conscious that I might only get 15 months out of the next one before I start the dance again.

It's very sad. It's a great board - it fits the FreeNAS bill perfectly. It just has to work - surely that's not too much to ask...
 

shiphtfour

Dabbler
Joined
Jan 21, 2013
Messages
26
Found my way here after my ASRock C2550D4I died last night and now has the exact same symptoms that you described. It was running flawlessly for about 10 months until now, so it really does seem like there was a bad batch or something with everyone suddenly reporting the same issue. Anyone know how long the RMA generally takes?
 
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scwst

Explorer
Joined
Sep 23, 2016
Messages
59
FYI I had just bought a C2550D4I via Amazon.de, arrived here on Sep 18. Both BIOS and BMI have stickers that give the numbers of the current updates from their web page. I'll let you know in 2018 how it has held up :).
 

nickt

Contributor
Joined
Feb 27, 2015
Messages
131
Hi all,

As the OP, I thought it was about time I reported back on progress. In short, I've finally got my server back up and running, having received a replacement board by way of an "RMA exception" from NewEgg.

The new board appears to have been subtly updated since my original board - there are now more text messages output to the VGA before, during and after POST (e.g. "waiting for BMC", and "System initialising"). Firmware versions are latest as per AS Rock Rack's support site.

I've deactivated the watchdog in BIOS and watchdogd in FreeNAS (see my "how to") in the [possibly vain] hope that I'll avoid a future BMC flash memory blow up.

I've also confirmed that BMC flash memory is not constantly being written by running the following command from the BMC terminal (as described in this relevant and current bug report - https://bugs.ixsystems.com/issues/16190):
Code:
inotifywait -mr -e close_write /conf/

I wish I had checked for this on the old board, but of course can't since the board is gone - would be very interested to hear if others with dead boards see / have seen a write every second (as described in the bug report).

AS Rock Rack's support was very disappointing. Some dates:
  • 16 separate emails + webforms
  • 20 August: First email / webform sent
  • 2 September: First reply from the venerable William - who couldn't help me as I am not in the US
  • 7 September: First reply from AS Rock Rack support in Taiwan
  • 21 September: RMA granted
In the end, I went with NewEgg's RMA process, as there are better consumer protections in Australia when seeking recourse through the retailer than the manufacturer. Their dates:
  • 11 separate emails + webforms
  • 20 August: first email / webforms sent
  • 31 August: first email received
  • 29 September: RMA granted
  • 17 October: replacement board received
In NewEgg's case, I had to quote Australian Consumer law and threaten to initiate proceedings with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission before they would grant an RMA. It would have been very easy to give up considering the effort to which both AS Rock Rack and NewEgg went to not help me. But I am stubborn...

This was overall a sobering experience with my FreeNAS system. Having gone to the trouble (and expense) of building a robust and reliable system, I was off the air for ~60 days. I still fly the flag for FreeNAS and am very happy with my system, but - make no mistake - this is not an "off the shelf" experience.

So there you go. Back on the air. But a cautionary tale.
 
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Ishi Carter

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Messages
10
Just adding my input. My C2750d4i board was purchased 3/2015 and ran pretty flawlessly up until about a week ago. CPU temp alarm in IPMI right before the final death...sounds like same problem everyone else is reporting. Has anyone mentioned this issue to William Lee and got a response?

ASRock would be stupid to get rid of William Lee...guy is prompt and has helped me out twice since I put together this system.
 

nickt

Contributor
Joined
Feb 27, 2015
Messages
131
Just adding my input. My C2750d4i board was purchased 3/2015 and ran pretty flawlessly up until about a week ago. CPU temp alarm in IPMI right before the final death...sounds like same problem everyone else is reporting. Has anyone mentioned this issue to William Lee and got a response?

ASRock would be stupid to get rid of William Lee...guy is prompt and has helped me out twice since I put together this system.

Agree - William is the man - he was helpful for me as well. The problem for me, though, is he works for AS Rock US support. As an Australian, there was nothing he could do for me. AS Rock Taiwan (who offer global support) were less than responsive (although William prompted them multiple times).

What I haven't done is come back to William now that I have a replacement board and ask him about AS Rock's understanding of the situation more generally. I'll do that.
 

nickt

Contributor
Joined
Feb 27, 2015
Messages
131
William did come back to me very quickly. He tells me that the BMC team in the Taiwan HQ are aware of the issue and are currently working on a firmware fix. No ETA.
 

mopcrust

Dabbler
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
10
Looking forward to that firmware fix. Looks like my board just died as well. Funny thing is I had come across these threads by chance a few days ago and decided to check and see if I could shut off the watchdog element. I guess the damage had already been done in my case. My board was just a hair under two years old. Bummer.
 

Ishi Carter

Dabbler
Joined
Mar 29, 2015
Messages
10
I got my board back after RMA and noticed the watchdog was disabled by default when I got it installed. My server is finally back up...so glad that board had a three year warranty!
 

nickt

Contributor
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Feb 27, 2015
Messages
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AliAhmadi

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Aug 7, 2016
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Redcoat

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Feb 18, 2014
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Wickedvt

Cadet
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Jun 27, 2014
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Found this thread after having my C2550D4I go through this. Very frustrating and I almost bought a brand new board assuming this was out of warranty but I just learned after reading this that I am literally 10 days away from the three year mark. I'm surprised mine went this long. I had noticed some of the symptoms over the last several months, when I would power down it would not power back up but would do the "run for 3 seconds and then die" thing, until I cleared the CMOS (or at least that's the correlation I'm drawing). Now it will not boot or POST at all.

I filled out the RMA form (US). How long did it take to get the RMA for you recent folks and how long until you received your new board?
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2015
Messages
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ASRock RMA roundtrip ( I shipped by UPS ground ) from Chicago was about 3 weeks. Only took 8 days after the return shipment was delivered to them, so I would say, it was a pretty good response.
 

reaktor

Cadet
Joined
Feb 23, 2015
Messages
6
Hello,

I ve the same problem described here.
The board runs now for around 2 years.

I can access via browser to the BMC interface, but the default admin / password does not work. I cant see a Post screen, so the bmc reset dos tool make no sense.

What can I do?
william@asrockamerica.com and @asrock.com doesnt work.

Thanks & Cheers
 

Todd Hayward

Dabbler
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Messages
22
The board for the FreeNAS Mini a client of mine bought in July 2016 died today ... starting the RMA process now.
 

DaveY

Contributor
Joined
Dec 1, 2014
Messages
141
They really do have a short life. bought mine August 2016. Died a month ago. Still working on getting a replacement from ASRock
 

nojohnny101

Wizard
Joined
Dec 3, 2015
Messages
1,478
I contacted ASRock support to see what they could do about an advanced RMA. They said that wasn't necessary and instead send me a new BMC chip. Got it quickly and it was easy to put out the old one and put in the new one.
 
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