FreeNAS Mini won't post

[Sasayaki]

Hi all,

I came back from a trip to the United States and my FreeNAS Mini (running the latest version as-of a few weeks ago) appeared to be halted. I pulled the plug and rebooted it. The first couple of times I did so, it didn't come back, but the third time it did.

I thought everything was okay, and even had a collection of updates waiting to be installed when I returned to the web GUI, but after rebooting to complete that installation it didn't come back and now, no matter what I do, it won't even post.

Fans turn on, lights turn on, hard drives spin up... but there's no VGA output at all, even with a monitor plugged in. About half the time, after about 15 seconds everything turns off again, but half the time it doesn't. I let it sit overnight in case it was overheated or just plain temperamental but it doesn't seem to be fixed in the morning.

I can send through pictures and whatever else anyone needs. It's a huge shame because the box is about 1-2 years old now and has been running absolutely flawlessly until now.

Since I treat this like a black box that I've never opened, what's the best way to go around diagnosing this? Anyone else had a similar problem?

TL;DR:

- Hardware working fine until now
- Fans turn on, hard drives spin up, but no VGA output at all (even with physical monitor plugged in)
- No network connectivity or registration of IP address
- 50% of the time, Mini shuts down after 15-30 seconds, remainder just remains on, but still no life

 

[pirateghost]

Sounds like a dying power supply

 

[Jailer]

The mini should have IPMI. What's displayed in the IPMI console?

 

[Sasayaki]

The mini should have IPMI. What's displayed in the IPMI console?

Honestly I've never used IPMI. It's not currently plugged in. I'll plug it in and see what I can find.

Sounds like a dying power supply

Damn.

 

[Sasayaki]

The mini should have IPMI. What's displayed in the IPMI console?

I connected but it looks like the text console is totally blank.

http://imgur.com/z7t3O0K

I rebooted it and it's still having this issue. I've never used IPMI before so I don't know if I've got it configured right; it certainly seems to connect and authenticate and I can get information from the various sensors on the device.

 

[Kevin Horton]

I connected but it looks like the text console is totally blank.

http://imgur.com/z7t3O0K

I rebooted it and it's still having this issue. I've never used IPMI before so I don't know if I've got it configured right; it certainly seems to connect and authenticate and I can get information from the various sensors on the device.

Another possibility is that the IPMIView application on your computer is acting wonky, as it uses Java. I've had occurrences on OS X where it didn't show the console. I resorted to using the IPMIVIew iPhone app - it seems very bulletproof. There is also an IPMIView app for Android, available on the Google Play Store, but I have no experience with it.

 

[CTF]

Just wanted to add to Sasayaki's post that I'm having what appears to be the exact same problem. About a month or two ago there were some fan/power supply noises that didn't seem right. Came home yesterday from being out to find the power and HD lights on, but FreeNAS mini completely unresponsive (web, ssh, shares all down). Cannot get any POST VGA output. I don't have IPMI cable, but basically no BIOS via VGA seems a bad sign to me.

I took delivery of mine around 4/14 so it's basically 2.5yrs old and for 2 months of that timeframe it wasn't even used or plugged in.

I guess the best bet at this point is to source a power supply.

 

[joeschmuck]

About a month or two ago there were some fan/power supply noises that didn't seem right.

What did you do about this problem? Hopefully you didn't ignore it. Things like this don't just go away, if the noise stopped then the fan stopped working likely.

EDIT: Hey, this isn't one of those ASRock motherboards which is dying that we see everywhere, right?

 

[brando56894]

What did you do about this problem? Hopefully you didn't ignore it. Things like this don't just go away, if the noise stopped then the fan stopped working likely.

EDIT: Hey, this isn't one of those ASRock motherboards which is dying that we see everywhere, right?

Actually now that you mention it the mini does have the same board that my server had, the Asrock C2750-D4I. I'm pretty sorry to say this guys but your Mini is most likely toast and you need to hit up IX Systems to see what they can do about it. I tried to revive my C2750-D4I for about a week before I gave up, as we found out there are reports of them dying all over Reddit. The IPMI should still work but mine wouldn't even power on, even with a different PSU.

Sent from my AOSP on dragon using Tapatalk

 

[Stux]

The Mini's are based on the same boards that are dying in droves at the moment.

Contact ixSystems.

 

[joeschmuck]

Yup, that is what I thought I had been reading, didn't think it was the power supply because normally the power supply won't turn on if there is a failure, or the power on time will be very short in duration, like under 1 second before it turns off.