Hangs at boot screen

[Spherical]

Hi

I bought myself an old p4 hyper threading computer with 4 sata disks (5400rpm 2TB). The mobo is AOPEN I915GM-PL SOCKET 775. I'm using an IDE flash drive for the freenas 8 OS to boot from.

When I boot without any of the four disks connected, freenas boots up. When I connect any of the sata disks, it hangs at boot. It does recognise all the disks, but then seems to freeze.

What could I do to solve this issue?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

 

[Spherical]

Nobody knows ?

 

[Spherical]

Version of freenas: 8.0.1
It's an i386 processor

Sata ports can't seem to be configured to run in AHCI mode.

 

[Milhouse]

What is the specific CPU model number? Does it support 64-bit mode? If so, have you tried the AMD64 build of FreeNAS which, despite it's name, is intended for both Intel and AMD processors that support 64-bit code.

Have you checked you have the latest BIOS for this motheboard? The user manual appears to suggest AHCI mode is supported for the SATA ports, maybe it's enabled by default hence no BIOS option.

Have you sanity checked plain FreeBSD 8.2 (not FreeNAS 8.0.2) to confirm it supports this motherboard and IO controller (it's an Intel, and a fairly old one, so kind of expect it would...). FreeNAS is just running on top of FreeBSD, so if FreeBSD doesn't support this controller there's no chance FreeNAS will...

 

[Spherical]

This is the mobo:

http://reviews.cnet.com/motherboards/aopen-i915gm-pl-motherboard/1707-3049_7-31726670.html

So no 64-bit supported.

I'm guessing I have the latest version, since Aopen's site doesn't show an update. I had the Aopen i915GM-I before, and updated that one to 1.0.5. My current version is 1.0.1.

Freenas boots up normaly when I connect 2 out of 4 disks. When I boot up with 3 or 4 connected it freezes.

 

[Milhouse]

This is the mobo:

http://reviews.cnet.com/motherboards/aopen-i915gm-pl-motherboard/1707-3049_7-31726670.html

So no 64-bit supported.

64-bit support depends on the CPU, not the motherboard. LGA775 supported Core Duo processors, these are/were 64-bit.

 

[Spherical]

Ok, not sure than. But it does support hyperthreading (which I disabled, after reading it could give problems). Hyperthreading doesn't exclude 64-bit support?

I'm thinking, because I've been working on this project for such a long time (allways some other problem), to buy me some new hardware.

Best to put something together myself? (I've got some experience and don't like prefab, good to go solutions).

Which site would be best to order from, considering I'm from Belgium? The reading what's best for me part, should be done on this forum I guess?

 

[Milhouse]

OK I won't bother asking again what CPU you currently have - you may as well try a 64-bit build, you never know it may work.

I've no idea where it's best to buy computer gear in Belgium, probably from the internet same as everywhere else.

In there FreeNAS N00bs sections there are three stickied posts with links to various compatible hardware. Pretty much any fairly recent motherboard and CPU should work fine, I'd suggest choosing a motherboard that can accommodate at least 8GB of RAM, and many people also get more than acceptable NAS performance (ie. streaming around the home etc.) from dual-core Atom-class CPUs so don't go overboard with a multi-gigahertz quad-core i5 or i7 processor unless you have plans to use the server for other more heavy-duty processing (encoding/ripping, VMs etc.) or serving files to more than half-a-dozen users.

Despite not liking prefab, it's pretty hard to beat the HP N36L/N40L Microserver on price/size/performance/ease of use - if all you want is a 4-disk NAS that runs FreeNAS without any problems, it might be the perfect choice for you.

 

[Spherical]

Thanks for the info and input milhouse!

I didn't check my CPU since I'm at work at the moment. I would've checked allready if I had the possibility.

For the HP servers, I'd like to be futureproof, as in, at least 8 hot swapable sata disks. I'll figure a setup out.So don't go mad on CPU power, put enough memory in it. And I've read some about the fractal cases? And noise/energy consumption seem to be factors as well.

Will read more here, and perhaps post my possible setup.

 

[crisscross42]

Possible MBR / BIOS issues

This issue may occur when the BIOS can not handle the special MBR written by some programs (i.e. bootmanagers and also FreeNAS wit ZFS formatted disks).
The BIOS checks the MBR code and in some cases it wont proceed - on the screen it shows the list of harddisks and stops then.
What you can do:
- disable boot sector virus check in BIOS options
- update BIOS version for your mobo

If this does not help, you have to put your harddisks in a different box and write a standard mbr to it.
After that the drives will work again on the first mobo - until you install again...