Is this how the Avaton LPC bug looks?

nickt

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Feb 27, 2015
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Hi FreeNAS friends.

After 2 years of solid service, I think my ASRock C2750D4I has finally succumbed to the Avaton family LPC bug. I had a few unplanned restarts in one day (kernel panics) and now it won't POST. Power supply spins up, but nothing happens - no output to VGA. The only thing I have to go on is this photo I took from the last kernel panic before it refused to start. I don't know enough to interpret the message - I'm hoping someone maybe able to make sense of it and / or confirm that the symptoms are consistent with the LPC bug.

IMG_0286.jpg


I've tested everything I can think of: removed / swapped memory, removed all USB / hard drives. Checked power supply. It seems overwhelmingly likely that it is the LPC bug, but would by nice to verify by someone else's experience that the symptoms line up. Very difficult to diagnose this board - no way to get a POST beep (no onboard speaker, no terminals for an external speaker), VGA output doesn't start until a successful POST, BMC is dead.

I've had an unbelievably bad run with this board. I lost the first board to the BMC watchdog fault. Much more recently I killed the BMC by trying to upgrade its firmware (taken out by a pop up blocker in my browser - my bad, but - come on - it shouldn't be so easy to destroy the BMC). Support from ASRock has been atrocious - my mistake was to buy from US NewEgg as an Australian - nobody wants to help, particularly because ASRock has no presence in Australia. It took weeks of email arguing with NewEgg to get a replacement. I won't attempt it this time.

Interestingly, the symptoms of the BMC watchdog fault were subtly different: in that case, pressing the case button wouldn't even start the power supply (ie POST wouldn't even commence). This time, the power supply comes on, but I am guessing POST fails.

Anyway, hoping someone can help.

Thanks,

Nick
 

Chris Moore

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I can't say the root cause in the system board for this fault, but it does sound like a failed board. If you are not going to pursue some warranty remedy, what would your next choice be?
 

nickt

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Well isn't that a great question. I couldn't do Avaton again, and I'm pretty leary of ASRock - which is a shame because it was an ideal spec. I'd love to be able to reuse my RAM (I had recently upgraded to 32 GB), I'd really like to stick with mini-ITX, and wouldn't it be nice to be able to maintain a 20 W TDP but I don't think I'll find anything that ticks all the boxes.

I'm tempted by one of the Asus boards (eg https://www.asus.com/au/Commercial-Servers-Workstations/P10S-I/) - look to have good specs, but I don't know much about Asus. I know Supermicro is the FreeNAS sweetheart, but they have very little presence in Australia - given the problems I had with ASRock, a company without local support in Australia is best avoided. Asus, on the other hand, seem to have good presence here.

I'd welcome any suggestions and / or thoughts on the Asus server boards.

And it would be great if anyone with experience of the C2000 LPC is able to chip in.

Nick
 

Chris Moore

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I'm tempted by one of the Asus boards (eg https://www.asus.com/au/Commercial-Servers-Workstations/P10S-I/) - look to have good specs
I don't see any problems with that board. The spec indicates that it even includes a SAS 3008 controller too. It might be all you need.
I know Supermicro is the FreeNAS sweetheart, but they have very little presence in Australia
I like Supermicro primarily because we have a good selection of their boards on the used market here in the US, but you have to do what you have to do when you are in a bind, so don't for a moment think that Supermicro is the only way to go.

I think there are a few others that have seen this board fail. Perhaps I can call a few names and get some input.
@Jailer @SweetAndLow @Stux
 
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Jailer

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Looks like you've been bitten by the avaton bug. A no post situation with those boards is a dead giveaway. I wish I had more to offer but maybe some of our Australian members can help out with what might be a suitable replacement. ASUS has a good reputation in the desktop arena but I have no idea how one of their server boards would work out. They are not a popular option so you'd basically be on your own if you ran into issues with it.

I wouldn't get too hung up on the 20W TDP. Any of the newer intel based boards with an intel CPU are very good at throttling when at idle to reduce energy usage.
 

nickt

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Feb 27, 2015
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Thanks Chris, Jailer. I have to confess to being a little nervous about ASUS, but the support is a real concern. Of the viable options (ASUS, ASRock, SuperMicro), only ASUS seems to have a local presence here. It's a frustrating situation - it's rather tempting to commit FreeNAS heresy and look at boards that do not support ECC RAM, just to have a few more options to work with. Given the steady stream of faults I had with the C2750, ECC feels a bit like putting on sun screen in a bush fire...

Fair point about the 20 W TDP.

Dummy question: what's the significance of the SAS 3008 controller? I had assumed I'd be just working directly to 6 SATA ports much like I did on the old board.
 

Chris Moore

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Dummy question: what's the significance of the SAS 3008 controller? I had assumed I'd be just working directly to 6 SATA ports much like I did on the old board.
The nice thing about a SAS controller is that you can use it to run all the storage drives, even if you end up with hundreds of drives in your storage pool. For example, I have a server at work using one of those controllers that has 124 data drives.
If you want to learn more about SAS, you could start with looking at this guide:

Don't be afraid to be SAS-sy
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?resources/don't-be-afraid-to-be-sas-sy.48/
 
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