Old hardware to new hardware and keyboard issue

[Gian Luca]

Ciao guys,

i'am an happy user of FreeNAS from italy!

I need to clairfy that my target was to store all my movies collection, and to have a "safe" storage for my backups (pictures, mp3, and images of the computers)
The primary use of the nas is to play movie with PlexMediaServer and whatching them on my TV with Plex plug in.

I started to build my little nas two years ago as "very low budget project"
The hardware was:

Mb: asus P5Q-EM (with 6 sata)
Cpu: Intel Core(TM)2 Duo CPU E7400 @ 2.80GHz
Ram: Only 4Gb
Disks: 4x WD Black 2TB

This system is still working lovely


Now i have the chanche to perform a "free upgrade" of the components

Mb: Acer Q65H2-AM (with 5 sata)
Cpu: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2400 CPU @ 3.10GHz
Ram: 8Gb at the moment
Disks: 5x Hitachi 2TB

I've alredy installed FreeNas-9.10.1-U2 but i have a small issue that i am not able to fix.
Becasue i prefer to run my nas just with power and network cable i'have an issue on the last system if the keyboard is not connected
If i leave the keyboard on Freenas is booting perfectly but if i remove the keyboard i got this error:

freenas stopped at kdb_enter+0x3e kdb_why

I need you to help me with this two topics:

1) If make sense for me to swap to the "free new" system
2) to trouble shooting the keyboard issue with the new system

Grazie mille (Kind regards)

G

 

[Stux]

If you can't fix it, you can buy a dongle which will make your pc think there is a keyboard connected.

 

[Stux]

If you can't fix it, you can buy a dongle which will make your pc think there is a keyboard connected.

http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=236252

Or just one of those ps2 to USB keyboard adapters we all used to have...

 

[joeschmuck]

Most computers have a BIOS setting that allows the computer to HALT ON Error(s), and one of the errors is lack of a keyboard. Entered the BIOS setup to change this setting if it exists.

 

[gpsguy]

While we wouldn't recommend either of your hardware choices, since they don't support ECC RAM (search for and read the ECC vs non-ECC RAM thread), the newer system with 8GB of RAM would be preferrable.

8GB of RAM is the minimum amount you should be using. Users with Plex, generally have 12GB or more.

Folks running less than 8GB of RAM have been known to run into issues, up to and including data loss.

 

[Gian Luca]

Most computers have a BIOS setting that allows the computer to HALT ON Error(s), and one of the errors is lack of a keyboard. Entered the BIOS setup to change this setting if it exists.

Yes, this is a common issue, I already try that setting but the computer is blocking not during the bios post but during the freenas boot! Thanks anyway

 

[Gian Luca]

While we wouldn't recommend either of your hardware choices, since they don't support ECC RAM (search for and read the ECC vs non-ECC RAM thread), the newer system with 8GB of RAM would be preferrable.

8GB of RAM is the minimum amount you should be using. Users with Plex, generally have 12GB or more.

Folks running less than 8GB of RAM have been known to run into issues, up to and including data loss.

Thank you for the advice chap!
Yes i know that mine is a very poor hardware system, I am looking forward to buy a nice Hp xw8600 or Z800 or Z820 with a lot of ECC Ram but i fear that the power consumption will be more compared to my actual machine.

Do you know guys how I can test (feel) the difference between my two plex machine?
I mean, both are working with no issue (o except keyboard issue but this is something i can try to fix) there is a way to benchmark the two systems?

Thank you in advance!

Cheers

 

[joeschmuck]

Yes, this is a common issue, I already try that setting but the computer is blocking not during the bios post but during the freenas boot! Thanks anyway :)

It's blocking during the FreeNAS booting? FreeNAS doesn't require a keyboard. Could you post the output of dmesg in the code brackets, assuming you can get that far, or a photo image of the screen? Might I suggest that you try to boot up a FreeBSD 10.3 Live image and see if that works?

 

[Gian Luca]

Hi Joeschmuck

I will try the command dmesg or get capture screen on the error!

I will try also to boot with a freeBSD 10.3 live image!

thank you for your time !

Regards

G.