Power Cycling

[rwslippey]

I came home yesterday and found no access to my NAS. No web gui, no files... I even hooked a screen up and couldn't get anything....

My box runs pretty quiet and I didn't notice until after hook the monitor up that it was power cycling. On for a few seconds, then off.
Front light was coming on and off with the power cycles. I could hear the drives starting to spin up if I got close enough, so on the off cycle I pulled the plug at the power supply.

I honestly just walked away yesterday. I was pretty frustrated that it wasn't working and my daughter was pestering me about watching a movie (which was on this NAS and the DVD for I couldn't find if I tried)
I think I was part scared to even see what was going on for fear that it was a major hardware issue.

I'm thinking this might be either MB or PS but I've never seen this issue except in laptops and I can't even remember the result from that so.

My question is, anyone got any ideas on how my data is? I don't really know how it came into this situation. It did get warm yesterday but our AC was on for our dog at home (we keep it high but on so the dog doesn't get too warm) I'm not sure if it went down for reboot (doubt it) or if it just failed while still running (I'm getting worried again)

I just did a search online and the title here is very worrying.... (I have the X9SCL though)
https://forums.lime-technology.com/...-the-dust-no-psu-incompatible-corsair-tx750m/

Tonight I'll be doing some troubleshooting

 

[SweetAndLow]

Hardware specs and FreeNAS version is the minimum required information when making a thread. Read the forum rules again and follow them.

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[wblock]

My first guess would be power supply. Do you have another to try? Which brand and model of power supply is in that system?

 

[rwslippey]

Hardware specs and FreeNAS version is the minimum required information when making a thread. Read the forum rules again and follow them.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

Similar to your own, my specs and version number are in my signature.

wblock, thanks for your reply, power supply is a Seasonic G-550, which I thought I had read was pretty reliable. Whole build is only a few months old. PS is only thing new though. MB and CPU were ebay special..

I'll hook up another supply tonight and give it a go... I really hope its the PS...

I still curious how it got into the loop, did it fail while running and reboot... and if so I can't imagine how my data is right now... thank god for backups!

 

[Vito Reiter]

HDD's when spinning 24/7 create a lot of heat, I would try to look into some BIOS settings for CPU Max Temp and see if you have any overheating that is causing the shutdown automatically. The stock coolers are USUALLY fine, however, you should double check that thermal paste and if it's those god awful plastic connectors to the motherboard make sure those haven't snapped creating poor contact to the cooler.

Also, you have some powerful hardware. Make sure that 550W is enough to support that processor, all the RAM, and the 4 drives you have. It really should be enough but can't hurt to check. If temps are fine, and 550W is enough, then there could be a power supply/MoBo issue. If you have another PSU sitting around swap it and see if the issue reoccurs.

P.S. I'm running 12 drives on a 450W, if that helps at all (It is a lower end CPU w/ 8GB of RAM though)

 

[rwslippey]

Sorry it took so long to get back. I got busy with a job. Oddly enough I powered it back up and it seemed to run fine. I shut it back down to be safe but I think we might be looking at a temp issue as Vito mentioned. It was very warm out that day that I found it cycling so I'll probably take a peek at the cooling and maybe add a fan or 2 for the summer. This system was built this winter so heat wasn't an issue till now I guess.


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[Vito Reiter]

Sorry it took so long to get back. I got busy with a job. Oddly enough I powered it back up and it seemed to run fine. I shut it back down to be safe but I think we might be looking at a temp issue as Vito mentioned. It was very warm out that day that I found it cycling so I'll probably take a peek at the cooling and maybe add a fan or 2 for the summer. This system was built this winter so heat wasn't an issue till now I guess.


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Awesome man, yeah I've always had little issues like that it just required thinking outside the box before dropping a few hundred on replacing parts that work, haha

 

[rwslippey]

Ok, so I don't know if this is a temp issue after all.

Powered up again (this time I had the A/C on for a while so it was cool in the apartment) and it still had issues.

I opened it up, inspected all cooling components and they looked fine. Powered it on, same thing
Pulled all connectors running to the drives. Booms boots fine. I let it run in the bios for a little bit, no issues.
Plugged them both back in. Cycling again
Pulled a bank of drives, powered it up... fine again
Pulled another bank of drives, (after plugging the former in) and cycling again....
I tried this a few more times. It seems when I pull that single plug (modular PS) it works fine. If I plug it back in, problems

So could a drive issue be causing a PS issue and resulting in a loop?
When it booted the other day I noticed no errors or data loss but I'm thinking about pulling each drive so see which one is the problem child.

Does this even make any sense?

 

[Robert Trevellyan]

It seems when I pull that single plug (modular PS) it works fine. If I plug it back in, problems

Why do you not suspect the cable or PSU connector? Have you swapped cables to see if the problem follows the drive or the cable?

 

[rwslippey]

Why do you not suspect the cable or PSU connector? Have you swapped cables to see if the problem follows the drive or the cable?

That was a consideration as well. I did look for any problems in the cable and didn't really find anything. I tried swapping connectors on the power supply side with the same results but I don't have another cable available at the moment to try.

I'm starting to suspect the cable as well as moving that cable around makes the problem come back or go away sometimes so it seems like it might be shorted or something.

 

[wblock]

Modular power supply, problems with one cable... are you sure that cable came with it? They are generally not standardized, and getting one from a different supply can make for weird and unpredictable behavior if it works at all. (Like giving 7V to something that is expecting 5V.)

 

[rwslippey]

Modular power supply, problems with one cable... are you sure that cable came with it? They are generally not standardized, and getting one from a different supply can make for weird and unpredictable behavior if it works at all. (Like giving 7V to something that is expecting 5V.)

100% positive. Everything was ordered for this build and it all waiting in it's original box before I started the build. I should note that this system ran for months without problems and only started having problems after I moved it. Again everything seems right, it's just acting crazy.
I'm debating on returning the PS for a replacement or not. I obviously need another power cable to see if it solves the problem but as you said they're not standardized so getting another one to troubleshoot the problem will be tricky.

 

[rwslippey]

Wanted come back to this post and update everyone.

Choose a good PS. I got a good what but I think I might have been a little off on my calculations for power usage. I recently added another drive for offsite backups and in doing so I swapped the PS just because. Haven’t had it power cycle since


On another note the previous comment was correct. I looked st the connectors from the new Ps to the old one and indeed they are wired differently on the PS end.


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