Replacement for my ASRock C2550D4I

[manslipkorn]

Hello everybody, this is my first message here but I've been using FreeNAS for quite a long time now (around 9 years).
Good sign, 9 years without a post on these forums, that means I'm very happy with FreeNAS (or never had problem with it).

Anyway, I'm coming up here for a hardware problem, and though you might be able to help me out.

As many NAS builders, I bought an ASRock motherboard C2550D4I three and a half years ago and have been lucky up to now (lots of messages here about issues with this motherboard with faulty BMC and Atom Cxxx issues).
But, unfortunately, this motherboard died yesterday (no post, no display, just IPMI working via BMC and nothing else). I think this is related to the issue with Atom Cxxx every one is talking about. And of course, the warranty expired few months ago.

As a result, I'm now left with :
- 16 Gb DDR3 ECC ram
- power supply
- 5 hard drives
- 3U case

With that hardware being perfectly fine and working, I would like to buy the minimum I need to run FreeNAS again wich is a motherboard and a processor.
My problem is that every motherboard being sold at the moment requires DDR4 ram (and ECC DDR4 ram motherboard and ECC DDR4 ram is very expensive). Also, I don't want to f*** the planet even more, my DDR3 ECC ram is fine, there is no need to throw it away.

So basically, I'm looking for a motherboard/processor, not too expensive that fits my needs which are :
- 5 SATA III 6Gbit/s ports minimum (8 would be good as I have few SSD too for VMs and cache)
- DDR3 ECC compatible RAM
- low power consumption
- IPMI if possible as it's very convenient (if not, I'll just connect a VGA screen to it)

Have you got any suggestions for these kind of hardware? Can I still find something similar today without going full DDR4 ECC?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help on this topic, you would save me some money and help planet earth for reusing perfectly fine hardware.

 

[cobrakiller58]

I'd contact ASRock first and see if they will replace the board they have been pretty good about taking care of the BMC issue from what I have seen.

 

[manslipkorn]

Good evening cobrakiller58, thanks a lot for your reply, you give me hope :).

I didn't contact ASRock as I've been reading on many places on the internet including on this forum, that they provide only 3 years warranty for this product. Mine coming close to 4 years (bought it April 2016), I'm pretty sure they won't replace it. Also, I first had issues with BMC (I fixed it connecting a screen through VGA and going up&down to my server from my desk, at least, I'm fit now :) ), but this time, my motherboard is completely dead, no output, no post, nothing.

But you're right, it won't cost me anything to send them an email. I'll do that.

Just in case (i'm kinda pessimistic) if anybody has advices for a DDR3 ECC motherboard with many SATA3 ports, I'm still interested.

Thanks again

 

[cobrakiller58]

The hardware recommendation guide actually mentions a couple boards that may interest you such as supermicro X10SLM+-F , I'm sure a couple people in here will be able to provide first hand experience with the supermicro X10 series boards

 

[colmconn]

Good evening cobrakiller58, thanks a lot for your reply, you give me hope :).

I didn't contact ASRock as I've been reading on many places on the internet including on this forum, that they provide only 3 years warranty for this product. Mine coming close to 4 years (bought it April 2016), I'm pretty sure they won't replace it. Also, I first had issues with BMC (I fixed it connecting a screen through VGA and going up&down to my server from my desk, at least, I'm fit now :) ), but this time, my motherboard is completely dead, no output, no post, nothing.

But you're right, it won't cost me anything to send them an email. I'll do that.

Just in case (i'm kinda pessimistic) if anybody has advices for a DDR3 ECC motherboard with many SATA3 ports, I'm still interested.

Thanks again

I had the 8-core version of that board replaced out of warranty by ASRock for free (except the cost of mailing the board to them). There are plenty of posts on this forum of similar stories. Your best bet is to email william@asrockamerica.com and explain how the board fails to boot. It might be worth ruling out PSU failure before you do this so you can state explicitly that you have done this. He asked me to do this.

 

[manslipkorn]

Hello everybody,

When I first posted here one month ago, I was thinking about having a new motherboard. I didn't mentioned it but though about having any motherboard but not an AsRock one (BMC issue, watchdog, bricked motherboard etc...).

I followed your advice colmconn but didn't think AsRock would replace my hardware as I bought it four years ago.

And, AsRock actually replaced my motherboard. I received it yesterday and apparently, the newer revision doesn't have all these issues.

Anyway, just to say that I was wrong, AsRock has been very helpfull, and actually took in consideration that the hardware was faulty.
So, in the future, for my next hardware, I'll probably go for AsRock hardware as the support was awesome.

Thanks again to all of you for your help.