Trouble writting files to Freenas server from a Gigabit ethernet card.

[nick_90]

Ok I've got a freenas system set up at the moment.

I'm running Freenas FreeNAS-8.3.1-RELEASE-p2-x64 on a Intel E6400 CPU with an old Asus P5VDC-MX motherboard. I've got 2GB DDR2 ram installed. As well as 1.5TB WD Green and a 2TB WD Red. Both on the UFS format. My Boot drive is an old 80GB WD.

Now this is my problem I have gone through 3 gigabit network card. The first two included the Realtech RT8169SC chipset on them and the current one that is installed is a Intel PRO/1000 MT with the 82540EM chipset.

The problem which I am facing is that whenever I want to write something to the hard drive (say backing up my files from my PC), I'm able to copy the files for the first 5-10min, but then I keep getting this message popping up and basically causing my Freenas Server to crash as seen below.




(Sorry for the horrible camera work)

I have no problem reading endless amount of data from both of the drives regardless with the network card in place but it seems like no matter what I do, Freenas will crash whenever I want to write to the drives, Unless I use the stock 10/100 Ethernet adaptor that is built into the motherboard. I can transfer files (however very slow since its 10/100 only) without any issue and the problem goes away. However, as soon as I'm using a PCI network card, I am straight away running into issue.

So could anyone shed some light into my issue as it really driving me nuts.Would there be any benefit of upgrading to the latest version of Freenas?

Regards,

 

[jgreco]

The AHCI timeout is some sort of problem talking to your drive. I may add some comments in a bit.

 

[joeschmuck]

You have nothing to lose if you upgrade to the latest version of FreeNAS however I'd use a different USB Flash drive so you can easily return to your 8.3.1 version if you run into any problems. Since you are using UFS; your low RAM amount shouldn't be an issue.

Do you have BIOS version 0810?
Have you had this running for any length of time before, meaning was FreeNAS working perfectly before and then this just started happening?
Based on what I found from a google search it doesn't look like the onboard SATA controler is playing well. Likely the drivers in FreeNAS 8.3.1 are not very compatible.

I'm not sure if you can create a tuneable to get around this. Jgreco may be looking into that.

My vote is to try the current stable version of FreeNAS but before you do, backup any important data. Upgrading won't cause data loss however you could accidentally do it yourself.

 

[jgreco]

No, I just wasn't going to compose a long message on a cellphone. We've had a bit of a problem with people throwing FreeNAS on a random machine without doing sufficient testing.

What I really wanted to do was to write

http://forums.freenas.org/threads/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.17750/

and then refer the OP to the burn-in and testing sections, which admittedly need some expansion with discussions of stuff like iperf network testing and other stuff. So you can feel free to pile on as the first poster and take the free cheap shot that I didn't say a damn thing about network testing.

 

[joeschmuck]

Sorry, no cheap shots from me, or at least not intentional.

 

[jgreco]

Really, Waldorf? I am so disappointed.

 

[nick_90]

You have nothing to lose if you upgrade to the latest version of FreeNAS however I'd use a different USB Flash drive so you can easily return to your 8.3.1 version if you run into any problems. Since you are using UFS; your low RAM amount shouldn't be an issue.

Do you have BIOS version 0810?
Have you had this running for any length of time before, meaning was FreeNAS working perfectly before and then this just started happening?

I have upgraded my version of Freenas from Version 8.3.1 to 9.2.0.

The BIOS is currently on version 0810.
It work fine and doesn't cause any drama if I only copy a small selection of files to the drive, however if I say doing a backup then it will keep crashing and causing my system to free and reboot. The problem is still there despite being on a newer version of freenas. It runs fine when I'm using the stock onboard Ethernet adaptor but using one of these PCI Ethernet adaptors seems to cause problem.

Looking at the results from the S.M.A.R.T test, it states that the self-test is completed without any errors.

Could it be a motherboard problem and that I should consider changing out the motherboard for it?

 

[joeschmuck]

I'd hate to see you replace the MB but it probably is related tot he PCI interface somehow. Maybe you could assign it a different IRQ in the BIOS? I'd think that if the on board NIC works fine, even though it is slower, you should be able to get the PCI NIC to work.

Have you completed the testing of the system? Memetest86+ for 3 full passes, CPU Stress Test for at least 1 hour but do not run for much longer.

 

[jgreco]

That's rather extreme. Suggest: Go to the link I posted above and start the burn-in/testing section.

Timeouts on a single device could indicate bad drive, cabling, or port.

 

[nick_90]

I tested it now with a P5KPL-CM motherboard last night with a version of freenas installed on a Quantum hard drive. The P5KPL-CM came with a gigabit Ethernet controller. I installed my WD Red 2TB as well and Lo and behold, I was able to transfer files without any issue. Moreover, I tried using the Intel Card as well and it performed exceptionally well, getting higher speed then the stock Ethernet adaptor. There was no crashing of Freenas whatsoever.

So today I pulled out my old motherboard from my Freenas tower to place the P5KPL-CM motherboard in it. After a bit of mucking around, changing parts around and the odd swear word hear and there, I was able to get Freenas to work the way I want it to.

Thank you to both joeschmuck and jgreco for helping me out. Really appreciated the help.

 

[jgreco]

Sorry for the frustration but glad it all worked out. Sometimes PC's are like that!

 

[joeschmuck]

Yes, glad you got it working. But make sure you run the tests described in the link above. You should test your system really well before committing your data to it. For an example of how things can fail... I moved a MB from one case to another last weekend. This system was not for FreeNAS but it does have 16GB DDR3 RAM (not ECC) and I went ahead and tested it with Memtest86+ and it failed after a few hours. This system passed when installed in the old case without issue. So something changed and I need to figure it out. Maybe my RAM isn't seated properly or when I made the move something is now grounded that shouldn't be or could it be one of the many electrical connections I made? I need to figure it out but the fact that I wouldn't have expected the problem because it worked fine before means it can happen to anyone, even me. So I'll investigate the issue this week when I have time. It's a spare computer I use for testing software so no rush.

 

[Knowltey]

Yep, memtest is very important to run, especially especially if you are not using ECC RAM. I recently took home one of the computers from work that were going to be getting salvaged so I could use it to quickly make offsite backups.

First thing I did was put it in long boot which does some minor RAM testing and it encountered an issue there already, so I put it into memtest and it found a bad RAM spot that would consistently add 1 to a certain spot. Tried reseating, still in the same exact memory address location and same exact behaviour, so I went and put different RAM in again and tested all over again. I shall update that one to ECC here shortly though since it's motherboard and CPU already support that.