Unsupported Hardware bug ?

[soulwise]

Hello and glad to be finally a registered member of this community. :)
Recently i've put together a small Free NAS server from a few very new and very low power AMD parts :

Motherboard: AsRock AM1B-ITX
Processor: AMD Athlon 5350 APU ( quad core, 25 w TDP )
RAM : 4 GB DDR 3 1600 1.5 V AMD Entertainment Series
HDD : 2 x 1 TB in RAID 1 with ZFS
Power Supply: Cooler Master 520 w
Case: Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced
OS Drive: generic 4 GB Thumb Drive

I know that this platform is not supported yet officially and probably underpowered but it was free for me and runs pretty good for what my needs are with the latest FreeNAS. I am a pretty long time FreeNAS user since the 8.xx revision of the software.
I only have one problem with this setup and i need a few advices .
After powering down the server for the night it comes back online on its own within 3-4 minutes and freezes on boot. If i pull the plug form the power supply and then reinsert it, the server boots normally and works just fine without any problem whatsoever until the next time i want to shut it down then the bug reappears.
I don't have the finnancial means to upgrade or modify this setup or to upgrade so ...
Any advice for me ? :) A software / hardware hack that i can apply to solve my problem?

Thank you in advance and sorry for my poor english ...

 

[cyberjock]

Well, you have 1/2 of the minimum RAM for FreeNAS with ZFS.

Feel free to read the hardware requirements section of the FreeNAS documentation and then realize you *should* be expecting freezes, crashes, bad behavior, etc since you don't meet our requirements.

My advice would be to either find the financial means to upgrade to 8GB of RAM minimum or consider a different OS.

 

[soulwise]

I have read the requirements section multiple times and i am aware of the risks. However, my Free NAS server worked fine several years ( no freeze, no bad behavior ) with far less RAM than 4 gig ( 1-2 GB at times-> with ZFS ) and an Atom processor far weaker than my current one so i know that the software works just fine with a weak config. The only difference in performance is that with the old config maximum write speed was about 60 MB/s and with the current one is 110 MB/s.
It's a great piece of software and i do not have other problems other than the one described above therefore no need to consider another software. When i try to power down, the system shuts down correctly and then boots and hangs half way thru the boot procedure.
I use the server for sharing, FTP transfer, SSH and Btsync, Plex, Owncloud and Transmission. All works just fine :).
No disrespect here but i do not think that RAM is the problem.
I think that other component ( chipset ? ) or a driver possibly is the problem.
Anyway i posted this just to let someone know that i experienced this small problem and maybe if there is someone more capable than me maybe he or she can help me to figure out how to solve it. I have no doubt that this will eventually be solved with other revisions of FreeNAS.
I will upgrade soon to 8 GB.

Thanks.
-soulwise

 

[cyberjock]

Well, that 8GB requirement was added by me because <8GB has been shown to be a problem so often that I don't really consider other options considering how many people can vouch for the 8GB of RAM fixing their random weird unexplained issues. 8.x was very forgiving for having <6GB of RAM. 9.x(and even more so 9.2.0+) are very harsh. We've had people with 6GB of RAM that are unable to create a pool because the process won't run because of insufficient RAM. So while you can argue that your Atom used to work, put 9.2.1.5 on it and then try to use it. You'll find it chocked full of problems. In fact, this situation has become so serious and there are so many threads on this topic that instead of letting the forum fill up with threads like this one 9.2.2 will have a warning on bootup that you don't have the minimum requirements and you'll have to acknowledge the warning before bootup will continue. We don't want to be responsible for the lost data from users because they didn't want to heed the warning.

While this sound draconian, the reality of it is that Windows does the same thing. If you attempt to install Windows with less than the minimum RAM installed it won't let you install.

Does it suck? Yes. Is it still the reality of it? Absolutely.

 

[soulwise]

Ok, thank you very much for the advice.I will upgrade ASAP and come back with the result. :)
Have a great day!

 

[soulwise]

As promised, i am back :).
I upgraded RAM to 8 GB ( 7595 MB in System Information tab ) as advised and the problem persists ->
After shutdown the system reboots within one minute and hangs half way at the boot sequence. Otherwise, absolutely no problems with the server, solid and reliable as a rock.
OS: FreeNAS-9.2.1.5-RELEASE-x64 (80c1d35), system specs in the signature.
If necessary i can post a picture of the screen when system reboot hangs.
Ideas?
Thank You!

 

[cyberjock]

Ok, I would like a picture of the screen where it freezes.

For some reason I didn't mention or didn't notice(not sure which) but AMD's are fairly well known to have problems with FreeBSD. AMD's support of FreeBSD with their CPUs has been less than stellar lately(they laid off 1/2 their developers 2 summers ago). Unless the screenshot is super revealing of a particular problem the three options I can think of you have are:

1. Not use FreeNAS/FreeBSD or get hardware that will support FreeNAS/FreeBSD.
2. Upgrade your BIOS.
3. Check out your BIOS settings. Many seemingly unimportant BIOS settings have been make or break for AMD based systems.

There's a reason why you don't see much talk of AMD on our hardware recommendation threads. Some of the hardware works very very well. The problem is that *so* much AMD hardware doesn't work that unless someone is going to start a matrix of what is and isn't supported on AMD there's no clear reason to go AMD. The other problem is that people going with AMD are usually going with AMD because they think they can save money(often by sticking it to Intel because they don't like the cost of Intel hardware). I just looked up your motherboard and it's $40. Not only does that board have hardware that can and has been known to have problems with FreeNAS because of unsupported hardware (just as an example, it has a sound card on-board) but I'd *never* recommend a board that cheap. You get 100% of what you pay for, and when you pay the same price as 3 pizzas for your motherboard that should be a warning to you that you're probably not going to have a particularly good experience. As hardware that you are wanting to trust with your data I'd never ever buy hardware so cheap and then expect miracles.

 

[soulwise]

Ok, here it is: https://www.flickr.com/photos/soulwise/14255399070/
My old motherboard died and the hardware for the current Freenas Server was free for me ( mobo, RAM and processor ). That enabled me to sell my old hardware ( processor and RAM ) for a profit and invest in a better monitor for my photo and video editing.
I knew that the new hardware was kind of experimental and very, very new ( launched for one day before i got it ) but i used it in a burn test for a whole week before putting it in production with stellar results for a 25 w quad processor. And that is one of my reasons, very low power consumption.
Again, the platform is solid, performs VERY well for my needs but has this problem that does not affect performance or stability until i try to shut down the server. :)
However, next time i will buld a new FreeNAS server i will do it with Intel parts. The new Atom proccesors look very nice.

 

[cyberjock]

Well, I hate to break it to you, but that looks like a system that hasn't even gotten to the point that the OS is loading. So I'd say your options are extremely limited. Also I'd say one or more of the following is true:

1. FreeBSD/FreeNAS is doing *something* that is initializing the hardware in some fashion that is causing the problems you are seeing with it powering back on.
2. Windows is somehow not doing whatever nasty thing that is the problem in #1. (Not uncommon at all since the cheapest hardware seems to always work with Windows and nothing else.. companies that sell bargain bottom prices cut costs by choosing to support only a single OS).
3. Your hardware is not being utilized in a way that Windows is encountering the problem while FreeBSD is. This is not that uncommon actually.

Regardless of the actual problem there's 2 things that I can say that you probably don't want to hear:

1. That hardware just doesn't seem to something that is going to work with FreeNAS.
2. This is a perfect example of why I say stuff like "With FreeNAS you either buy the right stuff the first time or you have to buy it twice."

People are quick to cut corners and make the argument 'I can't afford a $150 motherboard and $100 CPU but I can afford a $50 motherboard and $40 CPU'. Ok, that's great but that doesn't change the fact that if it doesn't work you just spent money on hardware that won't work anyway. So you might have spent $90 on hardware you don't get to use anyway, so how useful was it to spend the money to begin with?

I've told many people here that if you can't afford the right hardware your safest bet is to save money until you can. I know it sucks when you want that new server setup yesterday but might not be able to afford it until next year unless you cut corners. But you can't fix stuff like this when it "just won't work".

Good luck. Sorry you're having such bad luck. I can't say I'm too surprised, I just wish this didn't happen to so many people. Hopefully you can return your hardware or re-purpose it for something useful for you.

 

[soulwise]

Well, thank you for the advice. I will return as soon as possible to Intel hardware.
For now i have no choice but to use this config and try to upgrade BIOS to see if that is the fix.
It is kind of funny.. a server that does everything just fine but it does not shut down properly... Well let that be a reminder for me and others not to use this kind of parts.
I will do some more research of my own, i will upgrade to new FreeNAS releases and new BIOS Updates when they become available and if or when the situation is resolved in will return with an update on this thread.
Again, thank you for the advice and have a great day!

 

[no_connection]

Does it boot any MBR OS?

 

[soulwise]

Sorry i do not understand very well the question but i hope i can answer it with:
System works well with Windows, Ubuntu and FreeNAS, i tested each OS myself. The last one ( FreeNAS) works just fine until a shut down sequence is initialised then the bug manifests - auto power up within one minute and system freeze at boot.
After that, if a manual power down/power up sequence is initialized everything loads and functions properly in a production environment until next power down sequence is initialized.
If i want the system to reboot it reboots properly and works just fine, but no shut down ability. If i want to shut down and keep the server in that state i must shut down the software and after that i must switch off the system PSU.

 

[soulwise]

And probably the last update on this thread...
Just updated UEFI/BIOS from v1.0 to v1.1 and the problem is solved!
It seems that the original UEFI installed on my motherboard was a beta wersion ( v1.0) since on the official page on the ASROCK site found here: http://www.asrock.com/mb/AMD/AM1B-ITX/ the only UEFI official release is v1.10.
System works very well, it is stable and now shuts down correctly so i guess that this kind of hardware can be used after all to build a low cost FreeNAS. Not recommended maybe, but now completely possible.
Problem solved.
I will come back with an update if something changes or i have another problem with it.