FreeNAS 8 reboots continuously when all 10 SATA ports filled

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imported_MrBungle

Junior Member
Dec 1, 2006
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I just put together my first system to run FreeNAS:

It's all assembled now, and I loaded FreeNAS 8.0.1-RC2 onto the CF card and was able to boot up successfully and log in via the web interface. However, I noticed while booting that only 9 of my 10 HDDs was recognized in the BIOS, which was also reflected in the FreeNAS UI. After some troubleshooting, I narrowed it down to a bad SATA cable, so I swapped that out, and now all 10 drives are recognized in the BIOS.

However, now FreeNAS won't boot. I get through the POST and BIOS steps just fine, but right when I'd normally start to see FreeNAS booting up, the machine just resets and goes through the process again, and does this continuously.

Not sure what had happened, I tried everything I could think of to narrow this down:

  • changing the boot device settings in the BIOS
  • removing the Intel NIC (I saw the Intel Boot screen, which I hadn't noticed before, and thought maybe the NIC was trying to initiate a network boot)
  • installing FreeNAS on a USB stick and booting from that
  • reinstalling FreeNAS on the CF card and trying again
None of those steps fixed the problem, but then I remembered that everything had worked fine when only 9 HDDs were connected at first. I removed one of the drives, and it worked! FreeNAS booted again.

So, I've narrowed the problem down to FreeNAS perpetually rebooting only when I have all 10 SATA ports filled. This happens whether I have the IDE port filled with the IDE/CF adapter and am booting off of a CF card, or whether I remove that adapter and boot from USB.

Does anyone have any ideas about what may be happening, and possible steps to fix it? Thanks in advance!
 
Fardringle

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
9,200
765
126
According to this calculator, your system needs 322 watts of power to run everything the way you have it listed. That does not include any DVD drive (if you have one) or any cooling fans, and assumes that the power supply is working properly and is actually producing the amount of power that it is rated for...

It sounds like the PSU has just enough juice to handle 9 drives, but 10 puts it over the top so it's not able to spin everything up properly during the boot process.
 
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imported_MrBungle

Junior Member
Dec 1, 2006
13
0
0
Thanks, Fardringle - that's a good theory, and that thought crossed my mind as well.

However, my Kill-a-Watt shows that it peaks at ~220W during boot (while the drives are spooling up) and then settles down to ~120W when idle. It is a 2-rail PSU, though, so I suppose that it is possible that one of the rails is starved. It seems like the system would let me know in another way that it doesn't have enough power, though - i.e., rather than just not spooling up the same drive every time?

Incidentally, I just tried removing both of the Highpoint 620 HBAs to see if that did any good - and it did! That allowed FreeNAS to boot successfully, and that was repeatable a few times. I left all 10 drives plugged into the PSU, so it seems like that should rule out the power theory.

With that extra clue, though, what could that mean? Is there something that I need to do with the Highpoint cards to allow them to work along with the 6 drives in the motherboard's native SATA ports?
 
Fardringle

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
9,200
765
126
You said it's the same drive every time that doesn't get recognized. That makes it less likely to be a power issue, although it's still a possibility.

Have you tried booting the system with that specific drive attached to a different SATA port (and a different drive in the "problem" port) just to make sure it's not a problem with the port itself? Another way to test it would be to boot up with just one drive connected to that one port and no other drives attached at all to see if it is recognized.
 
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imported_MrBungle

Junior Member
Dec 1, 2006
13
0
0
Fardringle said:
You said it's the same drive every time that doesn't get recognized. That makes it less likely to be a power issue, although it's still a possibility.

Have you tried booting the system with that specific drive attached to a different SATA port (and a different drive in the "problem" port) just to make sure it's not a problem with the port itself? Another way to test it would be to boot up with just one drive connected to that one port and no other drives attached at all to see if it is recognized.
Click to expand...

That's not exactly the case; it doesn't seem to be a particular drive/port that's the issue - I've swapped drives to other ports and still have the same problem. Also, even when all 10 drives are connected, I still see all of them consistently recognized in the BIOS. It was just one drive in particular that wasn't initially recognized, but I traced that to a bad SATA cable, and after replacing that I'm not seeing any drive-specific symptoms.

I'm still having this problem, and I've done some more troubleshooting. I can't narrow it down to anything specific yet, but I did notice one symptom that might be useful.

When I have all 10 drives connected (6 straight to the motherboard, and 2 to each of the 2 Rocket 620 HBAs), there are two things I can do to make the system boot:

  • Remove one of the SATA cables that's connected straight to the motherboard (leaving 9 drives connected - 5 to the motherboard, 2 to each of the 2 Rocket 620 HBAs).
  • Remove both drives connected to either of the 2 Rocket 620 HBAs (leaving 8 drives connected - 6 to the motherboard, 2 to one Rocket 620 HBA, and 0 to the other Rocket 620 HBA).
Could this point to anything new?

I've also updated the motherboard's BIOS to the latest version (no luck) and I put in a support ticket with HighPoint about the HBAs just now. I'm also planning to put in a ticket with Asus in case it's a BIOS issue, and FreeBSD/FreeNAS in case it's an OS issue.
 
I

imported_MrBungle

Junior Member
Dec 1, 2006
13
0
0
VirtualLarry said:
Sounds like a BIOS bug with the motherboard to me.
Click to expand...

Thanks, VirtualLarry - can you elaborate on that? I updated the motherboard's BIOS to the latest version with no luck, although of course the same bug could exist in the newer version.

Is there any way for me to test this theory, or gather more information to submit to Asus to help them identify any issues? What makes you think that this is specifically related to the motherboard's BIOS?
 
mvbighead

mvbighead

Diamond Member
Apr 20, 2009
3,793
1
81
Just to make sure you aren't seeing a freeNAS problem, have you tried loading a different OS? An Ubuntu Linux distro, or even OpenFiler or similar?
 
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