DrKK
FreeNAS Generalissimo
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2013
- Messages
- 3,630
Edit: Cross-linking with this potentially similar/related issue with the same board.
So, I sort of know what I'm doing. And I just had some interesting times building out a FreeNAS 9.3 with the X10SLL motherboard. As you guys know, the SuperMicro X10 series is what we recommend for a 1150-based home build. It is the go-to board. The difference(s) between the X10SLL and X10SLM series are very minor---the chipsets are the same, there is a small difference in the PCI slots (which I don't need for anything), and there is a small difference in which USB ports are 2.0 and 3.0 and how many there are. Other than that, the boards are pretty much identical. The X10SLL has a USB 3.0 type A female mounted right on the motherboard, which is kind of interesting.
Anyway, the problems began straight out of the gate.
I have the G3250 CPU bought for this motherboard. I figured; ok this has been out long enough, the BIOS on a newly shipped board should be ready for this.
Well it wasn't. The v1.1 BIOS could NOT handle any of the recent Haswells, and expected the old school stuff, which is (alas) getting pretty damn hard to find. Micro Center, for example, doesn't even model for it in their inventory now. So, update the BIOS right? Again, no dice. While the v2 BIOS does allow more 1150 socketed CPUs, it turns out, the G3250 (and many other newer CPUs in the 1150 socket) do not work. This has been confirmed with the SuperMicro engineers.
So yeah. Wasn't happy about that. But I did find a G3220 on Amazon, so two days later I had that in my hands. Now, the board POSTed, and everything was fine on that score.
I then plugged in an 8GB Kingston Micro DT (again, the default, go-to USB boot device that we recommend for FreeNAS) into one of the backside USB 2.0 ports. It was recognized immediately as da0, and the FreeNAS install CD put 9.3 right on there. Again, no problem (except for a scary moment when it appeared to just be sitting there for awhile--you have to be patient).
But, then I mountroot'ed, super hard, on the reboot into the installed OS. Could not get past the mountroot. As far as I could tell, everything on the boot drive was correct, correctly partitioned, and ready to go, so I really had no friggin idea why the recommended hardware, from soup to nuts, was giving me a mountroot.
So I started crying to Cyberjock, who began troubleshooting with me on the Mumble server, but then he had to leave and go to the store. So I began to get more upset.
I figured, OK, it can't be any worse than this. So let's start screwing around. I reset the BIOS to the defaults. No change. I cold boot and clear the CMOS and all that jazz. No change.
But then I pull the USB drive out, and put it into the USB 3.0 BUILT-IN MOTHERBOARD usb port (i.e., in the middle of the motherboard, not on the back panel), and I was quite certain that ought not to work for crap (since nothing is supposed to work, really, in USB 3.0 ports).
Well I'll be damned if it didn't boot right up, and everything was fine.
I took it out, put it back into a USB 2.0 port on the back panel. Mountroot. Tried another port. Mountroot, but it seemed to get a little farther.
Put it back onto the USB 3.0 port inside the motherboard? Boots fine.
So I can't explain it.
If anyone out there is using recommended hardware, especially a SuperMicro X10 series, and is getting a mountroot with the 9.3, try putting your boot device in another port. Keep trying all the ports.
Everything is working fine with that new build now. It's quite mysterious. I intend to deliver this build to the guy that asked me for it, and perhaps we'll buy another X10SLL and play around a bit and try to understand exactly what the hell is going on, and make a follow up post. Maybe.
I hope this was useful information to someone going crazy out there wondering why they are having mountroot problems in the X10.
So, I sort of know what I'm doing. And I just had some interesting times building out a FreeNAS 9.3 with the X10SLL motherboard. As you guys know, the SuperMicro X10 series is what we recommend for a 1150-based home build. It is the go-to board. The difference(s) between the X10SLL and X10SLM series are very minor---the chipsets are the same, there is a small difference in the PCI slots (which I don't need for anything), and there is a small difference in which USB ports are 2.0 and 3.0 and how many there are. Other than that, the boards are pretty much identical. The X10SLL has a USB 3.0 type A female mounted right on the motherboard, which is kind of interesting.
Anyway, the problems began straight out of the gate.
I have the G3250 CPU bought for this motherboard. I figured; ok this has been out long enough, the BIOS on a newly shipped board should be ready for this.
Well it wasn't. The v1.1 BIOS could NOT handle any of the recent Haswells, and expected the old school stuff, which is (alas) getting pretty damn hard to find. Micro Center, for example, doesn't even model for it in their inventory now. So, update the BIOS right? Again, no dice. While the v2 BIOS does allow more 1150 socketed CPUs, it turns out, the G3250 (and many other newer CPUs in the 1150 socket) do not work. This has been confirmed with the SuperMicro engineers.
So yeah. Wasn't happy about that. But I did find a G3220 on Amazon, so two days later I had that in my hands. Now, the board POSTed, and everything was fine on that score.
I then plugged in an 8GB Kingston Micro DT (again, the default, go-to USB boot device that we recommend for FreeNAS) into one of the backside USB 2.0 ports. It was recognized immediately as da0, and the FreeNAS install CD put 9.3 right on there. Again, no problem (except for a scary moment when it appeared to just be sitting there for awhile--you have to be patient).
But, then I mountroot'ed, super hard, on the reboot into the installed OS. Could not get past the mountroot. As far as I could tell, everything on the boot drive was correct, correctly partitioned, and ready to go, so I really had no friggin idea why the recommended hardware, from soup to nuts, was giving me a mountroot.
So I started crying to Cyberjock, who began troubleshooting with me on the Mumble server, but then he had to leave and go to the store. So I began to get more upset.
I figured, OK, it can't be any worse than this. So let's start screwing around. I reset the BIOS to the defaults. No change. I cold boot and clear the CMOS and all that jazz. No change.
But then I pull the USB drive out, and put it into the USB 3.0 BUILT-IN MOTHERBOARD usb port (i.e., in the middle of the motherboard, not on the back panel), and I was quite certain that ought not to work for crap (since nothing is supposed to work, really, in USB 3.0 ports).
Well I'll be damned if it didn't boot right up, and everything was fine.
I took it out, put it back into a USB 2.0 port on the back panel. Mountroot. Tried another port. Mountroot, but it seemed to get a little farther.
Put it back onto the USB 3.0 port inside the motherboard? Boots fine.
So I can't explain it.
If anyone out there is using recommended hardware, especially a SuperMicro X10 series, and is getting a mountroot with the 9.3, try putting your boot device in another port. Keep trying all the ports.
Everything is working fine with that new build now. It's quite mysterious. I intend to deliver this build to the guy that asked me for it, and perhaps we'll buy another X10SLL and play around a bit and try to understand exactly what the hell is going on, and make a follow up post. Maybe.
I hope this was useful information to someone going crazy out there wondering why they are having mountroot problems in the X10.
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