How long did your ASROCK c2550d4i or c2750d4i last

quadra

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Jun 4, 2017
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My C2550D4I just died on me. Purchased in November 2015. Just sent an email to ASrock and will see what happens.
 

CarlosR

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Jun 4, 2017
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Send an email to william@asrockamerica.com - he's been extremely helpful to people here in the past.
Thanks. Yes I also emailed William. I actually corresponded with him when I was setting up my system 3 years ago due to SATA performance issues I was observing which led to the firmware update for the Marvell part. He was very helpful and responsive then.
 

kleinem

Dabbler
Joined
Jul 29, 2014
Messages
10
TL;DR:
Board generally working, BMC NVRAM dead.

Long Story:
I bought my C2550D4l in May 2014 and it has been working great to the day running on FreeNAS 9.2.1.9.
Since FreeNAS 11 is out for a few months now i was planning to upgrade and did some research.
Also i was planning to upgrade BIOS and BMC before that, esp. since i had discovered the watchdog bug.

So i did upgrade the BMC from 00.19.00 to 00.30.00 first, which apparently was too much for the NVRAM.
The upgrade itself worked it seems, the ipmi still boots up, like i can open an https/ssh Session BUT....
... there is no way to access it whatsoever, my Admin credentials nor Factory default credentials work.
I tried to reset it from within the Host OS itself - kldload ipmi does not even recognize an ipmi device,
neither does a FreeDOS USB Stick to run bmcdef or any other bmc related tool - the ipmi device is dead from a Hosts point of view.

After that i upgraded the BIOS to 2.90, which now reports the BMC Self test status as failed.

I have opened a case on Friday and awaiting their reply on Monday or Tuesday...

You are welcome.

Note that the NVRAM / Flash chip for this function is soldered to the system board. One of the pictures
I saw showed a gull wing 8 pin surface mount DIP. Not too hard to replace with the proper (de-)
soldering iron. But, nothing I would attempt today :-(.
This is kinda my only hope. I want to replace the NVRAM chip if possible.

On the bottom left corner of the board is a little chip, which seems to sit on a socket and a sticker "BMC 00.12.00" which was the stock BMC version.
According to the board Layout this should be the BMC ROM. Are you certain that the NVRAM Chip is somewhere else?
It would be easier to just replace a chip on a socket ofc, but i dont mind soldering if i have to.

So long story short, i'd appreciate any help in replacing the NVRAM.
Which means identifying the chip on the board and a Product code to get a spare part from... god knows where....
Tbh, i dont really have faith in ASRocks support, esp since im 3 months past my warranty.

So any help from you guys is appreciated,
thanks in advance ;)
 
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Arwen

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May 17, 2014
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...
This is kinda my only hope. I want to replace the NVRAM chip if possible.

On the bottom left corner of the board is a little chip, which seems to sit on a socket and a sticker "BMC 00.12.00" which was the stock BMC version.
According to the board Layout this should be the BMC ROM. Are you certain that the NVRAM Chip is somewhere else?
It would be easier to just replace a chip on a socket ofc, but i dont mind soldering if i have to.

So long story short, i'd appreciate any help in replacing the NVRAM.
Which means identifying the chip on the board and a Product code to get a spare part from... god knows where....
Tbh, i dont really have faith in ASRocks support, esp since im 3 months past my warranty.

So any help from you guys is appreciated,
thanks in advance ;)
Everything I read indicates that the BMC NVRAM chip is an 8 pin gull wing DIP, soldered to the board next to the lower BLUE DIMM socket, back panel direction;

http://images.anandtech.com/doci/7970/ASRock C2750D4I Top.jpg

Somewhere in these threads for this system board, a forum member posted the board locations and various part numbers for the BMC code Flash, BMC NVRAM, BIOS Flash. I don't have the information handy, but I think it was a Winbond chip for the BMC NVRAM.
 
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Ericloewe

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CarlosR

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Jun 4, 2017
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Thanks. Yes I also emailed William. I actually corresponded with him when I was setting up my system 3 years ago due to SATA performance issues I was observing which led to the firmware update for the Marvell part. He was very helpful and responsive then.

Sorry its been a while but this last set of posts reminded me I should post a followup.

William from ASrock got back to me and had me send him some snapshots of stats in the web IPMI. After that he suggested I send the board in and provided me an RMA. A couple days later a replacement board was on its way back to me. I was way out of warranty but I'm guessing I was a victim of the Intel C2000 issue so they replaced it. Overall very pleased with the support from ASRock.
 

kleinem

Dabbler
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Jul 29, 2014
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Short status update. I contacted ASRock via the WebForm and got in touch with ASRock Europe support in NL.
They sent me a spare Chip for my BMC which is easy to replace, since its residing on a socket.
My BMC is working fine ever since again.
 

Ericloewe

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You just had to replace the chip and use the flasher? Cool.

Unfortunately, your board is likely to fail due to the C2000 bug, so it needs to be replaced anyway.
 

eldo

Explorer
Joined
Dec 18, 2014
Messages
99
My c2750d4i died over thanksgiving week while I was out of town. It's been in service almost 24/7 since 24 Dec 2014.
I think it's the C2000 bug as it won't post. I can't access IPMI.

I /really/ should have been proactive and tried to do an advance RMA soon after I posted the initial news to the hardware forum here... doh.

I've submitted a support ticket to the asrack rock site, and I guess if I don't hear from them in a couple days (out of town for work again) I'll see about contacting william directly.
 

cdgonzalez

Dabbler
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Dec 19, 2014
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@eldo

I just did this a few weeks ago, same board, similar timeframe, opened a case with ASRock. I was able to get into IPMI but not much else, gave them what diagnostics I could. I was approved for a Warranty RMA and they shipped me a replacement next day after they received mine. Class act, very much pleasantly surprised, good luck.
 

eldo

Explorer
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Dec 18, 2014
Messages
99
@eldo

I just did this a few weeks ago, same board, similar timeframe, opened a case with ASRock. I was able to get into IPMI but not much else, gave them what diagnostics I could. I was approved for a Warranty RMA and they shipped me a replacement next day after they received mine. Class act, very much pleasantly surprised, good luck.
Excellent to hear.
Jonathan with support got hold of me today via email and sounds like an rma won't be an issue.
Unfortunately I'm out of town most of this week but hope to get it fully authd later this week.

Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk
 

mostlygeek

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Nov 21, 2017
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My ASRock 2750D4I died on Oct 15th, ironically one day after I installed the latest BIOS which disabled the watch dog. Thus started my RMA experience with ASRock. When it died my board wouldn't POST so I'm assuming it was the C2000 bug rather than the watchdog bug. The tl;dr is that it took about 4 weeks to get a board back.

I emailed William, but it was Jonathan who replied to me the next day. He asked me to send him some screenshots of the sensor readings of the power output. After I sent him the screenshot he gave me information to start the RMA. Overall the RMA process was straight forward. The biggest pain was waiting to get the board replaced.

I'm in Canada so a lot of the time was spent with the board in transit to California. Then they take a few days to confirm and send a new board. It first goes to ASRock Canada and then they ship it out (another week). Since I couldn't wait any longer I decided to pay for their expedited delivery. It cost about $39USD, which I paid for through Paypal. They give you an email address to send the money to.

Expedited comes from Purolator overnight. After I saw the board was shipped it arrived at my door the next day.

In conclusion, Jonathan is great! I'm glad you could email a real person and one that responds quite quickly at that. Shipping from Canada to the US and back again is so slow. To overnight it both ways would have cost over $100 Canadian. Though considering how much of an impact not having the NAS around made, I would have gladly paid for it in hindsight.
 

beemaster

Dabbler
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Mar 1, 2014
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My C2550D4I died after 3 years in a beautiful plywood case https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/plywood-case-for-c2550d4i-6-hdd-build.22767/ I am so disappointed I didn't read this thread earlier. IPMI works and I could even update it to latest 0.35, but I have no VGA signal, and battery-removal-tutorial doesn't help. I contacted ASRock Technical Support and hope they can help me.

Update:
I dared to send email directly to William and even though my motherboard is more than 3 years he was very helpful and after examining the screenshot of sensor readings he helped me with contacting the RMA. I received the instructions how to RMA the motherboard and will be doing it! I will update this topic, but so far I am very pleased with Asrock support and positive.
 
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Moppen

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Sep 27, 2016
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There is a new firmware .30 http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C2750D4I#Download that's address this problem.
3. Fix on Watchdog Timer.
So is this the cure for cancer for the lucky ones whos board is still alive? (like mine) ... should I apply this as soon as possible?
What about the C2000 bug it was talked about here? Is that gonna kill my system anyways? Is the RMA unavoidable? And are the RMAed Boards then new revisioned boards without that trouble, or are they like bladerunners replicants always shipped with a limited lifespan?

Does anyone has a sumary of this problem? I mean what to do first, next and so on?
 

Redcoat

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Feb 18, 2014
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Apparently my starter kit in your other thread wasn't enough...
If your board's manufacture predates 2nd-quarter 2017 it will have the C2000 bug which it is unlikely to survive. The BIOS and IPMI firmware isn't a fix.
There is contact information for Asrock Europe in at least one of the threads that can be found by searching if I recall correctly. If you can't find it in a thread, use other resources to find and talk to Asrock support Europe and explain your situation and ask them what they will do.
I don't know what they will offer if the board still lives - my guess is they'll only want to do do something if it's already dead.
But perhaps by now they have reached a point that they will make pre-failure replacements - might depend on how hard you feel like pushing them. I have no idea.
For summaries, look here https://www.ixsystems.com/blog/library/freenas-mini-motherboard-clock-signal-issue/ and here https://www.servethehome.com/intel-atom-c2000-series-bug-quiet/
 

Constantin

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May 19, 2017
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Fwiw, my board was part of a Mini XL September 2016 purchase. Presumably, the board itself was manufactured in mid-2016.

Based on the symptoms I’ve described earlier last week, iXsystems issued a advanced RMA and the replacement board came here in a matter of days. Part of that time was burn-in testing at iXsystems for the replacement.

Very happy with iXsystens, have yet to extract the board from its packaging.
 

Moppen

Dabbler
Joined
Sep 27, 2016
Messages
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Apparently my starter kit in your other thread wasn't enough...
I am sorry that I was that night so "triggerhappy" ... I think I've read now all the resources regarding this Problem and I have already contacted ASrock Rack.
Thanks for pushing me in the right directions ...
 

Redcoat

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Feb 18, 2014
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Understood. I'd probably have been the same when mine quit if I had not already seen the issue unfolding here. Glad you found the resources to help you.
 

dreamerns

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Joined
May 1, 2015
Messages
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My ASRrock C2750 D4I lasted less then a year. I replaced it when it died because it was still under warranty and ASRock sent me replacement. I installed it and really didn't look onto inscription on motherboard. Now that my server died again, I opened up my box and realized that ASRock actually sent me C2550D4I as replacement. Please everyone, if you get replacement from ASRock double check if they sent you correct model. THey are obviously very bad company (I would insert some more descriptive words, but then this post would probably be deleted).
 

Ericloewe

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Wow, that is a new one. Though it's still possible that it did have a C2750, since the boards are the same apart from the silkscreen.
 
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