Lan not recognized -- Realtek RTL8139 on Epox ep-9npa+ultra motherboard

[tnedator]

I'm trying to put together my first Freenas. I had an old Athalon X2 setup laying around, so I bought a IDE/Compact flash, some new 3TB drives and installed it tonight. After installing to the compact flash and rebooting, when I choose 1 to setup the network adapter, it tells me to choose the adapter, but doesn't list any adapters. I assume this means it hasn't recognized them.

I didn't have my manual anymore, so I first assumed it was an Nforce4 LAN, so I enabled if_nve_load="YES" in loader.conf. When that didn't work, I did some research and found that the lan is a Realtek RTL8139 on that motherboard. So, enabled RE, by setting if_re_load="YES"

Unfortunately, I'm getting the same results.

Any suggestions, or is this older motherboard/LAN just not supported?

Thanks

 

[ProtoSD]

Most of the more common network drivers are precompiled into the kernel, so you shouldn't need to enable them in loader.conf. If it doesn't work the driver would probably need to be compiled manually and then you could drop it in the /boot/kernel directory and add it to loader.conf. Unless anyone has another suggestion, it might be easier to find some other card and give that a try.

Also, verify that it's enabled in the motherboard BIOS.

 

[survive]

Hi tnedator,

I hate the be the one to tell you this, but I don't think that board is going to let you see the full 3TB of each drive. Don't be to surprised if you can only "see" ~2.2TB per drive.

-Will

 

[tnedator]

Ok, looks like i'm motherboard/cpu shopping now. Is there a thread that lists recommended setups?

Ideally, I would like 5+ sata ports.

Real world, does 3gbps vs 6gpbs make a difference.

I haven't had any luck finding motherboards that have IDE and 5+ 6gbps sata, only 3gpbs. I've found these:

BIOSTAR TH55XE LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI Micro ATX Intel Motherboard (5 sata)
BIOSTAR T5 XE CFX-SLI LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard (6 sata)
Foxconn H55A LGA 1156 Intel H55 HDMI ATX Intel Motherboard (6 sata)
BIOSTAR TP55 LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard

 

[survive]

Hi tnedator,

3gbps vs 6gpbs really only matters when you are dealing with SSD's. Intel has pretty much phased out the IDE port...it's not even supported on their latest chips. Return the IDE DOM if you can and just run FreeNAS off a USB key.

-Will

 

[tnedator]

Hi tnedator,

3gbps vs 6gpbs really only matters when you are dealing with SSD's. Intel has pretty much phased out the IDE port...it's not even supported on their latest chips. Return the IDE DOM if you can and just run FreeNAS off a USB key.

-Will

Thanks, USB makes sense, as IDE really limits choices. Also, looking at 3gbps sata greatly opens up the motherboard choices. If I buy a new motherboard, am I likely to run into an issue with the onboard lan or other driver issues? Meaning, too new to be included in the freebsd/freenas distro?

On the USB, do you guys usually just run standard USB drives plugged into the front of back of the case, or are you running them internal off of a sata port or internal USB port? Just curious on that.

 

[tnedator]

I should add that most of the motherboards I'm looking at seem to have the Realtek 8111DL lan. Any issue with this one?

 

[survive]

Hi tnedator,

Personally I think Realtek NICs are crap....save yourself some headaches & get an Intel "CT" PCI-e card for $25.00.

I took a look at a few of your selected boards and they seem to run around $100.00 over at newegg. If you really want to class it up take a look at one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182252

Dual Intel LAN, on-board video...if you look at the "overhead" view of the board there's even an internal USB port just "north" of the SATA ports for you to plug your USB key into.

Personally I prefer to have the key plugged directly into one of the ports on the board on the back (if the internal isn't an option). I boot my filer off a Compact Flash card via a CF to IDE converter, but my system has an IDE port.

-Will

 

[tnedator]

Sorry for the 20 questions, but I have one more.

How about an ASUS P5W64 WS Professional motherboard and Q6600 (actually Xeon variant). I'm about to rotate it out when I build an Ivy Bridge PC in a couple weeks.

1. Will Freenas recognize the two on board nics ( Marvell 88E8052 & Marvell 88E8001)? Also, are Marvell LAN controllers ok, or am I still better off with a PCI card?

2. Will I be able to use all 7 sata ports in the same array? My thought was to start with a 4 x 3TB array, and a 5th disk as a hot swap. I believe 4 sata are on an Intel controller, and the other three are on a Marvell 88SE6141 controller.

Thanks for all the help.

 

[survive]

Hi tnedator,

It should work....

I would point to to the FreeBSD 8.2 HCL here:

http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.2R/hardware.html

for specifics.

I think you are still going to run into the problem with the 3TB drives. You need a very new controller to support those large drives....I doubt a socket 771 board will do it.

I'm not a big fan of Marvell either. It should work, but certainly not something I would buy...that said, you have perfectly good hardware that you can either try and see or put directly on the shelf, so you have very little to lose.

-Will