Memory Error on FreeNAS Mini

[Redcoat]

Thanks, guys. The Mini is up and running again. Dealing with a couple of permissions problems, but basically everything physically looks fine. CPU temps cruising along in the high 50'sC so far.
At the minimum I am going to engage iXsystems and Asrock in discussion about the "temperature rise" issue.
No answer from Mr. Passmark yet on the injection evidence matter.
Honestly, the $35 with Passmark, $35 with Microcenter for 3 fans, $10 for gas, if that's all the direct out-of-pocket costs I have for this exercise in the end (no new MB and no new memory ...) pales in the light of the lost opportunity cost related to my time and the indirect cost of the whiskey consumed.

 

[joeschmuck]

whiskey consumed.

I like Tequila myself :D

 

[Nomad]

Thanks, guys. The Mini is up and running again. Dealing with a couple of permissions problems, but basically everything physically looks fine. CPU temps cruising along in the high 50'sC so far.
At the minimum I am going to engage iXsystems and Asrock in discussion about the "temperature rise" issue.
No answer from Mr. Passmark yet on the injection evidence matter.
Honestly, the $35 with Passmark, $35 with Microcenter for 3 fans, $10 for gas, if that's all the direct out-of-pocket costs I have for this exercise in the end (no new MB and no new memory ...) pales in the light of the lost opportunity cost related to my time and the indirect cost of the whiskey consumed.

$100 and gained quite a bit of knowledge cheaper and more effective than a college class :)

 

[Redcoat]

$100

So you figure only $20 for the whiskey?

 

[Redcoat]

A closeout on the Memtest 86 Pro ECC injection topic mentioned earlier.

Passmark asked me to submit a debug log from the testing to examine why I had not seen any response to ECC Error Injection (apparently Memtest 86 is supposed to show an acknowledgement as well as indicating the intention to inject).

Their response after review is as follows:

"Got the log. Your hardware supports ECC injection. So no problem there.
But the DRAM Control Operation (DCO) register is showing that the ECC injection has been disabled in your BIOS firmware. You may want to check your BIOS setup to see if there is an option to enable ECC injection. Otherwise, you would need to flash a custom BIOS to prevent the ECC injection feature from being disabled.
In the next release of MemTest86 we'll decode the bits in the DCO registers to provide a clearer indication in the log that the injection feature is disabled in BIOS. That message will be,
**Warning** DRPLOCK is set to 1. DRPLOCK must be cleared by the BIOS to enable error injection".

There's no option to enable ECC injection in my BIOS (that I can recognize anyway). It's actually one of the most stripped-down BIOS's I have ever experienced - very few configurable options.

So, at least for this test series and MOBO, I blew $39. Won't be the last time though, I'm sure.

 

[joeschmuck]

This sounds like something they should include on their website and maybe it would be a good idea to include a list of supported motherboards.

 

[Ericloewe]

Interesting outcome, for sure.

 

[Redcoat]

This sounds like somethign they should include on their website and maybe it would be a good idea to include a list of supported motherboards.

Yes, that was my thought - at least allow the user to pursue the question before buying.

This IS on the website (my italics/underline):
"ECC error injection is a feature that simulates ECC errors in order to test the system's error handling mechanism. The following chipsets may support this feature (depending on your BIOS configurations):^

• AMD Bulldozer (15h)
• AMD Steamroller (15h)
• AMD Jaguar (16h)
• AMD Steppe Eagle SoC
• AMD Merlin Falcon SoC
• Intel Nehalem
• Intel Lynnfield
• Intel Westmere
• Intel Xeon E3 family (Sandy Bridge)
• Intel Xeon E3 v2 family (Ivy Bridge)
• Intel Xeon E3 v3 family (Haswell)
• Intel Xeon E3 v4 family (Broadwell)
• Intel Xeon E3 v5 family (Skylake)
• Intel Xeon E3 v6 family (Kaby Lake)
• Intel Atom C2000 SoC
• Intel Broadwell-H SoC
• Intel Apollo Lake SoC"

Anyway, now we know what to ask.

Passmark's last comment in my thread: "I suspect the rational (sic) for vendors disabling it, is that they see it only as an internal debugging feature and (they claim) there is potential for Malware to exploit it. Which is also the reason you can't turn the feature back on in software once BIOS turned it off. Malware might turn it back on, then exploit it. i.e. there is no ON switch. Just an OFF switch."

 

[joeschmuck]

Passmark's last comment in my thread: "I suspect the rational for vendors disabling it, is that they see it only as an internal debugging feature and (they claim) there is potential for Malware to exploit it. Which is also the reason you can't turn the feature back on in software once BIOS turned it off. Malware might turn it back on, then exploit it. i.e. there is no ON switch. Just an OFF switch."

If this were the actual concern then I would think the motherboard manufacturers could use a jumper to enable/disable this feature so the end user could test their memory if desired.

 

[Ericloewe]

If this were the actual concern then I would think the motherboard manufacturers could use a jumper to enable/disable this feature so the end user could test their memory if desired.

That would add a whole 2 cents to the BoM! We can't have that!

 

[Constantin]

It wouldn't even need a jumper. These boards have IPMI management. There is no reason for the IPMI system not to be capable of allowing a limited set of debug options.

Similarly, it would be nice if the IPMI management gave you access to the fans, instead of requiring a reboot every time one wants to change the motherboard fan settings. They have a bazillion IPMI design options as it is.

Speaking of avoiding the unfriendly BIOS screen: The good news is that IxSystems is working on ensuring that the SATADOM will always boot first unless it's moved. Thus, future users like myself won't be wondering why adding a SLOG disabled their FreeNAS' boot progress.

Anyhow, ever since my motherboard got swapped (thank you IXsystems!), there have been zero memory issues with either the OEM memory or the 64GB of IMM memory I purchased on ebay.