What's wrong with my pfSense box?

[Ericloewe]

Now, let's get this out of the way: I'm not looking for help (that'd be silly to do here). I have a contest of sorts to propose:

My pfSense box went brain-dead today, after a power outage - even though it probably did a clean shutdown, since it's connected to the UPS and has NUT configured. The outage was shorter than the UPS' typical runtime and said UPS was fully charged a mere two hours after the outage.

The contest goes like this:

Whoever guesses what's wrong with it wins the satisfaction of being right.
Whoever fails to guess correctly has to temporarily (1 week) change their username and picture to something akin to Cyberjock's PersonablePrincessPeach persona (remember that? I actually needed to read a few of his comments until I realized it was actually him).

Naturally, I'll abstain, as I'll be doing the investigation and repair.

Since the thing is old enough not to be worth too much trouble, I may end up arriving at no conclusion, leaving only disappointment for all involved (sorry!). I'll do my best effort though, short of ordering major, hard-to-find components.

Symptoms:

Does not boot. Fans spin, power is applied, etc. No beeps, no video output. pfSense is definitely not booted, since I don't get the funny jingle (note to self: Make feature request for PC speaker music on startup and shutdown for FreeNAS). Obviously, the network it was supposed to manage was dead.

Components:

Late LGA775 Asus motherboard (P5Q-something, I think)
Whatever Core 2 Duo was popular six-ish years ago
Single 1GB DDR2 Kingston DIMM
Gigabyte passively-cooled graphics card (because I literally forgot to make sure the motherboard had a video adapter)
Two Intel PCI-e GbE adapters
Single D-Link (Realtek) PCI GbE adapter
WD Blue 160GB SATA HDD
Corsair CX-M 430
El-Cheapo (Nox) chassis
Assorted fans and stock cooler


Want to play? Post your suspicions here until January 31 and I'll log everything. Losers are expected to act accordingly on a strictly honor system.

Results will be published very early February - I'll be aiming at February 2, but will update if I can't make it (replacement parts, etc.).

Edit: Added a few minor details.

 

[cyberjock]

haha.. at the age of that hardware I'm gonna guess hardware failure. My first guess is the hard drive is dead. But a PSU and motherboard could be bad too (someone else can claim those).

I already put in the feature request for sound: https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/1938

Feel free to add a "this would be nice" to the ticket. ;)

 

[Ericloewe]

I just realized I should be able to check every single component.

I have an old early Core 2-era desktop lying around. It's HP, so the motherboard might not take the pfSense box's CPU, but it can donate RAM and its CPU.

PSU will be relatively easy to troubleshoot. Extra graphics cards are on hand. A bad HDD should also be simple to identify.

tl;dr - I will almost certainly be able to identify the issue

 

[9C1 Newbee]

Just to be clear, the motherboard has no integrated graphics at all?

 

[Jailer]

Has all the symptoms of a dead motherboard.

 

[cyberjock]

I just noticed no beeps.. so motherboard or PSU is almost certainly the cause. :P

 

[9C1 Newbee]

I am wondering if the CMOS battery went dead and won't let it see the video card due to a setting. Then it just halts. If not, I would unplug the video card, HDDs, nic's, and possibly the ram. Anything you don't have to have, yank it out. See what happens.

Has to be the realtek!!!!!! Amirite??? (jokeing)

 

[anodos]

I'd say that it's a motherboard issue, but since someone else said that I'll go with the Hail Mary. No hardware faults. You're just holding it wrong. :p

 

[Ericloewe]

Just to be clear, the motherboard has no integrated graphics at all?

No integrated graphics of any kind. It's just Intel's midrange chipset, IIRC. Graphics are from said discrete card.

I just noticed no beeps.. so motherboard or PSU is almost certainly the cause. :p

Since I did miss two small details in the OP, I'll let you switch from "bad HDD" to "bad PSU" (Jailer has chosen dead motherboard already), if you wish.

I am wondering if the CMOS battery went dead and won't let it see the video card due to a setting. Then it just halts. If not, I would unplug the video card, HDDs, nic's, and possibly the ram. Anything you don't have to have, yank it out. See what happens.

Has to be the realtek!!!!!! Amirite??? (jokeing)

Well, it's two Realteks (one on the motherboard) and two Intels - discrimination-free networking FTW (not really, the Realteks never got any serious use) :p

I'd say that it's a motherboard issue, but since someone else said that I'll go with the Hail Mary. No hardware faults. You're just holding it wrong. :p

Should I take note of yours as "loose cable", "ghost of Steve Jobs" or "31337 haxzs"?

 

[anodos]

No integrated graphics of any kind. It's just Intel's midrange chipset, IIRC. Graphics are from said discrete card.



Since I did miss two small details in the OP, I'll let you switch from "bad HDD" to "bad PSU" (Jailer has chosen dead motherboard already), if you wish.



Well, it's two Realteks (one on the motherboard) and two Intels - discrimination-free networking FTW (not really, the Realteks never got any serious use) :p



Should I take note of yours as "loose cable", "ghost of Steve Jobs" or "31337 haxzs"?

Yuoo shuoold nute-a it es fulloos. Um gesh dee bork, bork! I'd sey thet it's a muzeerbuerd issooe-a, boot seence-a sumeune-a ilse-a seeed thet I'll gu veet zee Heeel Mery. Bork bork bork! Nu herdvere-a foolts. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Yuoo're-a joost huldeeng it vrung.

 

[Ericloewe]

Yuoo shuoold nute-a it es fulloos. Um gesh dee bork, bork! I'd sey thet it's a muzeerbuerd issooe-a, boot seence-a sumeune-a ilse-a seeed thet I'll gu veet zee Heeel Mery. Bork bork bork! Nu herdvere-a foolts. Um gesh dee bork, bork! Yuoo're-a joost huldeeng it vrung.

"Spirit of Swedish Chef", gotcha.

 

[9C1 Newbee]

North Korea

 

[Ericloewe]

North Korea

I resent the implication that my network is as vulnerable as Sony's. :p

 

[Ericloewe]

If this is because of the PSU (which is a mere year old), it'll have the dubious honor of being only my second failed ATX PSU. The first was an OEM piece of crap from the heyday of the counterfeit capacitor age in a prebuilt desktop from a local electronics chain. Component choices were so atrocious that the motherboard's brand was literally - and I kid you not - "Motherboard - the brand you can trust".

 

[cyberjock]

"Motherboard - the brand you can trust".

ROFL

 

[9C1 Newbee]

Trust to do what, exactly?

 

[cyberjock]

Trust to do what, exactly?

SILENCE! It's so trustworthy they have to remind you! ;)

FreeNAS - The OS you can trust to not throw your data to /dev/null!

 

[Ericloewe]

Trust to do what, exactly?

Amazingly, survive several brutal years with no maintenance, probably counterfeit capacitors, ultra-crummy power courtesy of OEM PSUs and playing games it could most definitely not handle (Far Cry).
At this point, I'd like to point out that it's a 2.4GHz Pentium 4 with a GeForce 4MX (512MB of RAM, though - real cool at the time).

 

[9C1 Newbee]

So..............it was a far cry from handling Far Cry?

Ok, that fruit was hanging pretty low. But I still had to grab it.

 

[Starpulkka]

Theres a 5 thing that can be broken, but i pick Corsair PSU. (You might get psu working again after you keep it powercord off a one week) edit: damn fans do spin, so it might not be psu then oh well i keep my estimate