X9SCM-F and 11.2-U5 Fresh Install

[EngineerFreely]

I just purchased some components to do my first NAS setup. I am having a really hard time with the install.

Supermicro X9SCM-F
Xeon 3.1ghz
24gb ram
2x Intel 80gb SSD
FreeNAS 11.2

I am able to install it. I select both ada0 and ada1 drives for the install (im assuming this is how to do a software raid 1). Fresh Install. BIOS setup, installs fine, reboot then infinite loops.

Since then I have tried the following:
Bios setting to "LEGACY" from UEFI/LEGACY boot.
Selecting only the hd to boot
Flashed bios from 2.0 to 2.3
Tried UEFI install.

One thing curious - I dont see both drives popping up as a "boot" drive but they are visible elsewhere in the bios and in the install. Not sure if thats normal for this motherboard.

Not sure where to proceed from here. I posted the last photos of the loading screen before it loops.

 

[EngineerFreely]

I tried 11.2 on a spare 250gb hdd I had laying around. Same loop issue. Tried installing 11.1 on both a SSD and that spare HDD. It wont even detect it as a bootable drive. Just tells me to insert a proper bootable disk, like its missing something.

 

[pschatz100]

It has been a long time since I did a fresh install. Do the current installers give you a choice between creating a UEFI boot image and a Legacy (sometimes called BIOS) boot image? If yes, then make certain you create the boot device using the Legacy boot option. Then in your BIOS, you have to set it for BIOS boot and pick the proper device to boot from

What were the SSDs used for, prior to using them as boot drives? Did you wipe them and remove the old filesystems before installing FreeNAS?

 

[EngineerFreely]

Thank you for the reply. I had/have a few issues.

11.2 wont seem to work with UEFI and/or Bios/Legacy no matter what I do.
11.0 works UEFI only (havent tried 11.1). And if there isnt a real major reason to try and get 11.2 to work then I will leave it here.

Had some random reboots.. turns out I have 2 different voltage ram and it was overvolting my 1.35v rated ram to 1.5v. memtest86 istantly locked up when all 4 sticks were in but in sets of 2 they were OK. Running now with only 16gb, but its working.

Doing a 500gb transfer right now to test it out. Instantly learned I need to run this Cat6 cable asap as wifi + whatever 5/5e cable I have hooked up to the network is producing a whopping 9mb/s transfer speed. Im going to let it do its thing since I want to test stability since all these errors.

But it seems to work. And for that, I am excited now.

Now I just need to figure out how to make it not boot to the UEFI shell. I have to type exit every time to get it to load FreeNAS (or anything really, like memtest86).

 

[Jessep]

If you install 11.1 can you not upgrade to 11.2 through the GUI?

 

[EngineerFreely]

It actually appears I can do 11.2 from 11.0.

Worth doing/trying?

 

[pschatz100]

It actually appears I can do 11.2 from 11.0.

Worth doing/trying?

It will not hurt anything to try. At the end of the day, your data won't be affected and you can always revert to 11.0.

I have an X9SCM-F system as well. When I migrated my boot device to SSD, I had to use Legacy (BIOS) boot to set things up. Although I was using UEFI when booting from USB flash drives, I had to switch to Legacy boot when I started using the SSD.

I'm going to guess your RAM issue was more related to speed and timing settings, rather than voltage. You need to be careful when mixing different RAM sets.

 

[blanchet]

FreeNAS 11.2 has introduced a major change in the boot procedure:

• FreeNAS 11.1 uses GRUB as boot loader
• FreeNAS 11.2 uses BTX as boot loader

BTX is the native FreeBSD boot loader, but it supports less hardware than GRUB.
If you have boot problem, you should try the last version of the 11.1 series (FreeNAS 11.1u7) in BIOS mode.

 

[EngineerFreely]

Thank you, I wonder if this is why I had such an issue on boot up of 11.2?

Okay I will give 11.1 a shot.

FreeNAS 11.2 has introduced a major change in the boot procedure:

• FreeNAS 11.1 uses GRUB as boot loader
• FreeNAS 11.2 uses BTX as boot loader

BTX is the native FreeBSD boot loader, but it supports less hardware than GRUB.
If you have boot problem, you should try the last version of the 11.1 series (FreeNAS 11.1u7) in BIOS mode.

 

[pschatz100]

There are lots of people that are using X9SCM motherboards, including me, without a problem. I would not think that incompatibility with your hardware is an issue, unless you have something weird in the set up of your SSD drives. For sure, use the Legacy/BIOS install and set your boot device for the proper device.

If you are still having trouble, try creating a single boot drive. You can always mirror it later, if you feel the need.

 

[EngineerFreely]

There are lots of people that are using X9SCM motherboards, including me, without a problem. I would not think that incompatibility with your hardware is an issue, unless you have something weird in the set up of your SSD drives. For sure, use the Legacy/BIOS install and set your boot device for the proper device.

If you are still having trouble, try creating a single boot drive. You can always mirror it later, if you feel the need.

I had a weird hardware issue with 2 different voltages of ram which caused random reboots on 11.0 Since removing the higher voltage ram, it has been rock solid.

I have not tried to create another 11.2 setup on legacy since then with a spare HD to see if it works now. I am almost reluctant to try since it works now, but there are some clear advantages of 11.2, yes?

 

[pschatz100]

If the system does what you want, then you can certainly leave it as is. Just check the FreeNAS changelog to see if there is anything in the new release that matters to you. If not then, don't worry about it.

Most likely, there is a problem with the set up of your boot drives. If the system does not see them as bootable drives, then something is not set right. I also noticed that you have never given a full description of your system. Do you have data drives attached? What is your power supply?

 

[EngineerFreely]

Supermicro X9SCM-F
Xeon 3.1ghz
16gb ram crucial ddr3
2x Intel 80gb SSD
4x 4tb WD red nas
FreeNAS 11.0
Lenovo Thinkstation 610w psu

This is what is running right now