Random crashes, Marvel vs LSI?

[pitchinwedge]

I think I assembled my current unRaid box sometime in 2011.  It has always had issues with random unresponsive/system freezing, requiring a hard reboot.  This has been difficult to diagnose and resolve.  I've tried asking for help on the forums at various times with little success.  The troubleshooting either was beyond me or something else, but it always ended unresolved.  I basically just lived with it.  But... I just realized I'm sometimes losing data with these random crashes.  This is a felony offense 😡.  I think whatever wasn't moved before the crash is gone.  I've now got the mover running every hour but I really need to get this worked out. 

 

My hardware:

Biostar TH67+

i3-2100

2GB Kingston Ram

Syba PEX40039

Corsair AX750 PSU

Parity 4TB WD Gold

Disk 1 2TB WD Red

Disk 2 1TB WD Black

Disk 3 2TB WD Black

Disk 4 2TB WD Black

Cache 500GB Samsung Spinpoint

 

Yes, I know you need the syslog, but I wasn't able to get it before the box rebooted.  Anyways, I've run the memtest for 24 hours with no errors.  I've just upgraded to 6.5.3 and updated the few apps I have installed (CA Backup, Community Apps, Fix Common Problems, and Preclear Disks).  Again, I know it's hard to help without a syslog but hoping for any suggestions before the next crash.

 

Lastly, here's something I stumbled upon.  Fix Common Problems says,

 

"It appears that your server has a Marvel based hard drive controller installed within it. Some users with Marvel based controllers exhibit random drives dropping offline, recurring parity errors during checks etc. This tends to be exacberated if VT-D / IOMMU is enabled in the BIOS. Generally, LSI based controllers would be preferred over Marvel based controllers because of these issues. Note that these issues are out of Limetech's hands. Depending upon the exact combination of hardware present in your server, you may not have any problems whatsoever. If you have no problems, then this warning can be safely ignored, but future versions of unRaid (and later Kernel versions) may (or may not) present you with the previously mentioned issues."

 

Could the Marvel chipset be my issue?  If so maybe I'll get a used/refurb Dell Perc H310, to see if it will work.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, pitchinwedge said:

Could the Marvel chipset be my issue?  If so maybe I'll get a used/refurb Dell Perc H310, to see if it will work.

Your system is *very* similar to my first unRAID server built in 2011.

 

The Marvell chipset is on your Syba PEX4039 controller and, yes, especially with later versions of unRAID they have proven to be problematic.

 

If you have had problems since the beginning with your server freezing, I doubt that is something that you can blame on the Syba card as they worked fine with unRAID 5/earlier Linux kernels.

 

My first unRAID server with Biostar TH61 motherboard, i3-2100 CPU, 4GB Kingston RAM, Corsair PSU, WD Red HDDs, Samsung SSD for cache and Syba PEX40048 controller, ran flawlessly for over three years until I upgraded almost everything.

 

Certainly, it is a good idea to replace the Syba card with something LSI based so you know it is not an issue, but, I suspect there may be other problems as well.

 

You should really post complete diagnostics (Tools --> Diagnostics) and not just the syslog.

 

[pitchinwedge]

Thanks Hoopster, system is running parity check... pretty much unusable until finished.  Will try to upload some diagnostics tomorrow.

[pitchinwedge]

Well, my unRaid has finished parity check and has been up and running for nearly 24 hours.  As always, when it's working, it seems just fine. 

 

Just ran the diagnostics as a base line.

tower-diagnostics-20181207-0837.zip