[SOLVED] New unRAIDSetup - Fails to boot Unraid even in Safe Mode

[mainecooncat1]

I setup a new machine for unRAID. The setup went fine and MemTest86 ran with no problems. I went to boot it up in Unraid and I get the boot menu of options. No matter what option I choose (unRAID OS, unRAID OS GUI Mode, unRAID OS Safe Mode, unRAID OS GUI Safe Mode), it goes through Loading /bzimage.. ok and Loading /bzroot.. ok and then goes to a completely black screen with just a blinking cursor at the top left of the screen. No matter how long I wait, it never gets past that. I've tried 6.8.3 and 6.8.2. I've tried two different USB drives and I am booting from the USB 2.0 ports on the back of the motherboard. I am not booting using UEFI. I've verified that the USB drive works on another PC. Here's my hardware configuration.

 

Supermicro X10SLL-F motherboard

Xeon E3-1240 v3 cpu (am planning to go to a Xeon E3-1265L v3 cpu)

16GB (2 x 8GB) ECC DDR3

 

I'm a first time user of unRAID so I"m hoping there's a solution to this problem. I even loaded Windows 10 Pro on the machine to verify that it works. That load went fine so I believe the hardware is okay. Any ideas on my next step to troubleshoot this problem? If I can't even get unRAID to boot into Safe Mode with no plugins and no GUI, I'm not sure what other options I can try.

 

Thanks

Edited April 25, 2020 by mainecooncat1

[trurl]

Are you booting from a USB2 port?

[mainecooncat1]

Yes, I am booting from the USB 2.0 ports on the back of the motherboard and not the USB 3.0 ports connected to the front of the case.

[JorgeB]

That's odd, many users with that board, you could try booting UEFI instead.

[meep]

Is it a fresh installation of unRaid on the USB? If not, is it possible that there's some VFIO settings or device detachment left over from a previous install? You could be inadvertently detaching the USB controller that the boot thumbdrive is plugged into?

Edited April 25, 2020 by meep

[mainecooncat1]

I've also tried booting from UEFI, although that's not normally successful, and it fails at the same point. I've created fresh installs of both 8.6.3 and 8.6.2 on the USB thumb drive so I don't think there's anything left over there. One of the reasons I chose the motherboard and CPU was I thought it would be a simple install and a reliable one. So far, it runs Windows and MemTest86 just fine but not unRAID, yet. Any other suggestions? Is there a way to capture any other diagnostics from unRAID on what the boot process is doing?

 

Thanks again

[itimpi]

Have you tried booting in both GUI and none-GUI mode?   Some people have reported that one mode works for them while the other does not.   I do not think the reason has ever been identified  

[meep]

It's not clear if this is a licensed copy of unraid or not, but my next step would be to download the demo version to a different / new USB thuumbdrive.  This will rule out the USB device as the problem.

 

The next step in the boot process is to unpack initramfs, so it seems it's getting stuck at that point.

 

[mainecooncat1]

I've tried all of the options (no GUI, GUI, no GUI safe mode, GUI safe mode). All of them produce the same result. This is still the demo version. I've tried this on two USB drives. One is an old 2 GB USB 2.0 drive and the second is a newer 16 GB USB 3.0 drive. Both produce the same result. I would guess it is a setting or problem with the motherboard given all the permutations I've tried with USB drives.

[meep]

I would tend to agree with you. Next, I’d check motherboard bios is up to date. Strip out as much hardware as you can, ram, GPUs, add in cards etc. try to get the system as bare bones as you can, and start changing bios setting to see if you can make progress.

 

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by meep

[mainecooncat1]

The system is configured with no add-on cards and no drives connected to the SATA ports. I actually swapped the CPU to a Xeon E3-1265L v3 which I ordered for the system as a lower power option with built-in graphics. No change with the swapped CPU. I then pulled one of the two ECC DIMMs and it actually booted unRAID. I assumed that I had a bad DIMM even though MemTest86 didn't find anything. I swapped in the other DIMM, it wouldn't boot and thought I had it figured out. When I swapped the DIMMs that had booted back into the system, it wouldn't boot. No idea why that one time it booted.

 

I'm going to set it aside for today unless I have another idea to try. If anyone has seen something like this, please let me know.

 

Thanks

[mainecooncat1]

I'm inclined to think that this is a memory problem. The memory on the board is not on the approved list from SuperMicro but does test okay with MemTest86. I'd guess the memory is good but just not fully compatible with the motherboard. I'm likely going to order one of the memory modules from the SuperMicro approved memory list as I think the motherboard, CPU, and USB flash drive are not the source of the problem. I've also read on the iX Community that the SuperMicro X10 motherboards are a bit finicky about memory.

[mainecooncat1]

I received the Hynix ECC memory that is on the approved list for the X10SSL-F motherboard and a 16GB USB 2.0 flash drive. I redownloaded unRAID 6.8.3 and verified the MD5 checksum. Created a new USB boot drive and nothing changed. With the approved memory (1 or 2 UDIMMS) and the USB 2.0 drive, it does exactly the same thing. It goes to loading bzroot and then goes to a completely black screen with just a flashing underscore at the top left of the screen. Nothing else is displayed and it stays that way even if I leave it for 5-10 minutes.

 

I've seen this same behavior now with two different vendor's memory, three different USB boot drives, and two different Xeon V3 processors. The only consistent is the SuperMicro X10SLL-F motherboard. I've verified it is running the latest bios (revision R3.2). I've reset the bios to its defaults. I've also gone in and disabled everything that I can. The machine can boot and run Windows 10 Pro. I've removed the LSI controller that I'm planning to use so it is just the motherboard, CPU, memory, and USB boot drive. I've swapped the last three. Does this sound like a motherboard problem?

 

Does anyone have anything else to suggest that I try? At this point, I'm looking at having to buy another motherboard. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Edited May 1, 2020 by mainecooncat1

[mainecooncat1]

I finally got it to boot and it appears to be stable. I did a full format of the 16 GB USB 2.0 drive in Windows 10, a fresh load of UNRAID on the USB, verified the USB drive was a MBR drive, reset the BIOS to all defaults, removed all other boot options except for USB UEFI, and then it booted. I installed all 32 GB of RAM, the LSI SATA card, three test drives, and it is all working. I'm not sure which of the steps above I missed before but I'm happy to see it running and happy.