Unreliable USB Boot - BIOS loses USB Drive

[Moley]

Hi all,

 

Every few days when I reboot my BIOS no longer "sees" my unraid boot USB. There's no real consistency to when this will happen, it's not every reboot, but definitely seems to happen when a VM has gone haywire or a Docker container crashes. Ideally, once I'm finished tinkering with the server setting it up, those things won't happen, but it's still annoying, particularly if I'm not physically where the server is.

 

The "fix" is to power down, move the usb to another port, then reboot. The actual port doesn't seem to matter, I fact I can simply switch back and forth between two ports each time it happens. I don't have IPMI, but even if I did, I can't perform that shuffle remotely.

 

From a little poking around on this forum, I suspect USB3 might be to blame, but as far as I can tell my motherboard has no native USB2 ports (the manual itself actually has conflicting info on that too). I tried using the USB2 front panel ports on my case (plugged into the motherboard header) but unraid froze at the boot screen.

 

The motherboard is a Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H, the usb drive is a SanDisk Cruiser Fit (CZ33 - usb 2), and I'm on the latest unraid (6.8.3).

 

Any ideas how I might get the bios to detect the usb more reliably, or if there might be a usb 2 bracket I could plug into the header which would work with unraid?

 

Thanks in advance. 

[trurl]

11 hours ago, Moley said:

The "fix" is to power down, move the usb to another port, then reboot. The actual port doesn't seem to matter, I fact I can simply switch back and forth between two ports each time it happens.

So just powering down doesn't work? Is that a full power down or just a reboot? Sounds like something with the hardware isn't getting reset.

[Moley]

7 hours ago, trurl said:

So just powering down doesn't work? Is that a full power down or just a reboot? Sounds like something with the hardware isn't getting reset.

That's correct, yes. My guess is that perhaps if I completely removed power and waited a while that might also work, I haven't had the time to test that yet, though! Still, that's not a method I could employ remotely either.

 

I just realised, it's possible the motherboard supplies 5V to USB while "off", I could test this with a phone charger if it'd be useful info.

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, Moley said:

 

I just realised, it's possible the motherboard supplies 5V to USB while "off", I could test this with a phone charger if it'd be useful info.

Yes, please. Most motherboards with this function can toggle it on and off in the BIOS, perhaps investigate this option as well.

[Moley]

On 11/17/2020 at 11:32 AM, jonathanm said:

Yes, please. Most motherboards with this function can toggle it on and off in the BIOS, perhaps investigate this option as well.

Hey,

 

I tested, and yep, all the rear ports are powered in "shut down" state. I hunted through the BIOS, and there's no option to turn this off explicitly, though for testing I've enabled ErP, which I believe should disable it (unfortunately I also lose WoL). I suppose if that works, I could look at hacking together a custom USB F socket where the power pins come from the PSU but the data pins go back to a port, or perhaps using a home automation power point I can switch off remotely to completely shut off the PC for reboots (using WoL once the power is "back").

 

There's no specific way to trigger the bad behaviour, I guess I'll report back if/when it goes wrong!

[JonathanM]

43 minutes ago, Moley said:

all the rear ports are powered in "shut down" state.

What about the internal motherboard header ports?

[Moley]

8 hours ago, jonathanm said:

What about the internal motherboard header ports?

I didn't test, as when I tried booting Unraid from the front USB2 (plugged into an internal header) it hung at the bzroot/bzimg screen. If there's a header > usb bracket/adapter which is known to work well with Unraid I'd definitely be willing to give that a go, though!

[Moley]

Hi all,

 

Just an update, I ran into the same issue even with ErP enabled, I'm out of ideas. Any suggestions for a header adapter, or am I SOL with this motherboard?

[GregBobery]

Any update on this, did you manage to solve it. I am having the exact same issue.

[Moley]

45 minutes ago, GregBobery said:

Any update on this, did you manage to solve it. I am having the exact same issue.

Unfortunately I never got to the bottom of it. Moving to a bigger PSU helped with uptime reliability, and since I wasn't crashing as often it wasn't as much of a problem. I've since moved to a Dell server for my unraid box, so that rig is now decommissioned. Good luck!