Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
--On Sunday, December 18, 2011 11:09:04 PM +0200 Alvar Kusma al...@raamat.polva.ee wrote: GPIO support for net5501 in Linux kernel. http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-geode/2011-December/000267.html Was that directed at my post? If so, the situation is one where the Soekris is running OpenBSD, but the hang gets triggered by Linux' avahi-daemon that is running on another (non-Soekris) host so I don't think that a GPIO patch on the Linux/Soekris side would affect things. Thanks, though. Devin ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
GPIO support for net5501 in Linux kernel. http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-geode/2011-December/000267.html Was that directed at my post? No. This post is primarly for saying thanks to Philip, just without starting another net5501 thread. Still important for Soekris users. -- =Alvar= ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
GPIO support for net5501 in Linux kernel. http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-geode/2011-December/000267.html -- =Alvar= ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
This is not a crash per se, but is still a stability issue: http://lists.soekris.com/pipermail/soekris-tech/2011-May/017360.html In summary, seems to be that with some SSDs that should be of reasonably good quality, on cold boot the BIOS gives up before the SSD is fully operational. On warm boot there is never a problem. However, because I need these machines to come alive without human intervention even in the extended power blackout scenario, it's caused me to rip out multiple SSDs and replace them with CF cards (where, at least in some cases, I could really use the extra capacity available on the SSDs). Devin ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:42:56 +0100 Dennis S. Jørgensen d...@x.dtu.dk wrote: On 2011-12-07 19:49, Attila Kinali wrote: When running an WLAN card atheros AR9220 in my case, the system will crash from time to time when the WLAN card is in use. Under what kind of pressure/how often? The system sitting idle is enough, it just takes longer (1-3 days). I dont even have to be home and do something. Ie the wlan does not have to be in active use, just being switched on is enough. I had horrible stability with an ath9k based card in the miniPCI slot under Linux 2.6.32*, but I decided to test it again due to this topic coming up. It has passed 6 days of uptime with no issues now, where it would die within minutes under 2.6.32 and similar usage. Could be, that having a 700MHz CPU plus a harddisk in it makes the difference. What CPU do you have and what other components do you have installed? This is running Linux 3.1.0-1-486 (stock Debian testing). Hmm.. I'll try to upgrade to 3.1 over the holidays and see whether that works. Attila Kinali -- The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap -- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On 2011-12-15 14:01, Attila Kinali wrote: Could be, that having a 700MHz CPU plus a harddisk in it makes the difference. What CPU do you have and what other components do you have installed? I also have a hard drive in mine, Seagate Momentus 7200.4, 320GB. The CPU is clocked at 500MHz. Temperature appears to be around 65C typically. Regards Dennis Jørgensen ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On Thu, 15 Dec 2011 22:13:14 +0100 Dennis S. Jørgensen d...@x.dtu.dk wrote: On 2011-12-15 14:01, Attila Kinali wrote: Could be, that having a 700MHz CPU plus a harddisk in it makes the difference. What CPU do you have and what other components do you have installed? I also have a hard drive in mine, Seagate Momentus 7200.4, 320GB. The CPU is clocked at 500MHz. Err.. right, mine is 500MHz too.. got confused with the -70 in the type name. I've a 500G WD drive... dont remember which type exactly... Temperature appears to be around 65C typically. Here it's at 50°C. But i have a fan installed... Attila Kinali -- Why does it take years to find the answers to the questions one should have asked long ago? ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:59:05 + Nix n...@esperi.org.uk wrote: On 7 Dec 2011, Attila Kinali told this: I have two stability issues: The CPU runs at 60°C when the system is idle. SIO Temp:+53.0°C (low = -55.0°C, high = +127.0°C) (crit = +127.0°C) (room temperature: 15C.) Configuration is a bare net5501-700 in the standard case, with a low power 2.5 sata harddisk mounted on top of it. That extra heat would be the HDD, then. They really can spit out heat, low power or not (it seems to be correlated mostly with age, I suspect due to bearing wear). The harddisk is new and low power (iirc 1W standby and 3W running). Toghether with the CPU that's about 10W of power at full throttle. As the system is sold with a 25W power supply, hence i'd expect it to be able to disipate at least 20W, but even 10W is too much... and if you have a look at the case, you see why. When using the CPU to its limit (like by using cpuburn), the temperature will rise to 80°C. I see no increase in temperature *at all* under heavy CPU load. I find this very surprising: 120 wakeups per second (from the timer interrupt and the entropy key daemon) shouldn't be stopping the thing from going to sleep and cooling down, should it? (Not that 53C really worries me.) 120 IRQs/s is nothing. Dont forget that a standard Linux system is configured to 250Hz timer interrupts these days. Systems that need to be responsive are even configured to 1kHz timer interrrupts. And as the interrupt service routine is very small, it's still plenty of time to sleep. In short: Even with 120 IRQ/s your system is still basically idle. Running an HDD without a fan in the mix to give some airflow seems risky to me, no matter the case. Why? It's a low power notebook HD. These are made to be run in enviroments where there is no airflow at all. Just a little bit of conduction trough the housing. This has been tested and reproduced with Linux kernels 2.6.38.x, 2.6.39.1 and 3.0.1 (vanilla, no patches). FWIW, I've been using a Soekris net5501 for two and a half years now (no HDD or wifi). Linux kernels from 2.6.30 up to 3.2rc. No crashes not attributable to user error, not one. It's sufficiently reliable that I just bought a second one in case lightning strikes the first one and cuts me off from the Internet :) That's exactly what i'm hitting at: If you run the bare system, you have no problems. If you choose to include some of the accessories (like HD mount or wifi cards) sold toghether with the net5501 (which suggests that these accessories are supported), you will run into problems. At least i and seemingly others did. Attila Kinali -- The trouble with you, Shev, is you don't say anything until you've saved up a whole truckload of damned heavy brick arguments and then you dump them all out and never look at the bleeding body mangled beneath the heap -- Tirin, The Dispossessed, U. Le Guin ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On 13 Dec 2011, Attila Kinali said: On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 19:59:05 + Nix n...@esperi.org.uk wrote: I see no increase in temperature *at all* under heavy CPU load. I find this very surprising: 120 wakeups per second (from the timer interrupt and the entropy key daemon) shouldn't be stopping the thing from going to sleep and cooling down, should it? (Not that 53C really worries me.) 120 IRQs/s is nothing. Dont forget that a standard Linux system is Sorry, that was confusing phrasing on my part. Heavy CPU load wasn't the base load mentioned there: it was a giant 'git gc': 100% CPU for an hour plus. :) I was surprised that the base load of 120 wakeups/sec was apparently still high enough that the thing wasn't able to get any cooler than it was when running the giant 'git gc'. (Maybe lm-sensors is lying to me, but I'd not expect a badly calibrated sensor on the Soekris, it's not exactly an off-the-shelf white box.) configured to 250Hz timer interrupts these days. Systems that need to be responsive are even configured to 1kHz timer interrrupts. And as the interrupt service routine is very small, it's still plenty of time to sleep. In short: Even with 120 IRQ/s your system is still basically idle. It's idle (long-term load average 0.05), but it's doing a lot of wakeups, even if it's not doing much work in each one. Some CPUs require long enough to go to sleep again that hundreds of wakeups/sec really would raise their temperature: maybe that would explain why it doesn't get any hotter when I run it at 100% for ages. Running an HDD without a fan in the mix to give some airflow seems risky to me, no matter the case. Why? It's a low power notebook HD. These are made to be run in enviroments where there is no airflow at all. Just a little bit of conduction trough the housing. Most notebooks have fans these days, but you're right, I suspect it's the CPU that needs it. I've run several PCs in horrible tower cases with no airflow over the HDD at all, and they never went wrong. I'm just being reflexively paranoid without cause, I guess. This has been tested and reproduced with Linux kernels 2.6.38.x, 2.6.39.1 and 3.0.1 (vanilla, no patches). FWIW, I've been using a Soekris net5501 for two and a half years now (no HDD or wifi). Linux kernels from 2.6.30 up to 3.2rc. No crashes not attributable to user error, not one. It's sufficiently reliable that I just bought a second one in case lightning strikes the first one and cuts me off from the Internet :) That's exactly what i'm hitting at: If you run the bare system, you have no problems. If you choose to include some of the accessories (like HD mount or wifi cards) sold toghether with the net5501 (which suggests that these accessories are supported), you will run into problems. You may be right. I'm probably going to get a lan1741 fairly soon, as my Soekris has no spare Ethernet jacks and the demand on them just keeps going up. We'll see if it retains stability after that. (Hell, given my coordination, we'll see if I can manage to plug the card in without snapping the board in two! :P ) -- NULL (void) ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On 2011-12-07 19:49, Attila Kinali wrote: When running an WLAN card atheros AR9220 in my case, the system will crash from time to time when the WLAN card is in use. Under what kind of pressure/how often? I had horrible stability with an ath9k based card in the miniPCI slot under Linux 2.6.32*, but I decided to test it again due to this topic coming up. It has passed 6 days of uptime with no issues now, where it would die within minutes under 2.6.32 and similar usage. This is running Linux 3.1.0-1-486 (stock Debian testing). Back when it was crashing it was really bad crashes too: No output to the serial port, it would just suddenly freeze the entire machine. Regards Dennis Jørgensen *I may have tested it under 2.6.37 aswell. If I did, the result was the same. ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
2011/12/7 Soren Kristensen so...@soekris.com: Hi Everybody, I would like to ensure that the net5501 hardware always works stable, so I need need to collect some more information. Looking though the archieves I found two reported issues, both on Linux. 1) The thread in Sept/Oct 2010, concluding with Andrey Safonov reporting the Linux VIA VT6105M driver to have bug, and how to fix it: http://lists.soekris.com/pipermail/soekris-tech/2010-October/016884.html http://lists.soekris.com/pipermail/soekris-tech/2010-October/016889.html 2) And green reporting a fix to either ath9k, or all wireless drivers, in his post on Jan 25, 2011: http://lists.soekris.com/pipermail/soekris-tech/2011-January/017001.html So can anybody report stability issues with the net5501 on other operating systems than Linux, not resolved in software ? Have those having stability issues with the net5501 using linux insured that they're updated drivers and settings report in those posts ? I would really like to get any stability issues resolved, but I need to direct the effort where it's needed, organizing Linux patches if that's what needed. Best Regards, Soren Kristensen CEO Chief Engineer Soekris Engineering, Inc. ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech Hey Søren, I can confirm that the workaround in those two posts fixes the hangs/lockups my net5501-70 is having when the network interface is heavily loaded. Best regards, Bjarke ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
Hello, Nix. You wrote 8 декабря 2011 г., 23:59:05: FWIW, I've been using a Soekris net5501 for two and a half years now (no HDD or wifi). Linux kernels from 2.6.30 up to 3.2rc. No crashes not net5501, standard case, WiFi AR9820 (802.11n 2.4Ghz only), additional PCI Intel 1000/PRO network card (for gigabit connection into my internal network), PPPoE 40Mbit upstream channel (on secondf internal NIC, loaded 100%, routing + NAT + PPPoE): gateway# env4801 VREF = 1.235 V245 = 2.450 Temp 2 (status=0x81) 65 C ... gateway# It is without load to WiFi. If I add full WiFi load it will be about 80C. Room T is about 24C. -- // Black Lion AKA Lev Serebryakov l...@serebryakov.spb.ru ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
For every person who is reporting trouble, there are probably 10 or 1000 who remain silent because they have no problem. Johan Huldtgren wrote: FWIW, I have had issues with my net5501 running OpenBSD, but only when I've used a wireless card in it. If I don't use the wireless card the box is rock solid, if I use the card the box will lock up hard (have to pull power). This has been reported by quite a few people on various OpenBSD mailing lists[1], and as such I've always considered it an OpenBSD issue. Very similar setup: net5501-60, PATA disk in small case, wireless card (Atheros instead of Ralink). Extra hole for fan in the case, but fan not used. The only crashes / reboots / hangs happened when my Soekris power supply was slowly dying, and were fixed by using an old IBM laptop supply. Clearly OpenBSD has issues (although fewer than any other OS i know of), in particular when using it as an 802.11 access point, or the file system not handling unusually large block sizes on huge external disks, or with Dallas 1-wire sensors. But at least for me the Soekris hardware was rock-solid. This actually causes a problem: the Soekris is too good, and gets you addicted. For the upcoming major upgrade, I want to stay with Soekris, and use a 6501. But a VGA port would be nice, an extra SATA port would make migrating disks easier, and more USB ports would reduce wiring hassles with external hubs. But I'll trade a lot of nice-to-have for a solid and stable platform. Similarly, I would like to continue with OpenBSD, but the lack of 802.11 client power management support makes that problematic. Difficult choices. -- Ralph Becker-Szendy 408-395-1435 ra...@lr.los-gatos.ca.us 735 Sunset Ridge Road; Los Gatos, CA 95033 ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On 7 Dec 2011, Attila Kinali told this: I have two stability issues: The CPU runs at 60°C when the system is idle. SIO Temp:+53.0°C (low = -55.0°C, high = +127.0°C) (crit = +127.0°C) (room temperature: 15C.) Configuration is a bare net5501-700 in the standard case, with a low power 2.5 sata harddisk mounted on top of it. That extra heat would be the HDD, then. They really can spit out heat, low power or not (it seems to be correlated mostly with age, I suspect due to bearing wear). When using the CPU to its limit (like by using cpuburn), the temperature will rise to 80°C. I see no increase in temperature *at all* under heavy CPU load. I find this very surprising: 120 wakeups per second (from the timer interrupt and the entropy key daemon) shouldn't be stopping the thing from going to sleep and cooling down, should it? (Not that 53C really worries me.) Having any other component in there that generates some heat or having the case in a room that has very little draft will cause the system to crash from time to time. Adding a fan to the sysem solved the issue. Running an HDD without a fan in the mix to give some airflow seems risky to me, no matter the case. This has been tested and reproduced with Linux kernels 2.6.38.x, 2.6.39.1 and 3.0.1 (vanilla, no patches). FWIW, I've been using a Soekris net5501 for two and a half years now (no HDD or wifi). Linux kernels from 2.6.30 up to 3.2rc. No crashes not attributable to user error, not one. It's sufficiently reliable that I just bought a second one in case lightning strikes the first one and cuts me off from the Internet :) ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
So can anybody report stability issues with the net5501 on other operating systems than Linux, not resolved in software ? FWIW, I have had issues with my net5501 running OpenBSD, but only when I've used a wireless card in it. If I don't use the wireless card the box is rock solid, if I use the card the box will lock up hard (have to pull power). This has been reported by quite a few people on various OpenBSD mailing lists[1], and as such I've always considered it an OpenBSD issue. .jh [1] http://old.nabble.com/Soekris-net5501-locks-up-with-Ralink-2860-miniPCI-td28049599.html ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On Wed, 07 Dec 2011 15:51:26 +0100 Soren Kristensen so...@soekris.com wrote: So can anybody report stability issues with the net5501 on other operating systems than Linux, not resolved in software ? Have those having stability issues with the net5501 using linux insured that they're updated drivers and settings report in those posts ? I have two stability issues: The CPU runs at 60°C when the system is idle. Configuration is a bare net5501-700 in the standard case, with a low power 2.5 sata harddisk mounted on top of it. When using the CPU to its limit (like by using cpuburn), the temperature will rise to 80°C. Having any other component in there that generates some heat or having the case in a room that has very little draft will cause the system to crash from time to time. Adding a fan to the sysem solved the issue. The second one is IMHO an issue in the stability of the power supplies. When running an WLAN card atheros AR9220 in my case, the system will crash from time to time when the WLAN card is in use. I guess the reset circuit doesnt get the small drop thus, doesnt reset the system. Any other component using more current will make this crash more likely. Disabling the card (either unloading the driver or using rfkill) solves the issue This has been tested and reproduced with Linux kernels 2.6.38.x, 2.6.39.1 and 3.0.1 (vanilla, no patches). Attila Kinali -- Why does it take years to find the answers to the questions one should have asked long ago? ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
On 12/07/11 16:51, Soren Kristensen wrote: So can anybody report stability issues with the net5501 on other operating systems than Linux, not resolved in software ? Yes, I've had strange stability issues with mine and FreeBSD 8.2. Random hangs and watchdog reboots. I used to use it as a network switch together with your 4 port PCI LAN card (the old one), and FreeBSD's software bridge, but I've since ditched that in favour of an HP switch. Now it mostly routes traffic, and sees much less traffic as a result, so it's anyone's guess as to the problem being software or hardware related. I tried about three PSUs at the time, and they didn't help. I'm well aware of how difficult bugs like these are to trace, so I never made much of a fuss about it. I also needed more switch ports anyway. :) Regards, Aragon ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
Re: [Soekris] net5501 crashes ?
I have a 500 MHz unit, 512M ram, which I think is the 5501-70, new in early 2011, updated to the latest bios mid spring (bios was old on arrival from the factory). I installed a vpn1411 and a new-old-stock 40G 2.5 PATA disk. My experience has been with NetBSD 5.[01]_STABLE, really tip of netbsd-5 branch since about February. It's been mostly good, with two issues - one that is pretty clearly due to NetBSD issues, and one about which I'm not sure. * huge disk not stable with rump mount or WAPBL I have 2T disk on the USB port (no hub). With a regular (traditional kernel) mount (of a GPT partition), without WAPBL, it has been completely solid - up for probably 6 months solid except for a 24h power failure recently. With a rump mount, the system crashes after a while, I think due to leaks and issues with multithreaded processes abending, and with WAPBL I think the 0.5G of ram is overstressed by the 2T drive during steady large writes (it's a backup drive, basically). This is 99.999% clearly not a hardware issue. * crypto accelerators With opencrypto drivers for the vpn1411 or for the geode security coprocessor, I got some kind of lockups/crash with heavy ssh. I am guessing this is a driver bug, but I really don't know. I am virtually certain this is not a power supply issue as the board is wired to about 30 Ah (original, tired, maybe 15 Ah now) total of lead-acid batteries ganged together, with a 6A-capable float charger. Even spikes to 10A wouldn't faze this setup, relative to the 5V regulator. Unfortunately NetBSD-5's envstat(8) reports no drivers, so I don't know the CPU temperature. My notes-to-self while figuring this out are at: http://www.lexort.com/blog/net5501.html (The disk stability issue was only half figured out last I updated the page. But my machine with kernel mount, no wapbl, no accelerators is completely stable.) pgpz7zOgzbT3F.pgp Description: PGP signature ___ Soekris-tech mailing list Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
