net5501-70: 2 of 4 devices are broken

[Frédéric VANNIÈRE-3]

Hello,


I've bought 4 soekris net5501-70 + standard case from soekris.eu.
They have been upgraded from 1.33 to 1.33b BIOS and they have
a SANDISK 4Go Extreme III compact flash. The automated installation
of the linux systems has been done from PXE and works.

2 boxes will be vpn/gw/dhcp/dns/netboot in a datacenter, 1 will do
the job at our office and 1 is a spare box.


I've made several tests :
  1. Hard power on
  2. Hard power off/on (box plug)
  3. Soft reboot
  4. Hard reset
  5. Hard power off/on (box plug)
  6. Soft reboot
  7. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
  8. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
  9. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
 10. Soft reboot
 11. Hard reset
 12. Hard power off/on (box plug)

the results are pretty bad :
  - box1 has failed on all "Hard power off/on" tests (6 times)
         but it worked when I've redone power off/on again
  - box2 has passed all the tests
  - box3 has failed on 1 "Hard power off/on" test
  - box4 has failed on all "Hard power off/on" tests but 1 (5 times)
         but it worked when I've redone power off/on again
 
Is it a known problem and what is the solution ?

Regards,

Frédéric.
 


--
Frédéric VANNIÈRE
Directeur Technique

PLANET-WORK
231 rue Saint-Honoré
75001 PARIS - FRANCE

Tél : [phone]
Fax : [phone]
Web : http://www.planet-work.fr/

Planet-Work, vecteur de votre image sur Internet


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[Soren Kristensen]

Hi Frédéric,

Frédéric VANNIÈRE wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I've bought 4 soekris net5501-70 + standard case from soekris.eu.
> They have been upgraded from 1.33 to 1.33b BIOS and they have
> a SANDISK 4Go Extreme III compact flash. The automated installation
> of the linux systems has been done from PXE and works.
>
> 2 boxes will be vpn/gw/dhcp/dns/netboot in a datacenter, 1 will do
> the job at our office and 1 is a spare box.
>
>
> I've made several tests :
>   1. Hard power on
>   2. Hard power off/on (box plug)
>   3. Soft reboot
>   4. Hard reset
>   5. Hard power off/on (box plug)
>   6. Soft reboot
>   7. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
>   8. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
>   9. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
>  10. Soft reboot
>  11. Hard reset
>  12. Hard power off/on (box plug)
>
> the results are pretty bad :
>   - box1 has failed on all "Hard power off/on" tests (6 times)
>          but it worked when I've redone power off/on again
>   - box2 has passed all the tests
>   - box3 has failed on 1 "Hard power off/on" test
>   - box4 has failed on all "Hard power off/on" tests but 1 (5 times)
>          but it worked when I've redone power off/on again
>  
> Is it a known problem and what is the solution ?

There seems to be some random power up problems on some net5501 units, I
will get my hands on a number of problematic units and investigate. I
expect to know more, and probably have a solution in a few days.


Best Regards,


Soren Kristensen

CEO & Chief Engineer
Soekris Engineering, Inc.
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[Marie Koreen]

Frédéric VANNIÈRE wrote:

> Hello,
>
>
> I've bought 4 soekris net5501-70 + standard case from soekris.eu.
> They have been upgraded from 1.33 to 1.33b BIOS and they have
> a SANDISK 4Go Extreme III compact flash. The automated installation
> of the linux systems has been done from PXE and works.
>
> 2 boxes will be vpn/gw/dhcp/dns/netboot in a datacenter, 1 will do
> the job at our office and 1 is a spare box.
>
>
> I've made several tests :
>   1. Hard power on
>   2. Hard power off/on (box plug)
>   3. Soft reboot
>   4. Hard reset
>   5. Hard power off/on (box plug)
>   6. Soft reboot
>   7. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
>   8. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
>   9. Hard power off/on (wall plug)
>  10. Soft reboot
>  11. Hard reset
>  12. Hard power off/on (box plug)
>
> the results are pretty bad :
>   - box1 has failed on all "Hard power off/on" tests (6 times)
>          but it worked when I've redone power off/on again
>   - box2 has passed all the tests
>   - box3 has failed on 1 "Hard power off/on" test
>   - box4 has failed on all "Hard power off/on" tests but 1 (5 times)
>          but it worked when I've redone power off/on again
>  
> Is it a known problem and what is the solution ?
>
> Regards,
>
> Frédéric.
>  
>
>
>  

What do the cards ID themselves as when you boot these boxes?  I only
ask because depending on where you got the "sandisk" CF cards, they
might be fake.  China is trying to pass off a lot of fakes as extreme
III and extreme IV cards.  I got a fake myself, but you can tell because
the card will ID itself as a Sandisk card in the bios detection.  The
fake I had ID'd itself as "SMI MODEL" instead of "Sandisk ####"
whatever.  And it would have all kinds of booting issues.  I went to a
store and bought a real one and have had absolutely no problems since.

-Marie
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[Frédéric VANNIÈRE-3]

Hello,


Marie Koreen a écrit :
> What do the cards ID themselves as when you boot these boxes?  I only
> ask because depending on where you got the "sandisk" CF cards, they
> might be fake.  China is trying to pass off a lot of fakes as extreme
> III and extreme IV cards.  I got a fake myself, but you can tell because
> the card will ID itself as a Sandisk card in the bios detection.  The
> fake I had ID'd itself as "SMI MODEL" instead of "Sandisk ####"
> whatever.  And it would have all kinds of booting issues.  I went to a
> store and bought a real one and have had absolutely no problems since.
>  

The CF are real SanDisk, when the boot fails the only thing I see
on the console is a sort of 'À' and nothing else.

I've first tried Kingston CF but they didn't work well.

Frédéric

--
Frédéric VANNIÈRE
Directeur Technique

PLANET-WORK
231 rue Saint-Honoré
75001 PARIS - FRANCE

Tél : [phone]
Fax : [phone]
Web : http://www.planet-work.fr/

Planet-Work, vecteur de votre image sur Internet


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[Rhys Frederick]

Hi Frederic,

what your describing looks supsiciously like the problems I was
experiencing with 2 new 5501-70 boxes i recently received. Like you
(and depending upon the console tool), 9 times out of 10 all I would
see was the same single character on the console.

I swapped the power supplies with higher voltage ones (from 12V 2A to
13.5V 1.8A) non switch-mode and so far so good.

Hope this helps.


cheers,

rhys

On 17/06/2008, Frédéric VANNIÈRE <f.vanniere@...> wrote:

>
> Hello,
>
>
> Marie Koreen a écrit :
> > What do the cards ID themselves as when you boot these boxes?  I only
> > ask because depending on where you got the "sandisk" CF cards, they
> > might be fake.  China is trying to pass off a lot of fakes as extreme
> > III and extreme IV cards.  I got a fake myself, but you can tell because
> > the card will ID itself as a Sandisk card in the bios detection.  The
> > fake I had ID'd itself as "SMI MODEL" instead of "Sandisk ####"
> > whatever.  And it would have all kinds of booting issues.  I went to a
> > store and bought a real one and have had absolutely no problems since.
> >
>
> The CF are real SanDisk, when the boot fails the only thing I see
> on the console is a sort of 'À' and nothing else.
>
> I've first tried Kingston CF but they didn't work well.
>
> Frédéric
>
> --
> Frédéric VANNIÈRE
> Directeur Technique
>
> PLANET-WORK
> 231 rue Saint-Honoré
> 75001 PARIS - FRANCE
>
> Tél : [phone]
> Fax : [phone]
> Web : http://www.planet-work.fr/
>
> Planet-Work, vecteur de votre image sur Internet
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Soekris-tech mailing list
> Soekris-tech@...
> http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech
>

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