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frostiex

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Hi have I am new to this and have been looking thru the site and decided to try this with my ex470 hp micro server.

I have read thru many post in regards and I even went so far to building the vga adapter so I can see on a monitor.

How ever every time I tory to boot off the usb I created with image writer. The machine freezes at post.

 

Has anyone see something similar?

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Confident this isn't the answer you seek but have you tried ESXi?

 

I originally wanted HyperV on my N54L but it just outright refused to boot from USB. In the end I had to go with ESXi which is working like a dream.

 

Granted there's no native S.M.A.R.T data available but someone on here has built a Raspberry Pi tool to get the info; haven't tried it myself yet so don't know how good it is

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  • 9 months later...

I own EX470 server and I was able to install DSM on EX470. I'm running DSM 5.2.5592-4 with XPEnoboot 5.2.5592-2 on this machine.

 

I will let you know very important few things to boot with USB.

You have to insert USB flash drive very bottom of back panel. BIOS only recognize that USB port as USB boot device. Also, you need to change boot order.

 

 

WORK AROUND

1. If you don't have access to VGA, there is a workaround.

- Turn off power

- Remove 4th HDD drive from the top. (With this, EX470 BIOS think that bootable HDD doesn't exist and should consider other device to boot.)

or you can use 1st, 2nd and 3rd HDD bay. just don't use 4th HDD bay from top. With 4th HDD bay empty, you can reboot machine remotely.

 

- Turn on power

- Keep press F12 at least 10 second. Purple led will blink at first, after few second, it changes to steady blue led.

(I assume that it indicates USB device is ready and we are in boot menu)

- press down arrow 7 times and press enter (it's for selecting "BOOT FROM USB-CDROM")

- Right after that, insert 4th HDD drive. (With this, XPEnology/Synology recognize this storage during boot.)

 

At this stage, probably you are in the XPEnoboot Boot Menu, and it's should counting down from 5 to 1...

If you want to install Synology DSM, press down arrow more than 2 times. and press Enter to start XPEnology install/migrate mode.

If you already installed DSM and want to use Synology DSM, just leave it to count down. that's the way designed how XPEnology should work.

 

- Now you would be able to locate your device in Synology Assistant! you can install DSM from there.

- After finish install Synology DSM, it requires reboot and you have to do this again to prevent "Verifying DMI pool data..."

Actually you have to do this steps every time you reboot machine, so with this method, you can't manage EX470 server remotely.

 

 

BEST SOLUTION

2. If you have a VGA connectivity and able to get into BIOS screen, perfect! All you need to do is changing Boot Order.

If you don't change boot order, boot will stop at "Verifying DMI pool data..."

- Get into BIOS screen by pressing DEL key.

- Go to "Advanced BIOS features" screen

- You will find "First Boot Device", "Second Boot Device", "Third Boot Device"

- "First Boot Device" should be "USB-CDROM", second & third boot device should be "None"

- By default, "Boot Other Device" should be "Enabled". please double check with this.

- To be more ensure, please change "Hard Disk Boot Priority". and bring your USB device to top of list. but I don't see any difference. First Boot Device was important.

- That's it.

 

Now you can boot with XPEnoboot or install with Synology DSM without any issue.

If you start/restart machine, it will always try to boot from USB flash drive (be aware that you should plug flash drive into very bottom of back side)

 

 

XPEnology seems not support integrated SiS RAID mode

3. One last important setting to use all HDD bay.

- At first, I was not able to use all HDD on 4 bays. Synology seems not recognize RAID controller. it recognized only 4th & 3rd bay from top.

- It looks like that Synology seems not support RAID mode.

- In order to use all HDD, you need to change SIS Serial ATA Mode. here is how.

- Get into BIOS > "Integrated Peripherals" > SIS OnChip PCI Device > SIS Serial ATA Mode > Change it to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE)

- Done, now you can use all HDD bay.

 

 

4. Here is additional tip for using internal USB storage (32MB)

 

If 4th HDD bay (Primary Master) is empty, system would think that System drive failed to boot. and it will use internal USB storage as recovery mode.

 

Originally, it contains windows recovery boot image.

 

But if you overwrite internal USB storage with XPEnology boot image, you would be able to start system with XEPnology boot loader.

 

No more USB Flash drive needed!

 

In order to use this tip, you need to leave 4th hdd bay empty

 

 

Here is my challenge.

- Synology DSM 5.2.5592-4 seems not support SIS190/191 Gigabit Ethernet correctly.

- dmesg shows that ethernet adapter gets link on 1000 Mbps Full Duplex mode.

[ 5.200130] sis190: sis190 Gigabit Ethernet driver 1.4 loaded

[ 5.200350] sis190 0000:00:04.0: setting latency timer to 64

[ 5.200368] sis190: 0000:00:04.0: Read MAC address from EEPROM

[ 5.218008] sis190: 0000:00:04.0: Atheros PHY transceiver at address 0

[ 5.356917] sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: 0000:00:04.0: SiS 191 PCI Gigabit Ethernet adapter at ffffc900???????? (IRQ: 19), 00:0a:xx:xx:xx:xx

[ 5.356924] sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: RGMII mode.

[ 5.356929] sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: Enabling Auto-negotiation

[ 51.688037] sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: mii ext = 0000

[ 51.694045] sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: mii lpa=cde1 adv=01e1 exp=000f

[ 51.698027] sis190 0000:00:04.0 eth0: link on 1000 Mbps Full Duplex mode

- ethtool eth0 shows that it has 100Mb/s link speed.

Settings for eth0:

Supported ports: [ TP MII ]

Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

Supported pause frame use: No

Supports auto-negotiation: Yes

Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

Advertised pause frame use: No

Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes

Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full

100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full

Link partner advertised pause frame use: Symmetric Receive-only

Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes

Speed: 100Mb/s

Duplex: Full

Port: MII

PHYAD: 0

Transceiver: internal

Auto-negotiation: on

Current message level: 0x00000037 (55)

drv probe link ifdown ifup

Link detected: yes

-iperf test shows that I can transfer data at Gigabit speed.

> iperf -c DiskStation

------------------------------------------------------------

Client connecting to DiskStation, TCP port 5001

TCP window size: 64 KByte

------------------------------------------------------------

[696] local 172.16.1.10 port 52838 connected with 172.16.1.20 port 5001

[ ID] Interval Transfer Bandwidth

[696] 0.0-10.0 sec 893 MBytes 749 Mbits/sec

 

When I transfer files at 15M/s over FTP, CPU hits almost 99%

100Mbps seems like maximum transfer rate I can get so far.

 

It looks like CPU cannot handle data more than 15M/s. or maybe there is a bug in driver or kernel. (I'm not sure about this)

 

If I transfer files at 80Mbps over CIFS/SMB, I got disconnected from server after few seconds.

If that happen, I had to enter "ifconfig eth0 down; ifconfig eth0 up" in console. then it get's back to normal.

 

So I had to limit network speed at 100 Mbps as much as possible (Control Panel > Network > Traffic Control > Set Maximum (KB/s)

 

 

I'm using this box for experimental purpose.

 

But who run EX470 server these days?

 

 

I hope this tip help you.

Thanks for reading.

Edited by Guest
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  • 1 month later...
XPEnology seems not support integrated SiS RAID mode

3. One last important secret.

- At first, I was not able to use all HDD on 4 bays. Synology seems not recognize RAID controller. it recognized only 4th & 3rd bay from top.

- It looks like that Synology seems not support RAID mode.

- In order to use all HDD, you need to change SIS Serial ATA Mode. here is how.

- Get into BIOS > "Integrated Peripherals" > SIS OnChip PCI Device > SIS Serial ATA Mode > Change it to 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE)

- Done, now you can use all HDD bay.

 

I don't have a VGA adapter, would you be willing to do something like this: http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=609

 

In the post I linked, the poster counted out the number of times you need to press the down arrow to get to a BIOS setting in the EX470 to change a setting, and then you press enter to select a setting, press the arrow again to move to the right choice, and then set and save the setting.

 

It'd be amazing if you could help us out with this, since without the VGA cable, there's no way for us to change this setting otherwise!

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Nevermind got it from somewhere else.

 

For anyone else in the same situation:

 

Using a USB keyboard, after power on as soon as the health LED begins to blink blue and red hit DELETE and it'll become solid (either blue or red depending on what it was when you hit delete) and enter the BIOS. Advice on the Internet suggests to wait 5 seconds after this to ensure it's in the BIOS. Press F10 and then ENTER to save and reboot. Repeat this process until you're fully comfortable with the process of blindly booting into the BIOS and safely saving and exiting.

 

Boot into the BIOS again.

 

Press the DOWN arrow three (3) times to reach Integrated Peripherals

Press ENTER to select

 

Press the DOWN arrow one (1) time to select SIS OnChip PCI Device

Press ENTER to select

 

Press the DOWN arrow eight (8) times to select SIS Serial ATA Mode

Press PGDN one (1) time to select 4P(IDE)+4S(IDE).

 

Press F10 one (1) time to save and exit.

Press ENTER to confirm.

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