@BlueLineSwinger
Sometimes we just have to sit back and wait a few days or a week, when we dogpile on available stock vendors inevitably run out. I think there might be a vendor who's set themselves 'away' because a whole bunch of stock (20+ machines) look like they've disappeared in the last week, and I'm not sure we've made that many purchases.
@Marsh
When you update your BIOS on your boxes would you mind dumping the existing copy? I looked back through my working directory from Oct of last year and found a copy that I think is the stock shipping BIOS image but I'm not 100% sure. I'd like to test a known working/unmolested image on one of my machines and see if that has any impact on my boot issues.
@ ... Anyone really -
I could use some more eyes on a boot problem I'm having. If anyone with a DFI also has an Intel x520 or a Mellanox CX3 40Gb would you mind seeing if you can boot reliably with either of those installed?
Sometimes I can boot, sometimes I can't, sometimes I have to play "push the reset button" games, sometimes this happens on a cold boot, sometimes it hangs indefinitely, sometimes I can push reset enough times that something manages to work. The Intel card boots, eventually, with enough resetting and swearing. The Mellanox is a complete no-go so far.
I'm at a loss here. I've tried cards in this machine that boot just fine on my T730s, and my T730s boot just fine with both problem boards. It's not a power issue, and it's not a problem with the NICs themselves (both work fine in my other machines.) I feel like I'm missing something but I don't know what.
NICs that I'm having issues with: Intel x520, Mellanox CX3 VPI (56Gb.)
NICs that are working without issue: HP 530SFP+ (Broadcom BCM57810), Chelsio T420-CR
Ironically I only own the Broadcom because it came with a server, but it's a pretty nice NIC and I might end up just buying another one if I can't solve this. Unlike the Chelsio it runs cool.
Anyone have any ideas? I've tried taping off the smbus pins on both the PCIe cards so it's not the old cold-boot incompatibility that people often have with HBAs. I was really hoping that was it TBH, this is frustrating.
I have some more OpenVPN numbers to post in a bit, this machine performs really well with 1-2 threads running. You should be able to get reliable gigabit OpenVPN performance out of it if you're willing to load up 2-3 instances and load balance across them.