Fujitsu TX1320 M3 - Cheap low power server (barebone)

[Bjorn Smith]

You need homeprod, homeintegration, and hometest

Nah kidding, if you want 24/7 uptime then redundancy is key. If best effort is fine, then single box (and maybe a few spare parts or replacement box) suffices

I don't need 24/7 up time - but I just prefer it - I am too lazy to tinker right now and just need stuff working.
The problem is my dns/dhcp/nas etc is running on this cluster - so its almost my entire network that goes down (not true - but thats the perception when you cannot get an ip or resolve addresses) - so I should probably just make a "tiny" cluster to run my important services and have a "lab" for the rest that can be best effort.

 

[gb00s]

Too much effort - my "lab" is homeprod - so I need it running 24/7 without me having to diagnose stuff like this.

I'm this close to just tossing all my servers in the bin and go back to a single server with everything and dramatically scale down so I don't have multiple switches, servers etc less complicated - although I have been happy with the resilience of ceph considering how many times I have lost power to my servers.

Lazy Danish Just out of interest, was it same time again like the other two times?

[EDIT]

I mean c'mon. You can test the UPS a little bit.

The UPS is operating on battery, while connected to input AC power
1. input circuit breaker has tripped (power surges or something in your house wiring is wrong?)
2. very high, very low, or distorted input line voltage.

Btw same servers went down?

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Lazy Danish Just out of interest, was it same time again like the other two times?

Yes exactly the same servers - so now I am running without UPS - and if it happens again - it must be my "bad" Danish power

The UPS is operating on battery, while connected to input AC power
1. input circuit breaker has tripped (power surges or something in your house wiring is wrong?)
2. very high, very low, or distorted input line voltage.

1. Nope - nothing like that - I would have noticed since I noticed it when I could not resolve dns in my browser on my workstation (not a laptop with battery)
2. All the logs I read in the UPS showed stable input currents - so I just think its the batteries that is on its last stretch - I bought the UPS a couple of years ago used - so I guess I was just lucky to get a couple of years out of it.
Replacement batteries will cost me 2-3K DKK - so I think I will probably buy a smaller unit - just to power the critical machines.

 

[gb00s]

I mean we can evaluate any possibilities but if you don't have any serious attention finding the crux then so be it. I'm just not convinced there's a battery issue if your UPS is connected to power as usual and just goes offline and into battery mode. Maybe change the power outlet once and wait a week.

[EDIT]

I'm not an electrician, but can a short in a power extension result in a huge power surge for the UPS to trip something?

 

[OlSmokey]

Hi guys, i have a problem with my tx1320 m3, when i try to boot it doesnt seem to get into BIOs (doeasnt even seem to be able to get to usb controller since keyboards didnt even seem to get initialized, front or backpanel usb), it only shows a fujitsu screen with the irmc ip in the bottom left and serial number in the right (for a second or so after booting it says the bios version in that spot) i had bought the server as barebones and initially tried running it with an i3 7100T but got no further than stated above, i then went ahead and got myself a e3 1240 v6 but didnt get any further and i even went ahead and ordered the correct mainboard but after trying the same stuff it was giving me the exact same situation ( i fortunately was able to return it) i have tried some of the obvious fixes like cmos battery trying to boot with anything but the neccesery plugged in on the mainboard / power aswell as reprogramming the bios chip with the newest version availible from fujitsu (the new version sohws up in the left corner as mentioned above).
Am i missing something or is this a curse?

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Hi guys, i have a problem with my tx1320 m3, when i try to boot it doesnt seem to get into BIOs (doeasnt even seem to be able to get to usb controller since keyboards didnt even seem to get initialized, front or backpanel usb), it only shows a fujitsu screen with the irmc ip in the bottom left and serial number in the right (for a second or so after booting it says the bios version in that spot) i had bought the server as barebones and initially tried running it with an i3 7100T but got no further than stated above, i then went ahead and got myself a e3 1240 v6 but didnt get any further and i even went ahead and ordered the correct mainboard but after trying the same stuff it was giving me the exact same situation ( i fortunately was able to return it) i have tried some of the obvious fixes like cmos battery trying to boot with anything but the neccesery plugged in on the mainboard / power aswell as reprogramming the bios chip with the newest version availible from fujitsu (the new version sohws up in the left corner as mentioned above).
Am i missing something or is this a curse?

When my units were hanging - it was because of incompatible CPU's - have you checked if the ram you are using are correct? It has to be UDIMM - no RDIMM/LRDIMM is supported.

If the ip address for the irmc is showing you can try to access that - default username/password is admin/admin - that might show you if it detects CPU/RAM correctly - and if not, then those are most likely your issue.

 

[Rand__]

I also had hanging when too many/different/wrong pcie slots where used by nvme

 

[OlSmokey]

When my units were hanging - it was because of incompatible CPU's - have you checked if the ram you are using are correct? It has to be UDIMM - no RDIMM/LRDIMM is supported.

If the ip address for the irmc is showing you can try to access that - default username/password is admin/admin - that might show you if it detects CPU/RAM correctly - and if not, then those are most likely your issue.

the ram i have is infact RDIMM ECC however i only seem to get a global error and none of the ram lights seem to be indicating an error but still i might go ahead and get myself some compatible ram to try out (any suggestions welcome ) regarding the irmc, it deosnt seem have been reset atleast i cant log in with admin/admin.

 

[Bjorn Smith]

the ram i have is infact RDIMM ECC however i only seem to get a global error and none of the ram lights seem to be indicating an error but still i might go ahead and get myself some compatible ram to try out (any suggestions welcome )

RDIMM will make server not able to boot, since the CPU/Chipset simply does not support that type of RAM - so you definetely need ECC UDIMM or just UDIMM if you don't care about ECC.

But be prepared to pay a lot - ECC UDIMM are crazy expensive compared to RDIMM.

 

[OlSmokey]

RDIMM will make server not able to boot, since the CPU/Chipset simply does not support that type of RAM - so you definetely need ECC UDIMM or just UDIMM if you don't care about ECC.

But be prepared to pay a lot - ECC UDIMM are crazy expensive compared to RDIMM.

Ok thanks for the info, will get some UDIMM ram (probably non ECC since i dont REALLY need it) and report back.

 

[OlSmokey]

Ok thanks for the info, will get some UDIMM ram (probably non ECC since i dont REALLY need it) and report back.

Got the ram today (UDIMM) - just got around to trying it and shure enough it works, thanks a whole lot, i suppose i shouldve come to that conclusion myself faster but i thought i had read the datasheet carefully enough, anyway thanks and cheers!!

 

[Albert67]

Hello , I have a strange issue with one of my tx1320 M3 servers:
The etheret in the center Lan1 is reported as "healthy" in the bios. However is not seen by the os.
I have tried to reset the bios but I am not able to solve the problem. Any idea about this issue ?

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Hello , I have a strange issue with one of my tx1320 M3 servers:
The etheret in the center Lan1 is reported as "healthy" in the bios. However is not seen by the os.
I have tried to reset the bios but I am not able to solve the problem. Any idea about this issue ?

Hi,
I am not sure what you mean by "reported as healthy" by the bios? Do you mean when you log onto the web UI?

Have you checked if the BIOS setup have any options to disable the ethernet port?

And also what OS are you running?

 

[Albert67]

Hi,
I am not sure what you mean by "reported as healthy" by the bios? Do you mean when you log onto the web UI?

Have you checked if the BIOS setup have any options to disable the ethernet port?

And also what OS are you running?

Thanks for your answer.
I have activate the two lan port in the Bios (See IMG1)
The Bios report them ad "healthy" (See IMG2)
However the OS (Debian 12) does not see the first eno0 only the second one eno1 (See IMG3).
Regards
Albert

 

[Bjorn Smith]

However the OS (Debian 12) does not see the first eno0 only the second one eno1 (See IMG3).

Well - either the port is dead - or something else is using it.

And do you have a pcie NIC installed as well?

It seems strange that the motherboard would have two different NIC chipsets - and I cannot check my own

Check the IPMI interface:


To see if the LAN port is set to shared LAN - or any of the other options are enabled, i.e. Bonding.

Also try a

dmesg|grep Ethernet

lspci|grep Ethernet

And paste the output here

Mine shows:

root@pve10:~# dmesg|grep Ethernet
[    1.549109] igb: Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Network Driver
[    1.575254] igb 0000:03:00.0: Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Network Connection
[    1.604286] igb 0000:04:00.0: Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Network Connection
[    8.072124] mlx4_en: Mellanox ConnectX HCA Ethernet driver v4.0-0

root@pve10:~# lspci|grep Ethernet
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

 

[Albert67]

don't have any pci nic installed.


root@debian:~# dmesg|grep Ethernet
[ 3.270855] igb: Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Network Driver
[ 3.301089] igb 0000:02:00.0: Intel(R) Gigabit Ethernet Network Connection

root@debian:~# lspci|grep Ethernet
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection rev 03)

I can see only one at os level.

And the same at IPMI level (see attached images)

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Try setting "Shared LAN" to Management LAN - Perhaps having it shared hides the NIC from the OS.

And what version of the BIOS/Firmware are you running? I dont have the "Network inventory"

Also its strange that the BIOS show two different Network adapters Intel PRO 1000, where the real nics are i210?

Also if you plug in a cable - does it light up on both ports?

 

[Albert67]

Hello,
I tryed to change the Management lan setting , but no result, the light are not shoiwing on the "missin" ethernet, I start thinking that is just dead.
I will use this server for another project that does not require 2 ethernet ports.
I am runnin the latest bios R1.34.0 of 24/03/2023.
Thanks

 

[Bjorn Smith]

Hello,
I tryed to change the Management lan setting , but no result, the light are not shoiwing on the "missin" ethernet, I start thinking that is just dead.

You could try to see if you can find a motherboard manual with specifications of jumpers - there might be a jumper that disables one of the ports?
Because it seems strange that the BIOS says that both ports are good, and iRMC can only see one - so I think something is possibly disabled.
Also I still think its extremely strange the the BIOS mentions "Intel PRO 1000" - which is an entirely different chipset - I wonder if someone have tried to firmware update the nic using the wrong firmware.
Depending on how much time you want to use on this you could try to download the Intel network card tools that should be able to detect network cards in the machine:

Intel® Ethernet Connections Boot Utility, Preboot Images, and EFI Drivers

This download version 29.0 installs UEFI drivers, Intel® Boot Agent, and Intel® iSCSI Remote Boot images to program the PCI option ROM flash image and update flash configuration options.

www.intel.com

 

[Albert67]

Hello Thanks for the help. I have check the TX1320 M3 Upgrade and Maintenance Manual , but it seems that there is not the possibility to disable the nic via a jumper setting, only via the bios.
I will try during the weekend to check with the itel tools if I can find something.
Talking of Ethernet adapters any suggestions about a low power consumptio 10Gbit Ethernet card that I can install on the tx1320 m3?