Minis forum MS-A2

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G

groot

New Member
Apr 18, 2026
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wadup said:
What linux dist are you using?

Anything headless you could use something like pikvm to manage that's what I always do. That way if anything ever happens and you need to troubleshoot, update firmware, change bios settings you can.
Click to expand...
I installed arch
 
G

groot

New Member
Apr 18, 2026
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Thank you @wadup .
The problem i was facing was distro specific. I was installing a desktop environment for my server setup.
I have now installed without a de and now all works fine. I did not have any important data in my setup so, it was fine.
 
B

Brian Stretch

New Member
Jan 26, 2017
22
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Minisforum was unable to resurrect my MS-A2 with the failed firmware downgrade from 1.03 to 1.02 so they sent me a brand new MS-A2. Very cool. My old Proxmox install still wouldn't boot, stalls at loading initial ramdisk, and since there's nothing critical on it I reinstalled Proxmox and that worked fine. I hadn't booted Proxmox in months when I installed BIOS 1.03 and I'm now wondering if my Proxmox installation was simply broken to begin with. That other guy having problems with Proxmox and 1.03 threw me. Could have been both I suppose. The new machine came with BIOS 1.02 and I left it with that.

Props to Minisforum for sending me the replacement machine. Excellent support.

I also really, really like the BIOS settings to turn off or dim LEDs. I set the power LED brightness to 1 and turned off all the Ethernet LEDs. I wish more vendors would offer this. Covering them up with electrical tape isn't always doable.
 
Y

Yuretz

New Member
Aug 9, 2025
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Brian Stretch said:
Minisforum was unable to resurrect my MS-A2 with the failed firmware downgrade from 1.03 to 1.02 so they sent me a brand new MS-A2. Very cool. My old Proxmox install still wouldn't boot, stalls at loading initial ramdisk, and since there's nothing critical on it I reinstalled Proxmox and that worked fine. I hadn't booted Proxmox in months when I installed BIOS 1.03 and I'm now wondering if my Proxmox installation was simply broken to begin with. That other guy having problems with Proxmox and 1.03 threw me. Could have been both I suppose. The new machine came with BIOS 1.02 and I left it with that.

Props to Minisforum for sending me the replacement machine. Excellent support.

I also really, really like the BIOS settings to turn off or dim LEDs. I set the power LED brightness to 1 and turned off all the Ethernet LEDs. I wish more vendors would offer this. Covering them up with electrical tape isn't always doable.
Click to expand...
Im another guy with Proxmox and BIOS 1.03.
Will wait for BIOS update,may be that will fix the issue. Willkeep you updated.
 
V

VivienM

Member
Jul 7, 2024
48
10
8
Toronto, ON
Has anybody been able to get lm_sensors working in Linux (proxmox) on the MS-A2?

I've had no luck, and I've been trying to troubleshoot crazy problems with spontaneous reboots in newer kernels, it would be nice to be able to have temperature data...
 
V

VivienM

Member
Jul 7, 2024
48
10
8
Toronto, ON
TrevorH said:
Did you run `sensors-detect` as root and save the things it detects?
Click to expand...
Yes I did, and it detects... not enough.

I did a purge after reading the other post, and interestingly, a fresh config file without having gone through sensors-detect has more stuff than what sensors-detect picks up.
 
S

Sundar

New Member
Oct 31, 2018
22
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3
Had a very poor experience trying to ask for After-sales support at minisforums.
The CPUs have improved over the years, but the Tech Support attitudes are still stuck in the Dark Ages

I am using the MS-A2 with Linux (Ubuntu Noble Numbat v 24.04.4 all patches applied).
Bought on Amazon in the past few weeks.

When I use the command 'reboot' (/usr/sbin/reboot), the system shuts down correctly all the way to the end, but then when rebooting, hangs with a blank black screen with the power LED on.
WRONG behavior. Expected behavior: system reboots correctly.

When I use the command 'poweroff' (/usr/sbin/poweroff), the system shuts down correctly as expected, and the power LED GOES OFF. Subsequently, pressing the power LED starts the system and it boots correctly.
CORRECT behavior

When I use the command 'systemctl reboot', the behavior is exactly the same as when I use the command 'reboot' above.
WRONG behavior. Expected behavior: system reboots correctly.


UEFI BIOS details:
BIOS version: 1.03
EC Version: 0.09
Build date and time: 12/16/2025 15:02:34

Hardware:
I have 2x 8GB DDR5 5600 SODIMM installed
Micron Technology SKU MTC4C10163S1SC56BD1 (A-Tech branded)

I am using a PCI-E 3.0 8x Broadcom /
LSI 9200-8e LSI SAS 6Gb/s SAS/SATA PCIe x8
External HBA card.

I am using a single NVME:
Samsung SSD 960 EVO 250GB (PCI-E 3.0 x4)

UEFI / BIOS settings that I have changed:
Advanced --> AMD CBS --> NBIO Common Options -->
AC Power Loss Options --> AC Loss Control --> Always On

Security --> Secure Boot --> Secure Boot --> Disabled

Anyone else has experienced this?


I tried to ask for technical support at After-Sales Support, but I got an obnoxious answer from Jason @ minisforums support that said:

We regret to inform you that we do not currently provide technical support for the Linux system. We recommend you switch to the Windows system and check if the fault still occurs. If the problem persists after switching, there may be an issue with the hardware. If no fault appears on the Windows system, the problem is likely caused by the Linux system.
Click to expand...
 
W

wadup

Active Member
Feb 13, 2024
175
116
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"The black screen issue after rebooting Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat is often related to graphics driver problems. You can try booting into recovery mode and using the "nomodeset" option to bypass the graphics driver during boot. "

Simple google search
 
TrevorH

TrevorH

Active Member
Oct 25, 2024
196
82
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Unfortunately almost all linux graphics driver require modeset these days.
 
S

Sundar

New Member
Oct 31, 2018
22
3
3
wadup said:
"The black screen issue after rebooting Ubuntu 24.04 Noble Numbat is often related to graphics driver problems. You can try booting into recovery mode and using the "nomodeset" option to bypass the graphics driver during boot. "

Simple google search
Click to expand...
Thanks for input.
I am using this as a low load NAS, and I am not running X11/Gnome Wayland.
After a 'poweroff', the system starts fine.
 
TrevorH

TrevorH

Active Member
Oct 25, 2024
196
82
28
Look at some of the options to force different types of reboot which are documented in /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-$(uname -r)/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt on most RPM based linux distros (and in linux-doc on Debian). Search for 'reboot=' to find the section.
 
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S

Sundar

New Member
Oct 31, 2018
22
3
3
TrevorH said:
Look at some of the options to force different types of reboot which are documented in /usr/share/doc/kernel-doc-$(uname -r)/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt on most RPM based linux distros (and in linux-doc on Debian). Search for 'reboot=' to find the section.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the pointer - I hadn't known about that kernel command line parameter.
However, I tried several options and none of them worked any better thanjust using plain /usr/sbin/reboot:
reboot=efi
reboot=cold
reboot=hard,efi
reboot=hard,acpi
 
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