I always thought it was common knowledge about HP vs Dell power bricks. The other big difference is later gen HP power bricks support "rapid charge" using the smart pin, for example if you use the barrel connector adapter to smart pin with an old HP power brick some Thin Clients, Mini Desks/Elite Mini either won't boot or you'll get a BIOS power management error.Sigh
Some information about HP T620 Plus Flexible Thin Client machines for network appliance builds...
- Thread starter BLinux
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Yeah, I even forget each time I run into a new thin client. I still have a bunch of info to send him on the fujitsu 920.Man, I wish I had found this page before I had done my own work two weeks ago!
Sigh
Technically, as long as you are careful with the power draw, you can run it off a 65w - the 90 isn't really needed unless you are doing something high-draw (like using the RX540/E9173 video card option). I actually ran my t730 off a 90w USB-PD brick with a USB-PD to 7.4x5 adapter for a short bit....seems to be okay. And yes, you can often use a Dell 19w brick in a pinch.
Hi all, has anyone else with the T620 Plus experienced random M.2 SSD timeouts and system freezes while running pfSense? I found someone on reddit who has/had exactly the same issue I've been experience for the past two weeks. There have been random timeouts from the M.2 SATA SSD, and with ZFS, eventually the system gets suspended and needs a hard reset to work again. I have the revision B model with a VGA port. My drive is a 32GB SK Hynix (HFS032G34MNC-2200A) M.2 SATA 3.1, 6.0 Gbps.
I don't yet know much about drives or S.M.A.R.T. tests. So when I see it telling me the overall health tests pass, I think the SSD is okay. A reply to the above reddit post suggests looking at the drive's temperature; which I am planning to start monitoring.
An example of the error messages from dmesg and console output:
I don't yet know much about drives or S.M.A.R.T. tests. So when I see it telling me the overall health tests pass, I think the SSD is okay. A reply to the above reddit post suggests looking at the drive's temperature; which I am planning to start monitoring.
An example of the error messages from dmesg and console output:
For anyone who as the revision B model with a VGA port and want to connect to pfSense through the serial port:
For me, internally, the serial port was connected to COM B (COM2). However, pfSense serial console will only work on COM1. You can open the case and move the connector from COM B to COM A (COM1). COM A is next to the M.2 connector.
For me, internally, the serial port was connected to COM B (COM2). However, pfSense serial console will only work on COM1. You can open the case and move the connector from COM B to COM A (COM1). COM A is next to the M.2 connector.
Just dropping a note here to confirm I have the same issue you are describing. I'm also using ZFS on an M.2 SATA SSD. The system will crash in an odd way - serial console unresponsive, unable to open new connections, dhcp down, web down, won't open or route new connections, but oddly it still routes existing connections - at least for a while before it totally drops. I tried a bunch of things to fix but no luck figuring it out. It is at a remote site so I have been able to get by with a scheduled power cycle.
I'm heading to the site in two weeks and I'm going to replace the M.2 with mSATA and install opnsense. Someone earlier in the thread said these M.2 ports were early versions and only meant for light duty, so I'm hoping the mSATA swap will do the trick. Will report back here on my findings
Yes, all of those was my experience too. The pfSense documentation on Troubleshooting Disk Lifetime says that packet filtering may continue indefinitely:
I investigated if the SSD was overheating, and I found that it was not overheating. I also tried different BIOS and sysctl settings, but nothing helped until...
That's right, it was WANg's post that led me to run pfSense with RAM disk enabled. I enabled RAM disk with hourly writes RRD data, DHCP Leases, and the Log Directory. I also am running pfBlockerNG with DNSBL in python mode with DNS Reply Logging enabled which causes a lot of logs to be written. In the BIOS, I lowered the video RAM usage to the minimum (32 or 64 MB). My system has 4GB and the usage is consistently around 18%.
pfSense on this machine with this configuration has been running non-stop for 21 days now without issue! *Edit to note that before I enabled the RAM disk, my system was freezing nearly every day.
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Although I'm using a MLC based SSD in a HP T730 with high endurance specs and have only seen this behavior infrequently, I'm going to try this out.
Thanks
Please let us know if this works. I have a box sitting here to use for my mother that I’m installing in late July. It has an mSATA now, so if it works for you I have nothing to worry about…. I have a 64GB M.2 NVME as well, but I’ve had the mSATA sitting around for years with no use and this seemed perfect. Maybe I’ll be in luck.
thanks!
Will do. If you are going to be running this remotely, put it on a smart plug so that you can power cycle if needed. Due to the odd failure mode, there is a chance you will still be able to send the plug a signal to cycle if it crashes. Scheduled power cycle (via the plug) is a good second failsafe option. Lastly, take a picture of the setup so you can instruct someone remotely on how to pull the power and reboot it if needed.
@discipulus has a great suggestion on the RAM disk as well. I suspect that might even be more effective than switching to mSATA.
Reporting back that stability has improved, I haven't had a crash since doing the upgrades. In addition to switching to mSATA, I removed the m.2 completely from the box, switched from pfSense to OPNsense, and switched from ZFS to UFS. So it is not a perfectly clean test, but things have been stable for about a month now.
I haven't removed my failsafe weekly power cycle yet since it is still remote to me, but so far so good with none of the prior lockups. I did not switch to a RAM disk but that will be a backup option if i see another crash.
I haven't removed my failsafe weekly power cycle yet since it is still remote to me, but so far so good with none of the prior lockups. I did not switch to a RAM disk but that will be a backup option if i see another crash.
I just dusted off my T620 Plus and installed a couple of upgrades- WiFi and a video card. The MT7612EN wireless card works great with an antenna I pulled out of an old laptop and installed internally. The video card, a Quadro P620, isn't allowing the system to POST. I'm guessing PCI-E slot power limit? The original video card only pulled up to 15W and this one wants 40W..
Check the powersupply. Don't have it next to me, but I doubt that will deliver all you need.
I wanna now the height of the connector. Thank you in advance!
Not going to happen. The GX420CA is derived off their Kabini mobile platform (specifically the AMD Jaguar based A6-5300 if I remember correctly) and I didn't remember anyone stating that they can get the IOMMU working on that platform, either. AMD supposedly masked off the IOMMU silicon on the mobile chips to save power - there are Coreboot dev discussions on how it's not going to work.