NASLite Network Attached Storage

www.serverelements.com
Task-specific simplicity with low hardware requirements.
It is currently Thu Mar 28, 2024 1:52 pm

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 18 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2
Author Message
PostPosted: Sun Nov 21, 2010 6:46 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat Nov 19, 2005 6:39 pm
Posts: 633
Location: California
I've only had one NL hardware configuration some time ago (don't remember the details) that had a fair amount of dropped packets and errors. And I think that was a NL1.x version too. Have not had any dropped packets or errors in 1-2 years (that I've noticed anyways ... I don't check regularly until you brought it up and once a months maybe). Using v2.60 at the moment.

Speakers: most boards have a soldered onboard tiny speaker for that sort of thing. If space is at a premium (like the mini-ITX boards) they are more likely to need an external speaker. Check settings in BIOS regarding audio if you still want the beeps.


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Nov 21, 2010 9:03 pm 
Offline

Joined: Sat May 27, 2006 1:56 pm
Posts: 59
Further Googling suggests that the problem with dropped packets might be to do with recognition of the NIC chipset (Realtek 8111E), which is fairly new, I believe. There still seem to be some Linux driver issues. My dropped packets count starts rocketing right from the point of bootup:

# RX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:49209722 overruns:0 frame:0
# TX packets:23 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0


Top
 Profile  
 
PostPosted: Sun Nov 28, 2010 11:13 am 
Offline

Joined: Sat May 27, 2006 1:56 pm
Posts: 59
Sure enough, following Mike's advice I stuck an old 3Com 10/100 NIC in the box, and the dropped packets problem vanished.

There really should be a health warning on the NASLite home page regarding the Realtek NIC chipsets. The real problem, of course, is that the Realtek chips now seem to be everywhere. Some of the recent Intel boards even seem to use them.

From Googling Linux forums, people seem to get around the issue by compiling their own kernels including drivers downloaded from the Realtek web site. Life shouldn't be that difficult. And of course it's not an option with NASLite. Now I have an Atom board with one PCI slot and I have a choice between using a decent NIC card or the SATA PCI card I need to support all my HDDs...

On top of that...the problems with my new box have not ended. It's still disappearing from my network on a regular basis. I can't even ping it. The box might stay up for a minute or a day, but it eventually vanishes from the network -- once or twice I have seen an error message similar to the one in this thread. As well as the NIC I've also replaced the network switch (replaced 3Com 10/100 switch with an Allied Telesis gigabit box) but that hasn't helped. Bad memory? Motherboard? Power supply? Who knows. Running MemTest as I write this. I must have got lucky with my first NASLite box. Put it together with parts that cost £20, stuck it in a cupboard for years and it just worked...


Top
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 18 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2

All times are UTC - 5 hours [ DST ]


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 39 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  
cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group