G A L A X Y ® A U R O U R A C O N F I G U R A T I O N A N D S Y S T E M I N T E G R A T I O N G U I D E
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Section 4 Troubleshooting Guide
Southbridge:
This chip controls the slower-speed functions of the
motherboard, such as PCI/32, PCI/x, serial/parallel ports, power management,
Ethernet, USB ports, and interfaces with the real-time clock. Typically, if a
Southbridge dies, then entire motherboard doesn’t function.
CPU:
If you have a motherboard with multiple CPUs, if one CPU goes out, the
system will typically lock up until it is rebooted, at which point, only one CPU
might come up. See also fans, below.
Chassis/CPU/Chipset Fans:
It is important to keep an eye on the chassis
fans, as they not only cool the drives, but also play a part in cooling the
motherboard, CPU, and RAM. There also may be, depending on the
motherboard, a fan on the Northbridge or Southbridge chip, as well as a fan
directly on the CPU. If a chassis fan fails, you should see it in the NumaRAID
GUI, however if a chipset or CPU fan fails, a typical symptom is spontaneous
rebooting of the array (Not related to software).
IPMI Card/On-Board:
Typically, either the IPMI card works or it doesn’t. If an
IPMI card fails, it will show a host of symptoms, such as not appearing in the
BIOS, or it’s Ethernet port or virtual disk not showing up in the OS. However, if
the IPMI card is known to be good, and works in another system, it could
indicate a problem with the +5V Standby as going through the motherboard, or
coming from the power supply – in other words, a more serious problem.
CMOS Battery:
We do show the status of the CMOS battery from the
motherboard in the NumaRAID GUI. If the battery gets low (~6% of it’s normal
voltage), you will start to see symptoms of the battery failing, such as the date
and time on the hardware clock are not correct, and bootup messages saying
the battery is low or dead. It is very simple to replace and very low-cost. At the
time of this writing, SuperMicro boards use CR-2032 3V batteries. Do NOT
substitute other models, such as CR-2025.
SATA/SAS (On-board):
We do use the on-board SAS/SATA controller(s) for
our products. Some of the motherboards we use have up to 3 independent
controllers – each different brands/models. Typically, on-board SATA is
handled by the Intel ESB2 controller. If it fails, the array won’t boot. Some
other systems use Intel ICH-9R or ICH-10R RAID controllers. If the system is
booting from this controller, and it fails, the system won’t boot. Finally, some
systems have a on-board LSI controller. If the boot drive is connected to this
and it fails, the system won’t boot. You can test the bootup by moving the boot
drive to another system. SATA cables can also get damaged.
USB:
Typically, USB ports are used for installation, but sometimes are also
used for a keyboard or mouse. On some (rare) motherboards, the physical
port used for the installation matters – this is because some motherboards
have multiple USB chips. Also the built-in port enumerator might have a
specific order for referencing the ports (Which is why from Linux, some ports
appear to work better than others). Here’s the problem with USB – it is delicate
