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SA0BJW
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Hardware problem.

Wed Dec 13, 2017 11:47 pm

Hi.

Running RouterOS on a X86 computer for a couple of years now.
Recently I have some strange hardware issue, so from time to time (24-48 hours or so) ROS is not enable to write to the SSD disc (a Kingston 30GB mSATA disc), RouterOS reporting checksum error on random packages and SSH access sometimes don´t work at all. Also, sometimes accessing router by using Winbox only works with a blank password.. Backup also fails. A reboot/powercycle of the router always corrects all of the problems.

I have made a total reinstall from a CD, but it didn´t solved the problem. Also i have tried the /system check-disk command..

So maybe my SSD is causing the problem, or maybe the motherboard or disc controller is to blame, I dont know.

If I have to replace the SSD, I know that I can get a replacement key, but do I loose the license key If I replace all hardware but not the SSD? Is the license bound to something else than the SSD disc? Will my SSD run on a different X86 platform?

How do I solve this issue?
 
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LEA
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Re: Hardware problem.

Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:20 pm

Hi.

Running RouterOS on a X86 computer for a couple of years now.
Recently I have some strange hardware issue, so from time to time (24-48 hours or so) ROS is not enable to write to the SSD disc (a Kingston 30GB mSATA disc), RouterOS reporting checksum error on random packages and SSH access sometimes don´t work at all. Also, sometimes accessing router by using Winbox only works with a blank password.. Backup also fails. A reboot/powercycle of the router always corrects all of the problems.

I have made a total reinstall from a CD, but it didn´t solved the problem. Also i have tried the /system check-disk command..

So maybe my SSD is causing the problem, or maybe the motherboard or disc controller is to blame, I dont know.

If I have to replace the SSD, I know that I can get a replacement key, but do I loose the license key If I replace all hardware but not the SSD? Is the license bound to something else than the SSD disc? Will my SSD run on a different X86 platform?

How do I solve this issue?

Check your SSD disk for errors. The problem with SSD drives is that they have small life cycle of data recording on the sector. Their number is limited. So SSD disks are not recommended for use on devices for tasks numerous rewrites of the same data.
 
SA0BJW
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Posts: 33
Joined: Sun Jul 07, 2013 12:51 am

Re: Hardware problem.

Fri Dec 15, 2017 11:15 am


Check your SSD disk for errors. The problem with SSD drives is that they have small life cycle of data recording on the sector. Their number is limited. So SSD disks are not recommended for use on devices for tasks numerous rewrites of the same data.

I know the limitations of SSD disks.. But in this application with RouterOS there are not many writecycles to the SSD. How much data is written to the SSD on a 24H basis? I write data to it each time I do a backup, and each time I do an software upgrade.

But I may found the problem, one of the leads in the power connector had a bad connection. Now I use a different power connector, I hope this is solving my issue, and if not, I will try to replace SSD with a standard HDD instead.

Correction; The change of power connector didn´t help, Problem not solved.
Last edited by SA0BJW on Sun Dec 17, 2017 1:06 pm, edited 2 times in total.
 
cbka
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Re: Hardware problem.

Fri Dec 15, 2017 6:22 pm

Hi,

correct me if i am wrong but:

doesnt the write go to RAM ?

Cheers,
Chris
 
SA0BJW
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Re: Hardware problem.

Fri Dec 22, 2017 11:01 pm

I think I found the answer on my problems..

Everytime the error event occured I lost the login password to the router, and got just blank psw. A big issue..
So I wrote a simple script that checks the license number and if it´s not correct sends a mail to notify me. I noticed that I lost the original license number when the router entered the "error state" so I used that as a trigger.. I scheduled the script to run every 10 minutes. Furthermore, the Router failed to reboot correctly after an error event, so I needed to use the powerswitch to reboot, so the script couldn´t just do a reboot...

But now the problem has dissapeared! No more problems with the SSD!

So I realized that the BIOS must have some kind of energy saving routine activated, so it shuts down the disc when it´s been idle for a while, and now my script is reading the disc regularly, so it won´t shut down. The strange thing is that the router has been running on the same HW a couple of years whitout this problem, and I have not changed the BIOS settings.... I don´t know if this is a BIOS bug (energy saving mode and SSD:s may be a bad idea?) or the SSD disc that fails to recover to normal state when RouterOS wants to read/write to the disc.

I will check BIOS for energy saving options later.

/SA0BJW