RE: stability of Cobalt Qube 2

["Claudio Leiva" <cleivas%cox.net@localhost>]

Hi

I have a Qube 2 which I use as web/ftp/media/samba server with 3 drives 
(10x2.5", 160x2.5" and 750x3.5") and 256 mb of ram running 5.1 generic with an 
aftermarket psu  and I can also say that it is stable but very slow on network 
transfers, I fixed previous stability issues using cron to reboot the system 
every month, before that stayed up with maximum uptime of 170+ days before it 
crashed.

Network as I said before is slow, I use the 750  gb as a backup for 6 
computers/laptops and it takes some time but at the end it does his job.

For what I need the qube does a very good job, hope you can fix your issues.

Regards.


Claudio Leiva S
Las Vegas, Nevada
USA
http://cleiva.no-ip.com
(Powered by NetBSD for Cobalt)


-----Original Message-----
From: port-cobalt-owner%NetBSD.org@localhost 
[mailto:port-cobalt-owner%NetBSD.org@localhost] On Behalf Of 
kenneth.westelinck%telenet.be@localhost
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 11:33 AM
To: port-cobalt%netbsd.org@localhost
Subject: Re: stability of Cobalt Qube 2

All,

Thank you for your answers. My setup is as follows (you can also see this in 
images on http://kennywest.blogspot.com/2010/02/story-of-cobalt-qube.html):
- one CF to IDE adapter (containing NetBSD base install), master
- one 320 GB hard drive containing some Linux partitions, slave

Base install went like a breeze and it boots fine (320 GB drive disconnected). 
But, whenever I connect the 320 GB drive, I get this:
VIA Technologies VT83C572 USB Controller (USB serial bus, revision 0x02) at 
pci0 dev 9 function 2 not configured
tlp1 at pci0 dev 12 function 0: DECchip 21143 Ethernet, pass 4.1
tlp1: interrupting at level 2
tlp1: Ethernet address 00:10:e0:00:3c:5d
lxtphy1 at tlp1 phy 1: LXT970 10/100 media interface, rev. 3
lxtphy1: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
wd0 at atabus0 drive 0: <SanDisk SDCFB-1024>
wd0: 977 MB, 1986 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 2001888 sectors
wd1 at atabus0 drive 1: <WDC WD3200AAJB-56R1A0>
wd1: 298 GB, 620181 cyl, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 625142448 sectors 
Kernelized RAIDframe activated
viaide0:0:1: lost interrupt
        type: ata tc_bcount: 512 tc_skip: 0
viaide0:0:1: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x61
viaide0:0:1: device timeout, c_bcount=512, c_skip0
wd1d: device timeout reading fsbn 0 (wd1 bn 0; cn 0 tn 0 sn 0), retrying
viaide0 channel 0: reset failed for drive 0 drive 1
viaide0:0:1: lost interrupt
        type: ata tc_bcount: 512 tc_skip: 0
viaide0:0:1: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x61
viaide0:0:1: device timeout, c_bcount=512, c_skip0
wd1d: device timeout reading fsbn 0 (wd1 bn 0; cn 0 tn 0 sn 0), retrying

this goes on and after some time it finally boots to a login prompt.

...
viaide0:0:1: lost interrupt
        type: ata tc_bcount: 512 tc_skip: 0
viaide0:0:1: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x61
viaide0:0:1: device timeout, c_bcount=512, c_skip0
wd1d: device timeout reading fsbn 1 (wd1 bn 1; cn 0 tn 0 sn 1), retrying
viaide0:0:1: lost interrupt
        type: ata tc_bcount: 512 tc_skip: 0
viaide0:0:1: bus-master DMA error: missing interrupt, status=0x61
viaide0:0:1: device timeout, c_bcount=512, c_skip0
wd1d: device timeout reading fsbn 1 (wd1 bn 1; cn 0 tn 0 sn 1), retrying
wd1: soft error (corrected)
wd1: no disk label
boot device: wd0

Does someone have an idea what this means?
(please note, above setup boots fine and without any errors in Debian Squeeze)


regards,

Kenneth



----- Original Message -----
From: "Andy Ruhl" <acruhl%gmail.com@localhost>
To: "kenneth westelinck" <kenneth.westelinck%telenet.be@localhost>
Cc: port-cobalt%netbsd.org@localhost
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 4:55:13 PM
Subject: Re: stability of Cobalt Qube 2

On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 12:39 AM,  <kenneth.westelinck%telenet.be@localhost> 
wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> I am a proud owner of a Cobalt Qube 2 
> (http://kennywest.blogspot.com/2010/02/story-of-cobalt-qube.html) running 
> Debian Squeeze. I want to use this as a NAS device for backing up various 
> Linux machines on the network (I want to do this using mondo over NFS). 
> Apparently this proves more difficult than I thought (see also: 
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-mips/2012/03/msg00015.html). Seems the Qube 2 
> dies under heavy network load. So whenever mondo tries to upload the restore 
> images to the NFS server, it starts to hang. Also tried using a newer network 
> card (since there is a free PCI slot anyway), still the same issue.
> So, I was wondering, what if I tried NetBSD, would this be more stable? Are 
> there people on this list using a Qube 2 reliably?

My experience with the Qube2 is that it's very stable with NetBSD, but not fast 
for I/O. There was some issue with the PCI bus which impacted performance. If 
you search this list far enough back, you might find the details.

I used mine for small jobs like DHCP server, internet gateway/firewall, and 
some other menial stuff until I got a Seagate Dockstar, which I use now. The 
Dockstar has it's issues with NetBSD as well.

Andy