Oh well. Its not looking good. Originally I had a good used Samsung laptop that I attempted to use as a node installing just Bitcoin Core on it. It was an I7 and it failed. People told me that it was not a good hardware for it.
Then I moved over to Start OS using a Dell 7050 I5 I bought. With 8Gig memory and 1TB SSD. I upgraded the SSD to a 2TB and was able to install Start OS and Bitcoin Core. However it still had problems so someone suggested upgrading memory. So I bought an 8GB memory stick to add for the last available slot. This allowed me to run Bitcoin core. And I was even able to use it for two months. Then during power failure it failed to reboot.
Since I was traveling I had to wait to get to it. But like some have surmised on here. There appears to be some unsolvable hardware problems. It will show reboot now and the intial two seconds of Start OS loading. And then a blank screen. It wont even boot off of the USB Drive anymore. I am scheduled to travel again shortly. So I have no real options anymore. I have invested hundreds of hours in this project and about $1000 and have nothing to show.
It does sound like you’re having bad luck with hardware. I suppose this illustrates why there is value in just buying the hardware from us. Besides, it’s how we fund the StartOS project, and advance our mission of personal data sovereignty. You could have bought a pure:
But I for one, don’t like to let any hardware go to waste. If I was in in your position. I setup that 7050 with the 1TB SSD, and one stick of ram at a time. The Dell likely has some diag tools you can boot into to test the RAM. If not, I’d use memtest86.
Test one stick at a time, thoroughly, to rule out bad RAM. There should be exactly zero errors, otherwise the RAM module is bad. Once you have verified that both modules are good, I’d boot into a live Ubuntu session, install e2fsprogs, and use the badblocks command to run a thorough check of he drive, to rule that out. You can run a prune node on the 1TB drive, or use this server for other non-Bitcoin related functions. If all checks out, run it this way for a while, just to make sure there’s no other main-board issue. You can always upgrade to a larger drive down the road.
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to run a thorough destructive check using the badblocks command on that 2TB drive. If it comes up bad, you should be able to return it. Be careful about naming & shaming the brand. Drive fraud is common. That is, say a cheap generic 250GB drive modified internally to show as 2TB, and then counterfeit branded as a name brand 2TB drive, sold on third party retail sites like ebay, and Amazon. They get away with this, because often you’ll be well outside the return period before you notice.
(Please note, this was not meant to be a step by step guide, but just a suggestion overview. Once you have decided the route you’d like to take, I’d be happy to provide further specific information, along with what you find in your own research.)
Thanks Rexter for your advice. And I can see your point about companies faking the memory or SDD drives. Maybe that is whats going on. I did buy the expensive Samsung memory from Amazon.
I am not sure I will be able to do the memory test since its not allowing me to boot off the USB stick either. But I will try installing that X86 memory test on USB and removing one memory stick at a time.
If there is anything else I can try please let me know? Unfortunatley I leave in two days for another long trip. So I don’t have much time left for testing or troubleshooting.
Losing this investment hurts. Sunk cost fallacy. Should have just bought the Start9 server. Oh well.
I tried installing the X86 memory test on USB and booting off this. But the server does not boot. It powers up. But never sends information to the monitor. And just sits there. Not sure what to do next.
Remove the SSD, and one ram module. Connect only a mouse monitor, and keyboard. Does it post? You should see an error on the screen. If not, turn it off, remove the ram module, and install the other. Does it post? You should see an error about not finding a boot device?
Ok. How it appear to boot to an error. It sees there is no HD and memory changed . It is asking for F1 to retry boot, F2 for Setup Utility, and F5 to run onboard diagnostics. It currently has only one memory stick installed.
Then I put the SSD back in. And left the one memory stick out. It booted again and entered the StartOS installation. Then I was able to interrupt and start the X86 testing. I am testing now.
Ok. I completed the test with the first memory stick. It was the orginal that came with the system. And it showed 100%. Now I am doing the second one. It appears that the test recognizes the second memory stick as a Samsung 8GB like the label says. Does this test the SSD also?
I tested both memory sticks without any errors. It appears it is related to the SSD. I can boot to it. It starts to go through the load up of StartOS. Soon after the monitor screen goes black. Then eventually starts up StartOS. Then it goes repeats the errors seen in logs above.
Which SSD are we talking about here? It’s entirely possible that both are bad. I’m pretty sure the on-board diag tools can run some basic checks on the SSD as well, but not nearly as thoroughly as the badblocks command, as part of e2fsprogs. But if you get a fail on a basic test, the drive is bad. You don’t need the thorough test.
Hello Rexter. Thanks for the reply. I am now away on travel for a while. It is going to take some time before I get back to the server and can work on it. I appreciate your following up with me. I will ping you back later. I am not familiar with F5. I am a basic user. So my technical skills with these servers and Linux are minimal.
“Ok. How it appear to boot to an error. It sees there is no HD and memory changed . It is asking for F1 to retry boot, F2 for Setup Utility, and F5 to run onboard diagnostics. It currently has only one memory stick installed.”