Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Christopher Sean Hilton
On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 03:30:01PM -0500, Michael Stone wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 07:04:02PM +0100, Harald Welte wrote:
> > The problem is that there's basically no alternative to the net6501 on the 
> > market
> > if you require 1U, fanless, small (short 1U enclosure), and a single PCIe 
> > slot.
> 

[ ...snip... ]

Sorry about the double reply the Fan issue deserves some light.

In short, if noise is an issue, spend money on Noctua fans. For
gamers, fans that move air quietly are a huge consideration. I was
amazed at how quiet my son's gaming PC was in normal usage. When I
could hear it, it was always the GPU fan making the noise. the Noctua
case fans don't make a peep.

If you are building a server, you may have to go to 2U. But quiet to
silent can be done. My NAS is an Intel Core i5 with 35W TDP and a
Noctua NH-L9i CPU cooler and a pair of Noctua 90mm case fans. The
cooler + cPU fan is rated for up to 95W TDP. The server is in my
basement so ambient never gets above 80F. Because the CPU TDP is so
low, I may not have mounted the CPU fan. But I probably did. With the
case closed, this PC is close to silent.

-- 
-- 
Chris

 __o  "All I was trying to do was get home from work."
   _`\<,_   -Rosa Parks
___(*)/_(*)_
Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com]
___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech


Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Christopher Sean Hilton
On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 12:42:38PM -0700, Bryan wrote:


[ ...snip... ]
> 
> Soekris is really missing out on this I think.  As you mention, there is
> still demand for the net6501 and nothing really available to replace it.
> 

I think that if the demand were there, someone would have bought the
assets from Soren and continued the line. But In this case, I think
that our requirements were actually quite specialized. That's why no
one replaced Soren. Further, I think that this market will be
completely absorbed by Raspberry Pi over the long haul.

The Soekris machines are great if you are looking for a relatively
large amount of computing power in a low wattage, small form-factor
platform. But they fell short on memory capacity and eventually
price. I've replaced all of my Soekris Net65xx units with SuperMicro
1U machines that use Intel Atom D525 based motherboards. I did this
because the Net65xxs all succumbed to the "Red Light of Death". Used,
the D525 units are cheaper than the Net6501 and you can have up to
either 8G or 16G of ram at "Best Buy" prices. The machines I have are
in Front access 1U chassis that are three times as deep as the
Soekris. Stock they don't have the same network density as a Soekris
but the motherboard is dual port Intel Gigabit and Intel Gigabit cards
cost $20 / port on Amazon in 1x, 2x, and 4x varieties.

I don't mean to disrepect the Soekris stuff. In it's day it was
awesome but now that the Net6501s have begun to hit the "dying limb of
the bathtub curve", there are other options so I'm not going to cry
for them.

[ ...snip... ]


-- 
-- 
Chris

 __o  "All I was trying to do was get home from work."
   _`\<,_   -Rosa Parks
___(*)/_(*)_
Christopher Sean Hilton[chris/at/vindaloo/dot/com]
___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech


Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Michael Stone

On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 07:04:02PM +0100, Harald Welte wrote:

The problem is that there's basically no alternative to the net6501 on the 
market
if you require 1U, fanless, small (short 1U enclosure), and a single PCIe slot.


There are actually a lot more options these days for those requirements, 
just look for mini-itx motherboards & rackmount cases. Nobody's making 
an APU-specific enclosure for that because if you need something that 
generic then an APU is probably the wrong tool.

___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech


Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Bryan
Hi Harold,

Yeah, I have access to a decent rework machine but I'm not sure I want to
tackle it.  I do have a handful of 6501's to practice on though.  LOL!

Soekris is really missing out on this I think.  As you mention, there is
still demand for the net6501 and nothing really available to replace it.

Cheers

-Original Message-
From: Harald Welte [mailto:lafo...@gnumonks.org] 
Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2019 11:04 AM
To: Bryan
Cc: 'Chris Cappuccio'; soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
Subject: Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

Hi Bryan,

On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 06:53:04AM -0700, Bryan wrote:
> Is that even possible without wave technology?

It's called "BGA rework" and it is possible with a BGA rework station
[to which I have access to].  However, it's rather tricky and
time-consuming,
and you'd also have to find the exact part number of the CPU that's used on
the boards.  It's not like you can normally buy the solder-type Intel CPUs
at Digikey
or Mouser ;)

So no, not something I would want to venture in.  At that point it makes
more
sense to build an enclosure for the PC Engines APU3 and an external PCIe
card.

The problem is that there's basically no alternative to the net6501 on the
market
if you require 1U, fanless, small (short 1U enclosure), and a single PCIe
slot.

The APU3 board exists, but nobody seems to be offering an enclosure to mount
the board with an actual PCIe card adjacent to it.

Regards,
Harald

-- 
- Harald Weltehttp://laforge.gnumonks.org/

"Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
  (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)

___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech


Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Harald Welte
Hi Bryan,

On Thu, Jan 31, 2019 at 06:53:04AM -0700, Bryan wrote:
> Is that even possible without wave technology?

It's called "BGA rework" and it is possible with a BGA rework station
[to which I have access to].  However, it's rather tricky and time-consuming,
and you'd also have to find the exact part number of the CPU that's used on
the boards.  It's not like you can normally buy the solder-type Intel CPUs at 
Digikey
or Mouser ;)

So no, not something I would want to venture in.  At that point it makes more
sense to build an enclosure for the PC Engines APU3 and an external PCIe card.

The problem is that there's basically no alternative to the net6501 on the 
market
if you require 1U, fanless, small (short 1U enclosure), and a single PCIe slot.

The APU3 board exists, but nobody seems to be offering an enclosure to mount
the board with an actual PCIe card adjacent to it.

Regards,
Harald

-- 
- Harald Weltehttp://laforge.gnumonks.org/

"Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
  (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech


Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Chris Cappuccio
Harald Welte [lafo...@gnumonks.org] wrote:
> hi chirs,
> 
> On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 06:37:16PM -0800, Chris Cappuccio wrote:
> 
> > Solder up a new CPU and you will likely have a working unit...
> 
> Do you know something that I don't?  From following the list archives
> and other resources, it seemed that nobody really knew what was going
> on.  Sure, there was some speculation (I would almost call it conspiracy
> theory) about this bug being similar to the "Intel C2000" bug that hit
> Cisco and others.  However, net6501 uses E6xx..
> 

Yeah it's just a half assed guess based on the known issues with the C2000
line and the determination from Soekris that the boards are unrepairable.
___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech


Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Bryan
Is that even possible without wave technology?

-Original Message-
From: soekris-tech-boun...@lists.soekris.com
[mailto:soekris-tech-boun...@lists.soekris.com] On Behalf Of Chris Cappuccio
Sent: Wednesday, January 30, 2019 7:37 PM
To: Harald Welte
Cc: soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
Subject: Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

> That's it for now.  Maybe this is useful to share.  At this point I'm
> not sure yet, if this will lead anywhere.
> 
> When I find another timeslot, I want to compare a not-yet-broken board
> with one that exhibits the problem.
> 

Solder up a new CPU and you will likely have a working unit...
___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech

___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech


Re: [Soekris] net6501 (Red Light Of Death) debugging

2019-01-31 Thread Harald Welte
hi chirs,

On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 06:37:16PM -0800, Chris Cappuccio wrote:

> Solder up a new CPU and you will likely have a working unit...

Do you know something that I don't?  From following the list archives
and other resources, it seemed that nobody really knew what was going
on.  Sure, there was some speculation (I would almost call it conspiracy
theory) about this bug being similar to the "Intel C2000" bug that hit
Cisco and others.  However, net6501 uses E6xx..

Regards,
Harald

-- 
- Harald Weltehttp://laforge.gnumonks.org/

"Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option."
  (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)
___
Soekris-tech mailing list
Soekris-tech@lists.soekris.com
http://lists.soekris.com/mailman/listinfo/soekris-tech