From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 19 19:50:29 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B067E106564A for ; Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:50:29 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from dieterbsd@engineer.com) Received: from mailout-us.gmx.com (mailout-us.gmx.com [74.208.5.67]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 55C388FC1D for ; Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:50:29 +0000 (UTC) Received: (qmail 25295 invoked by uid 0); 19 Jul 2012 19:10:21 -0000 Received: from 67.206.184.2 by rms-us002 with HTTP Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 15:10:19 -0400 From: "Dieter BSD" Message-ID: <20120719191020.298420@gmx.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Authenticated: #74169980 X-Flags: 0001 X-Mailer: GMX.com Web Mailer x-registered: 0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-GMX-UID: yz56cPYV3zOlNR3dAHAhhrx+IGRvb4Aw Subject: Re: Server memory problems X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2012 19:50:29 -0000 >> because the machine needs more electricity with the extra modules. If it >> is at the limits without, it could go behind > with the additional modules >> installed. > > Interesting. The chassis has dual 900W power supplies. Apart from simply > replacing them, I am not sure how I can verify whether the power supply is > the issue. As a simple test, you could measure the various Voltages with a DC Voltmeter and see if they are within spec. Finding problems like noise and ripple require an oscilloscope. In theory, you should be able to get specs on the maximum power required by the mainboard from the various Voltage rails.  Add the power requirements from any expansion cards, disks, etc. See if any of the totals exceed the specs of the power supply. In practice, Tyan would not tell me the power requirements for my mainboard, just "use one of our recommended power supplies". Which doesn't tell me how many disks I can add.  And sure enough, eventually I added enough disks that I started seeing problems and had to add a second power supply. Perhaps Supermicro will tell you the power requirements for your mainboard? If you can find out the power requirements for the memory, you could add some other load that uses the same or more power from the same rails instead of the extra memory. If the system runs fine with the dummy load, then you aren't running out of power. > The memory modules I added are listed on Newegg as Kingston 8 GB 240-Pin > DDRS SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1333 Server Memory. So yes they have ECC. Good. Look through the firmware/bios and see if there are any options for turning ecc on/off. There might be an option for scrubbing.