On Monday, September 26, 2011 10:16:14 PM Emmanuel Noobadmin wrote: > On 9/27/11, Benjamin Smith <lists at benjamindsmith.com> wrote: > > When booting a non-working system, it boots straight up to the boot > > prompt (runlevel 3) without issue, and everything works fine. When the > > machine sits idle for a period of time (ranging from 15 minutes or so > > and up) the HDD becomes unreadable/unwritable and the system is useless > > for any purpose and must be hard restarted with a full power cycle - it > > won't even shut down. > > I'm thinking I might have a similar problem with my test install of > EL6. Initially I had dismissed it as a one-off but it has apparently > locked up again. I'll be visiting it physically later and maybe have > more information to share. However, it is also a 3400-series Xeon, the > rest of the hardware are all cheaper hardware. > > What drives are you using in these servers? The drives are confirmed irrelevant. SATA/SAS with different manufacturers make no differents; it's not a factor. However, I did eventually find update instructions for how to update x8si6f motherboard (having the SAS 2008 chipset) chipset that matches the board I have. I've (roughly) followed the instructions and have achieved a full 8 hours of uptime - already well ahead of expectations. If it lasts 48 hours, I'll consider it a success, and will post details here so that other techies can find it. http://www.servethehome.com/howto-flash-supermicro-x8si6f-lsi-sas-2008- controller-lsi-firmware/ I wish you the best of luck! -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.