DLINK DNS 323 Getting too Hot!

[Todd LeMaire]

I was wondering if someone could help me. I have a DNS 323 with ALT-F. It is getting really hot and will shut down. After 15 mins the temp will climb to 53 degrees. The unit is located in a large upstairs closet with a AC duct above it. It does feel hot to the touch. I am running 0.1 RC3 . Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Thanks

Todd

[João Cardoso]

Is the fan really working? not jammed? ear/watch it! At full speed?

enough clearing space (5/10cm at least) around  the box front/back/top to allow air venting?

Is the box in a lower shelf? hot air rises.

Are the disks always busy? Do they standby/spindown?

At summer time (28/30ºC) I often remove the box front panel, to improve cooling.

[Todd LeMaire]

Thank you for responding! I took the cover off last night and iit cooled down to 50.3. It is on the top shelf but has nothing around it. Thanks again!

Todd

[Todd LeMaire]

I am also having trouble (thought it was heat making it shut down) where usually over night, the unit will become unresponsive but still shows on my network. It is hot and the Blue light is flashing rapidly. The only way to recover is pull the plug, way for it to cool down, plug back in and power up, wait for scan and reflash settings. This happens almost every night. And the log has no errors because everything is lost. When it is unresponsive the Blue light will flash really fast. Any suggestions?

Thanks

Todd

[anadigi]

It may be your hard drives problem.

[João Cardoso]

On Sunday, June 22, 2014 3:37:36 PM UTC+1, Todd LeMaire wrote:

I am also having trouble (thought it was heat making it shut down) where usually over night, the unit will become unresponsive but still shows on my network. It is hot and the Blue light is flashing rapidly. The only way to recover is pull the plug, way for it to cool down, plug back in and power up, wait for scan and reflash settings. This happens almost every night. And the log has no errors because everything is lost. When it is unresponsive the Blue light will flash really fast. Any suggestions?

Is this behaviour recent? Have you done something recently, such as moving the box from another, fresher place, or activated some box service?

50ºC is still very hot, but ultimately the disks temperature are the most important thing to worry.

The rapid flashing of the power blue led probably means that something is wrong at the system board level (not Alt-F controllable).

I would suggest you to tackle the high temperature problem, moving the box, even if temporarily, to a fresher place and see if the issue remains. For a start, move it to a lower shelf, and if the problem remain move it out of the closet.

You can also stop most services, and even disconnect the network cable during the night (are you doing nightly backups?)

A few clarifications: you said "wait for scan and reflash settings."

-your filesystems are still ext2? unclean shutdown on ext2 means a lengthy check at powerup, ext3 or ext4 is faster.

-your mean "save settings", not fully reflash Alt-F, right?

-For how long are you using Alt-F? does the issues appeared when you changed to Alt-F?

[Todd LeMaire]

I have justed started using Alt-f, Maybe 2 weeks. I was using stock firmware and not having these problems. I have not added any services, just configured Samba. I will try an move it tonight to a cooler spot and see if that helps. Where can I find the services that are running? I have not backed up anything.... Not worried if I loose something.

Thanks

for the help!

[João Cardoso]

On Monday, June 23, 2014 4:02:24 AM UTC+1, Todd LeMaire wrote:

I have justed started using Alt-f, Maybe 2 weeks. I was using stock firmware and not having these problems. I have not added any services, just configured Samba.

If you have physically checked that the fan is indeed running, the closet is not that hot, and there are no disk intensive services running continuously (such as Transmission), the extra hot has to come from the disks that to not spindown/standby.

Have you set disk spindown?  Disk->Utilities, fill-in some timeout (20/30 minutes) in the Spindown entry and Submit. 

Also check that the fan settings are right for your environment: Services->System->sysctrl, Configure. Read the page online help, hit the (?) icon near the page title.

 

I will try an move it tonight to a cooler spot and see if that helps. Where can I find the services that are running?

Services->Network/System/User is where most services are enabled.

[Todd LeMaire]

I will check all those things. Thanks

[Todd LeMaire]

Made all those changes and it ran good til this morning. The unit center blue light was blinking fast and steady. Both the drive lights were on. I tried holding the power button for 3 secs, 10 secs and held for about 30 to see if something would happen but nothing did. Held reset button for 12 secs and tried to telnet into the box but it did not respond. Had to pull the plug. It was 42 degrees when I went to bed. I moved it in the spare bedroom on a bed side table with the ceiling fan on. It was hot to the touch when I unplugged it this morning. Could it be a bad flash of FW? Is there an older, more stable version? Any suggestions?

Thanks

[Todd LeMaire]

And yes I can see, feel and hear the fan running.

Thanks

[João Cardoso]

On Tuesday, June 24, 2014 2:20:52 PM UTC+1, Todd LeMaire wrote:

Made all those changes and it ran good til this morning. The unit center blue light was blinking fast and steady. Both the drive lights were on. I tried holding the power button for 3 secs, 10 secs and held for about 30 to see if something would happen but nothing did. Held reset button for 12 secs and tried to telnet into the box but it did not respond. Had to pull the plug. It was 42 degrees when I went to bed. I moved it in the spare bedroom on a bed side table with the ceiling fan on. It was hot to the touch when I unplugged it this morning. Could it be a bad flash of FW? Is there an older, more stable version? Any suggestions?

Getting out of ideas... 

When you say "It was 42 degrees when I went to bed" you mean the box, not the room ambient temperature, right? You don't live in Hell, don't you? :-)

42ºC is not that hot, my box is at that temperature now, with 23ºC of room ambient temperature. That does not explains the box lockup.

Yes it has hanged, as it did not responds to neither to the front nor the back button; the fact that you can see it when you browse the network from other computers is only due to cache effects.

I don't think that it was a bad fw flash, it either works or not. I think that there must exists a hardware problem in the box, probably a memory problem.

You can try several other things:

1-remove the disks and let the box running overnight, to see if it hangs. This will definitively exclude heat as the issue source.

2-run Alt-F from RAM memory instead of flash memory: proceed as if flashing firmware (System->Firmware) but instead of hitting the FlashIt button use the TryIt buton, then Reboot. This can only be done with Alt-F fw. Then let the box run overnight to see if it hangs. This will exclude flash memory as the issue source.

3-Flash the vendor's fw back (clear settings first). This will exclude Alt-F as the issue source. If that solves the issue, please report back, I would like to know.

I don't really think that the issue is Alt-F itself, I have it running on my DNS-323-rev-B1 box by more than four years now.

I think that your box hardware has reached a marginal status, which deploys a hardware malfunction over time.

Luck,

Joao

[Todd LeMaire]

I am gonna flash back to stock and try and flash over stock. I will let ya know if I can find anything else. I bought used for cheap and really am only using it as a media server. Thanks again!

[Todd LeMaire]

Next problem is When trying to flash stock FW zip it gives me an error that the file does not appear to be legitimate?

[João Cardoso]

On Friday, June 27, 2014 3:29:46 PM UTC+1, Todd LeMaire wrote:

Next problem is When trying to flash stock FW zip

You know that you have to unzip it first, don't you?

 

it gives me an error that the file does not appear to be legitimate?

Please post the link of the fw you downloaded, together with the model name and hardware revision (H/W)  that you can see in the in the box bottom attached label.

 

[Todd LeMaire]

Sorry about long response time. I unzipped and flashed but it reboots back into alt-f. 

FW Link: http://support.dlink.com/ProductInfo.aspx?m=DNS-323

Model: DNS 323 REV -A1

[João Cardoso]

On Saturday, June 28, 2014 9:47:49 PM UTC+1, Todd LeMaire wrote:

Sorry about long response time. I unzipped and flashed but it reboots back into alt-f. 

You haven't read the messages carefully:

when you first try to flash a new firmware, the FlashIt button is disabled and the following message appears:

Alt-F is running from flash memory, you have to reboot into a special mode by hitting the "SpecialReboot" button and after rebooting run again the "Firmware Updater" and hitting the "FlashIt" button. 

So,

1-the first time hit the SpecialReboot button,and reboot the box

2-after the reboot go again to System->Firmware, upload again the D-Link fw file and

3-this time the FlashIt button should be enabled and no message should appear, so

4-hit the FlashIt button, then reboot.

 

Worked now?

What is wrong on the blue message? (Inglish is not my mother language, so the fault can be mine)

[Todd LeMaire]

I got it!!!!! Well see how it works on stock 1.09 firmware!

On Friday, June 20, 2014 1

[Todd LeMaire]

Made it through the night without any troubles on stock FW 1.09

[João Cardoso]

On Sunday, June 29, 2014 3:39:09 PM UTC+1, Todd LeMaire wrote:

Made it through the night without any troubles on stock FW 1.09

The original issue has to be hot generated by the disks, what will happens if they don't go to standby or are being constantly accessed by some service or some computer in the network.

My DNS-323-rev-B1 and DNS-325-rev-A1 are on during months, without a glitch.

Thanks for reporting back.

[Todd LeMaire]

Another update... I am still on the stock 1.09 firmware and all is well. Sad that I couldn't use the Alt-f because it is really awesome. But I am gonna milk this old unit out for a while then upgrade to something better. Thanks for all your Help!

[João Cardoso]

On Saturday, July 12, 2014 1:35:42 AM UTC+1, Todd LeMaire wrote:

Another update... I am still on the stock 1.09 firmware and all is well. Sad that I couldn't use the Alt-f because it is really awesome. But I am gonna milk this old unit out for a while then upgrade to something better. Thanks for all your Help!

Thanks for reporting back, it's always good to know the issues outcome, either way.

Luck,
Joao