• The forum software that supports hummy.tv will be upgraded to XenForo 2.3 on Wednesday the 20th of November 2024 starting at 7pm

    There will be some periods where the forum is unavailable, please bear with us. More details can be found in the upgrade thread.

Boot Up issue

DaveQ

DaveQ

Member
Re-boots continuously: Start System then Cust FW 3.13.
Tried re-installing cust FW, then System flush. No visible evidence it tried.
Removed cover & disconnected both disk cables
Booted up OK, to Wizard - presumably because it had flushed.
12 hours later re-tuned OK & working as a receiver
Re-attached disk cables and could see recorded media (but didnt try playing)
Attached wifi dongle & connected to router OK
Couldnt ping, despite re-booting router, changing from DHCP to manual
Then wifi ip address seemed to be changing by itself
Now wont boot up at all, with everything unplugged/unconnected, back to square one
Tried several times after an hour or so, to let it cool down, but still no bootup.
Power supply issue?
(NB: This is my second T2, the other one thankfully got fixed using this forum)
 
OK, have plenty of time to try that at the moment! And thanks for your incredibly prompt, pithy & pertinent responses as usual.
 
Following other hummy advice have connected the extracted disk to my other t2 using a SATA-USB adapter from Amazon for £15 and the other half is now happily watching from it. So will defer psu swapping for a while. NB: I presume I cant disk check it in this USB state.
 
You can't use fixdisk directly but you can run disk utilities from a command-line, such as smartctl and e2fsck. Whether that's a good thing to do would depend on your skill and judgment. There's nothing to be lost from checking the SMART data and possibly running a long SMART test if there are indications of problems:
Code: 
# which device is your USB-mounted disk?
mount | grep 'type ext3' | grep '/media/drive' | grep -o '/dev/sd[a-z]'
# let's say that printed '/dev/sdc'
# check if smartctl knows about the USB-SATA bridge
smartctl -d test -A /dev/sdc | grep -q 'Please specify device type' && echo Unknown type
# if that printed 'Unknown type', try dumping the SMART stats with the -d sat option:
smartctl -d sat -A /dev/sdc
# otherwise you shouldn't need the -d option:
smartctl -A /dev/sdc
# if one of the above worked and the RAW_VALUEs of attributes such as 5, 197, 198 look suspicious ...
# ... trigger the long test on the USB-mounted disk -- use the -d option or not, as before
smartctl -d sat -t long /dev/sdc
smartctl knows how to talk to SATA and SCSI devices but support for a USB-mounted SATA disk depends on whether the program knows about the USB-SATA bridge; novel or unbranded devices (yours is both) may not be in the program's database, especially as the mechanism for adding devices appears unresponsive. The one I have succeeds with -d sat but others may not.
 
Found /dev/sdb. smartctl gave
=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 10
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate 0x000f 114 099 006 Pre-fail Always - 81107602
3 Spin_Up_Time 0x0003 097 097 000 Pre-fail Always - 0
4 Start_Stop_Count 0x0032 098 098 020 Old_age Always - 2913
5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct 0x0033 100 100 036 Pre-fail Always - 0
7 Seek_Error_Rate 0x000f 090 060 030 Pre-fail Always - 972497418
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 015 015 000 Old_age Always - 75108
10 Spin_Retry_Count 0x0013 100 100 097 Pre-fail Always - 0
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 099 099 020 Old_age Always - 1439
184 End-to-End_Error 0x0032 100 100 099 Old_age Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0032 088 088 000 Old_age Always - 12
188 Command_Timeout 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
189 High_Fly_Writes 0x003a 096 096 000 Old_age Always - 4
190 Airflow_Temperature_Cel 0x0022 075 036 045 Old_age Always In_the_past 25 (29 120 25 19 0)
194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0022 025 064 000 Old_age Always - 25 (0 16 0 0 0)
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 042 022 000 Old_age Always - 81107602
197 Current_Pending_Sector 0x0012 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0010 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 200 200 000 Old_age Always - 0

I dont understand whether the results are good or not.
The very big numbers are much smaller than they look, according to something i read (there are 2 parts to the number in hex). Am pursuing
Have kicked off the long version, will take 111 minutes
 
Last edited:
I'm a little surprised non of the Hard disk specialists haven't commented on your figures yet, but as far as I can see there isn't a lot wrong with them, lower figures are good and here are your 'Raw' figures and my 'Raw' figures taken from a fully working hard disk

smart.jpg

you obviously don't turn it off very often, as it has run over 75000 hours but it still looks good
 
Thanks for the input. Found the Seagate specs of the values and they all seem within bounds (apart from the 2 big numbers, which are hard to interpret). No, never really ever turned it off, unless investigating problems.

The long version of smartctl has been running 4 hours now. May just kill it & try the psu swap to narrow down the issue.
 
Tried using the faulty machine's disk in the good machine - OK. Tried the PSU also - OK. Humax HDD check passed.
Then tried the good psu in the bad machine - OK. Add the bad disk - OK. Fully working.
NB: But didnt secure the psu, and jogged it, and it flashed, presumably touching the case. Left a tiny burnt patch underneath. But it still works. Lesson learnt.
Then tried the faulty t2 several times, without the disk, adding the disk, boot with disk. The latter never worked, the other 2 cases usually worked, but not always.
So must be the motherboard, somehow interfering with disk power up?
 
Not sure why I tried the confusing bit, belt & braces?

So, as I added to the the similar post, I have a dead box, but a spare psu & a spare disk. And confidence now in my ability to fiddle about.

Thanks for all the help.
 
DaveQ said:
Not sure why I tried the confusing bit, belt & braces?
Click to expand...
I do not understand why the PSU from the good 'FOX transplanted into the bad 'FOX should result in your report of "OK" - that's the confusing bit. You say you have narrowed down the problem to the motherboard, but if the problem is the motherboard it shouldn't work even if you do swap the PSU.
 
DaveQ said:
Found /dev/sdb. smartctl gave
...
I dont understand whether the results are good or not.
Click to expand...
As Ezra says, it all looks fine.
The very big numbers are much smaller than they look, according to something i read (there are 2 parts to the number in hex). ...
Click to expand...
Maybe here?
And if that interpretation applies to these values then they are showing just the number of reads and no errors.
 
When I said OK, I meant it did boot up, not cycle.
In the bad box it didnt matter which disk or psu was used, it wouldnt boot if the disk was attached, but was (usually) OK if the disk was attached after boot. In the good box it didnt matter what selection/combination, it boots. So surely must be something to do with the motherboard - it must control what power goes where during boot (as the psu is only connected to the board, not the disk)
 
DaveQ said:
...Then tried the faulty t2 several times, without the disk, adding the disk, boot with disk. The latter never worked, the other 2 cases usually worked, but not always.
...
Click to expand...
Do you have a spare 2.5" SATA disk? It might be worth trying with that, as its power would come from the SATA cable and not the disk power cable. But I'm not optimistic.
 
DaveQ said:
it must control what power goes where during boot (as the psu is only connected to the board, not the disk)
Click to expand...
Yes, the PSU never goes off as such, but the HDD gets powered down during standby, so it is definitely controlled by the motherboard.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top