Doremi showvault upgrades and occasional boot issue

[Michael Richardson]

Hello, we've got a bunch of doremi showvaults. I've got a ton of spare hardware and I was thinking about upgrading the hardware on these. I'm mainly worried about breaking something. I've got spare parts, mostly from older machines or homelab upgrades and I'm curious what I can do without causing issues. Has anyone tried stuff like adding RAM, putting in higher tier CPUs, installing 10G nics, moving to SSDs or anything like that? I've already gone from 3 to 4 drives in all of our stuff and I'm just looking to make things a bit smoother since I have most of this laying around. I've got a bunch of ECC DDR2 and DDR3, with some old Xeon x3380s, with a bunch of 10GBE SFP+ NICs. Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated. I was even considering bonding together the 2 built in network interfaces for hopefully an easy 2G network upgrade

I also get an error on boot. Its not every time or at least most times. I have attached an image, if anyone has experienced this before, I would appreciate any tips. The only thing I was thinking would be repasteing the CPUs and dusting and reseating the PCIe cards, but I havent tried anything yet.
image.png

[James Gardiner]

TO be honest, I wouldn;t be game to modifying the systems beyond what parts they were built with. (Apart from DISKS) The software is mostly designed and tested against that. Adding any unknown hardware could result in unexpected behaviour. But, if your game to play around. Go for it. Just understand the risks.

The error, first thing i would do is reset memory, PCI cards (possibly Even CPU). Possible replace memory sticks. Could be an onboard device issue. New mainboard required. The kernel logs appear to be going through device detection. The fact that's falling over indicates corruption in memory or a data channel to talk to a device.

[Marco Giustini]

Remember that that software is designed to run on very specific hardware. It's not Linux nor Windows. So experimenting won't hurt and it might work but it might cause issues as developers might have hardcoded some parameters knowing that their software is never going to run to anything different than THAT very hardware.

Some years ago I remember doremi upgraded the kernel of their software and then downgraded it as things didn't work they way they expected - that should give you an idea how little flexibility there is in that software.

It won't hurt to try but do expect issues Let us know!

[John Thomas]

There is little to be gained by upgrading the hardware in a ShowVault. If you managed to make them run quieter though, that'd be something.

I would encourage messing around in terminal on a ShowVault because it is a great way to learn about linux if you're not already familiar. In addition, all Doremi servers, including current Dolby servers operate very similarly, so that knowledge is still relevant.

I would discourage messing around with ANY hardware or software on ANY ShowVault that is responsible for running shows for an audience.

[Leo Enticknap]

As others have written: these machines run an operating system and application combo that is specifically tailored for that precise hardware spec. The two together do the job required (assuming no hardware faults), and so I don't see that there is anything to be gained from changing the hardware.

We have a DCP-2K4 at the shop that we were asked to take care of e-waste recycling of, after its former owner retired a Series 1 projector. The Dolphin card was given a new battery and then sold to another customer as a backup spare, after which I upgraded the RAM to 8GB (I had some sticks lying around: it would likely have worked OK with the 2GB it came with if not) and installed OpenMediaVault on it, and we now use it as a NAS server. But that wasn't modifying the hardware spec while the thing was still in use as a DCP player.

Added to which, the SV/IMB is now a legacy product that Dolby is no longer actively supporting, so they likely won't be in use in significant numbers for much longer.

[Ryan Gallagher]

On the error, before digging into the hardware, personally I would use a LiveCD/USBboot that has memtest on it and let it run overnight to see if it logs any memory problems.
But generally, I would concur with the advice to try reseating/contact cleaning and/or using alternate memory. Though it may take a while to know if it worked if that kernel panic on boot is very intermittent.

But as far as operationally, unless you are frustrated by slow UI response times, or do a TON of media ingesting over the network, I don't really see any real benefit to trying slightly higher spec hardware. Network is probably the most useful if the kernel version supports other NICs, but you'll probably have a bottleneck elsewhere and not gain much. Maybe you'd see a slight improvement with "ingest while playing" speeds?

And yeah, don't try it on any production servers responsible for daily screenings unless your extended testing goes well on the bench.

[Ioannis Syrogiannis]

I remember DSS servers having a custom BIOS (SuperMicro X7DCL-3, for instance), but as far as I remember, there were no issues on replacing a pre-Dolby Doremi motherboard (with the same model).
I second Ryan's idea of checking the RAM modules.

edit: correction

[Marco Giustini]

I honestly think the custom BIOS was for the splash logo and to set some options in the BIOS. It's easier to flash a BIOS than to go through all the options to make sure they are set correctly.

[Steve Guttag]

I believe Marco is, essentially, correct. When I change out a DSS motherboard (have done both X7 and x8 versions, with some degree of regularity), I also run the Dolby supplied BIOS disc for the respective motherboard. I think there may be an update or other version change in there on the X7 one, as well. When doing an X8 motherboard swap, be sure to also have a new CPU cooler bracket. When installed, they use double-stick tape so reusing the old ones, while certainly possible, does require some prying (and likely, bending). It's just easier to peel-n-stick the new bracket on the new motherboard. X7s, normally, come with the necessary bracket.

[Rick Cohen]

Given their age and lack of support from Dolby, is a DSS or ShowVault server really worth servicing? I was under the impression that both models are classified as
"end of life" by Dolby.

[Steve Guttag]

Rick, if the server still shows the movie, it is FAR cheaper to keep such a server going than to replace it. From the show standpoint, can you or anyone tell the difference which server make/model is running the show? With the DSS line of servers, the vast majority of our sites use them in the "mini-plex" mode of TMS (one server is designated as the TMS so the remaining servers link up)...switching away from the DSS would also make the replacement server a stand-alone. This is also true if the site has a DSL100/DSL200 LMS system.

For us, the end of life really is when the mediablock dies. That is the unserviceable item.

[Jack Ondracek]

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I'm with most others here. Other than doubling the hard drive space my servers came with (drive-in with double features), I've done nothing to mine, besides periodic cleaning and firmware updates. Other than early failure one of the original hard drives (out of 9), I've had zero problems with my servers.

Load all the extra stuff you want... in the end, you'll pretty much have exactly what you started with. Nothing will look better, play better or last longer.