Synology DS918+ Bricked / Blue LED of death.

[@Breakfast_of_Champions]

A dual bios is a good solution, amazing they don't have it on a crucial device like this.

[@VioletGiraffe]

My thought exactly. Not gonna buy anything from Synology, ever.

[@56585656587]

It’s a cost cutting measure. Extra development, $2 extra parts. Don’t forget, this is China we are talking about here.

[@samuelfellows6923]

😠

[@MisterFrickel]

@@56585656587 I agree with the sentiment, not with the geography though. Taiwan is not PRC. (At the time I am writing this, gotta be careful in 2022...)

[@ran2wild370]

oh, i am not alone with dual bios coming to mind :)

[@rudge3speed]

My 1515+ died, and after some research I found a common problem with those units. I had to replace a transistor and add a resistor, but it is up and running again! Your video gives me faith in trying to solve problems rather than dumping and buying new. I hope it does the same for others.

[@RetroSpector78]

Also was donated 2 Synology NAS boxes (DS1815+) from a colleague that seem to be bricked. Hope the resistor fix will do the trick.

[@YouHaventSeenMeRight]

Most likely it was the same issue that took my DS415+ down: the messed up Intel processor killing its clock line (look for issues with the Intel Atom C2538 for more detailed information), so the unit doesn't have a clock signal during boot. Synology replaced mine under warranty and that unit is still running to this day. If you managed to fix it yourself with a few cheap components, then that may be a cheap way to repair all the x15 series units that use the Intel Atom C2538 processor as its CPU.

[@blathum9]

C2000 Issue MMMM I would upgrade very soon. Sorry this is only a temp fix it won't last forever, yes I had the same unit it does not last. Anything after 2015 should be fine, no more bugs. BTW it was Intels problem not Synology.

[@Alex-lp6bg]

@@RetroSpector78 how did it go?

[@molsen35]

Same. I'm just replacing the transistor on my 1515+. This also happened after a power outtage. I've also ordered a UPS. Power cuts seem to cause a lot of issues with Synology NAS systems.

[@AnnoyDroid]

I think as someone has already mentioned, a dual bios should be the norm and the ability to boot into repair mode even by a USB device would be better than nothing. Great video, really enjoyed it and I am glad you were able to access your data again.

[@rudyruiz9521]

Or a flash bios via USB

[@RockTheCage55]

simply amazing. I'm a programmer & wouldn't attempt this type of work to actually tear it apart & desolder the bios chip & manually edit it with a hex editor & reprogram it is simply amazing. I guess the lesson here for people that couldn't do this type of work (most) would be to make sure you have a UPS on your NAS. I definitely do.

[@gabrielebiffi9018]

Nice job! I would have never suspected a corrupted BIOS, and having to desolder it is quite off-putting. Well, another lesson learned... and that's always use a UPS :D

[@CMDRSweeper]

Biggest lesson to learn here is simple... DON'T Use a NAS box, build your own. These are notorious for dying and getting your data back is a gamble, if you built your own out of PC parts and it dies, well as long as the drives are healthy you can just plug them into any machine and import them and save your data. These you have no guarantee even if you get the same damned model.

[@bluecollar8525]

@@CMDRSweeper Wait... you can't always get your data back? That seems like it defeats the point. That's really unsettling

[@dshack4689]

Mine died and it was on a UPS, AND it had lived a very sheltered life - my NAS that died is the BACKUP NAS which is only turned on once a month for a major backup of my primary NAS. It seems the bios chip is truly terrifyingly fragile, and here I was thinking 5 drives and 2 fans for redundancy was pretty good =(. It should have dual BIOS if the BIOS is not readonly!

[@davidlp6510]

WOW I am impressed with your prowess and luck there. I had a similar issue with another Synology (RS816). Mine it just decided to stop working. No power issues just died. I changed the power supply and changed a few of the capacitors on the PCB to no avail. I sold it for scraps on eBay ($30). You are right Synology could have a bit more compassion with people in our kind of predicament. No repair or any suggestion to help out other than to buy a new one.

[@reread2549]

Great job on unbricking it. I have my synology NAS Set up with a second synology NAS that’s only job is to back up the primary Nas. I run both on separate battery back up UPS’s. Hopefully I will never need to use the back up. Thanks again for the video

[@rongonzales9326]

Thats funny! I'm doing the same thing with 2 DS918+ . I guess I'm just a backup fanatic! Great minds!

[@Obelixlxxvi]

It happened with one of my client's QNAP. The QNAP was running on an online UPS, so there was no power supply issue....the box went bad on its own. And QNAP out of warranty service dept. asked for a king's ransom to change the motherboard or the entire box itself. It took us a few weeks to source a few chips and resistors and restore the QNAP's firmware for 1/10 the price. Then another week to figure out how to upgrade it to the latest version of firmware from scratch. Both QNAP and Synology charge a bomb for parts replacement in India. When I added the entire story to a prominent QNAP forum...their official tech support incharge felt the burn and I did give my honest feedback to the country manager. But they are still quite shameless and don't want to admit their policies are meant to fleece the gullible customer.

[@ZX48K]

I have a QNAP, I've lost count the number of times I've lost the RAID 5 volume. Just one disk dying has caused the entire volume to become unmountable. The problem with these NAS devices is that they are software RAID. The only way to recover the data is to contact support or be a Linux master. I much prefer to store my data in the cloud, yes its not as much storage but it forces you to only store what is critical.

[@MrDiamondFlyer]

Impressive repairing skills displayed here. I love what Synology is doing in general. Nothing gets close to it but they have their issues indeed. I'd never run one without an UPS ... The problem you encountered is very rare, but it is common for Synology NAS to become "read only" (in best case) after an outage or to become unable to mount your volumes. It is easy to repair without data loss with the right command, but the check/rebuild will run for >24hrs, which is not good for your stress level ;-) Just one remark .... Never use the built-in admin account. First thing you should do after setting up a Syno is to create yourself one or two other admin accounts named differently and disable that one forever. Well know NAS brands are notorious targets for cryptolockers and old DSM versions had vulnerabilities that were specifically targeted. Having that admin account disabled and an up to date DSM already defeats 99% of the exploits.

[@teekay_1]

Agree. It's a huge risk when you cut the power, not even considering the flashing LED of death. It sometimes takes 12-24 hours to validate the RAID array

[@m0rthaus]

I agree on the admin account change - I'd add that the safest solution is simply to not expose your NAS to the internet. Use it over a VPN to your home network if you just can't live without accessing it, but opening it up to the internet (via forwarded ports or via uPnP) is asking for trouble.

[@teekay_1]

@@m0rthaus I had exposed mine at one point and within days, lots of IPs from China were trying to break into the NAS. I turned off the external sharing at that point.

[@nelsone.hernandez6654]

The problem described here might have happened during a software update. To reduce the risk of corrupted volumes due to a power cut, it may help disabling the write cache feature. On user volumes using ext4, Synology unfortunately uses writeback journaling instead of the default journaling mode and that can’t be changed.

[@dshack4689]

@@nelsone.hernandez6654 but his drives and data were demonstrated to be unaffected, so not sure how writeback journaling of the hard drive relates to a corrupted bios chip...

[@TheClembo]

Fantastic. So well done. Synology should watch this video and send you a new NAS for your expert fix as a thank you. Wish I could give you a million thumbs up. Just great!

[@Chris-tf7gi]

Power supply went on my Synology NAS. It looked very much like yours when it would turn on, except that turning it on a few times actually got it to boot. Mine also went out after a power failed. Replaced the power supply and now it works great again. (Not a big deal. It uses the same PS as some servers.) I don't especially mind that it had a fault as this NAS was 11 years old. Its now serving as my backup NAS backing up a new NAS. Now if it had been a chip that had gone out, I don't think I'd have fixed it. Subscribed.

[@jimadams7765]

That was a brave fix. So glad it was successful.

[@majstealth]

i can not see anything brave here. there was a copy of the bios, it was only 1 chip. what i can see are bad solderingskills^^ it would have been a different story fixing an m.2 ssd by reading 7/8 ic´s and somehow getting the 8th through ecc/crc

[@jimadams7765]

@@majstealth I bow down to your excellent and brave videos and mad skills on the subject. Except I can't find any. So many "brave" videos to choose from on your channel. Idiot.

[@efan1980]

It's not brave if you are an engineer

[@jimadams7765]

@@efan1980 Any venture into the unknown is brave. Especially where gigabytes of personal data is at stake. Being an "engineer" just makes you more aware of the risks involved. That first time flash was always going to be scary. What was your first time like? Or are you still a virgin?

[@efan1980]

@@jimadams7765 No risk Sir.

[@airfixer9461]

Well done Davy, good repair video fro DS918+ owners. You need to have the necessary skills to troubleshoot & also have the chip baker tools to be able to 'reflash' the chip....and I don't think many of us out here have ever experienced doing this kind of operation.

[@robertbruce7686]

Phew ... relaxing music whilst enter lair of the (un) boot dragon! Excellent structured approach to fix. Well done.

[@허스키김토푸]

My 412+ has same issues. This video is so amazing. I'll try this as soon as possible.

[@RetroSpector78]

Glad you enoyed it !

[@MorganTN]

I really appreciate your mix of old stuff and new stuff in your videos on this channel. Keep up the excellent work!

[@RetroSpector78]

Thx. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@TrimeshSZ]

One company I was working with had a bunch of these things (about 12, I think) - they had 3 of them fail with that blinking blue light in a week. The interesting thing is that as a result of this they decided to replace them all with a different vendor, and I ended up with 2 of the old units - which is still working without any problems.

[@appwraith]

Nice repair! As cool stuff Synology builds, ultimately this is why I decided to build my own NAS out with a 2 core, old AMD APU board. Even if the board fries, I can just pop in any old replacement and the data should be fine.

[@mandokir]

I like how the heatsink suddenly became a speaker. Hallmark of someone who knows what they're talking about.

[@powerupminion]

Nice video. I have a DS918+ myself and I was thinking about cleaning it out of dust and do a little physical maintenance. I just wanted to take a peek and see what I was thowing myself out into.

[@808v1]

nice troubleshooting example, really appreciate seeing items other than consoles or comps getting diag'd and fixed like this - thanks very much.

[@RetroSpector78]

Thx !. Glad you like it.

[@cpuuk]

Wow, I take my hat off to you sir, a masterclass in debugging.

[@sageosaka]

100% agreed on the fact that having to go through this thorough of a fix is a little much for something so expensive. Synology needs to be better in this regard.

[@callmefoxie2950]

Speaking of Synology, I got a DS412+ that was broken -- whenever it tried to load firmware it thought it was a completely different unit and thus it downloaded a wrong firmware. I managed to load the GRUB that's on the built-in flash drive into IDA and somehow found undocumented (d'uh) argument that forces specific model to the kernel/OS... And it has been working ever since :) no clue where the actual model is stored, BIOS (checked build date) matches the one from DS412+.

[@RoyHess666]

I had a broken DS415+ with the well known Intel Atom bug, I had to solder a 100 Ohm resistor to a certain spot on the mainboard and since then it runs and keeps running, even to this day. But that reminded me: Always have a backup, and in my case: I have a backup on a different media, and I have a cold-standby NAS, a DS415play just to be on the safe side

[@RetroSpector78]

Yeah also went ahead and installed a cloud sync now. I have 2 DS1815+ 8 bay bricked Synology boxes from a colleague that I will try to fix. Hopefully the resistor trick will be sufficient.

[@mikeselectricstuff]

I also had this - resistor fixed it

[@stuartcastle2814]

I think they could at least come up with a firmware recovery option. A lot of PC motherboards have this. Just plug in a USB stick containing the latest firmware downloaded from the manufacturer's website, and possibly push a button. That's pretty much how my PC motherboard does it. Also, I had an old Pioneer VSX 808 home cinema amp effectively killed by a power cut. It was nearly 13 years old, which is a good age for consumer electronics now. One day, I was happily using it, then the power started browning out. Then it was cut for several hours. When it came back, it was still browning out. I did unplug the amp when the power went, but the damage was already done. It took a couple of attempts, but I managed to get the amp switched on. It had lost all it's settings, so I went through setting everything up again. When I'd finished, and was using it, it seemed fine. This happened again and again over the next couple of months, getting worse and worse. Eventually, I had to dump the amp. Partly because of this, and partly because due to other things, I no longer really had the room for a home cinema system. Still don't really. Perhaps when I get an extension built.

[@Cowicide]

It really makes me feel less of Synology that they are kind of running a scam here. They REALLY need to do this ASAP. Having people throwing perfectly fine NAS devices into landfills is disgusting.

[@matthewjbauer1990]

@@Cowicide This is not a scam per say. Apple pulls the same stunt with their phones and computers.

[@Cowicide]

@@matthewjbauer1990 Apple pulls the same *scam

[@Blesna]

that is why IMPORTANT equipment is MUST BE connected through uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)

[@Blesna]

And how the flash drive will help in case of bios breakdown? it`s just does not work

[@ruth1boaz2]

My same NAS suffered the same problem. However, it is not easy for me to copy your way to correct it. I am thinking to build my own NAS with one of my old PC. Thanks for your sharing.

[@awesomearizona-dino]

Your skills saved you. This is NOT a normal scenario with other users.

[@phanter344]

Interesting, I have the same issue on one of mine, a DS218 and ended up buying a new one. I don't really have the tools nor the skills to effect a repair like this. I'm overall very happy with Synology and have 8-9 of them. I've had a better experience with Synology than I have with QNAP where I had a 6-bay one die 2 weeks before it's warranty ran out and it's replacement die 2 months after it ran out. Great job on yours though.

[@RetroSpector78]

Yeah. Also pretty happy with Synology but was a bit annoyed with the fact how easy these things can break. Friend of mine has 2 8-bay units that also got bricked. Going to look at them also. A shame that they make it difficult to fix. And when they are just out of warranty you have very few options.

[@timmoore60]

The flashing blue light seems to be a common problem on the Synology units, my DS718+ has failed with the same blue flashing light after being moved to a new location, mine too was powered down by loss of supply (and that has happened a couple of times as it was solar powered and I had a power system fault occur), it would not boot. Interesting diagnosis, but that level of diagnostic is not something I’m equipped to do, as I’m an RF guy. There’s really nobody here in Australia who repairs these devices so I’ll have to look elsewhere for assistance. Glad you fixed your unit.

[@DC-Nigma]

Nice just fixed a DS1815+, your video was suggested. and I need to say I am happy that i seen it 😀, this gives me some more inside on how the synology is build. The 100 ohm fix for the ds1815+ fixed my synology but a corrupted bios is something i would never think of.

[@nickpage221]

I have a DS918+, I watched this video and now I'm back to looking online for a compatible UPS 😲 I was looking at some last year but, had a hard time finding one that is on Synology's compatibility list for this model AND is a good brand with good reviews and is a good price and a good fit for my network setup/physical limitations.

[@mark12358]

I've used Synology for a lot, after my Lacie failed for the 3rd time and was no more in warranty. By a few years (at home), I now prefer to use a QNAP product, instead. It seems a bit more robust, although a true jack of all trades is to get your hands dirty and going with a DIY solution. Not for everyone, but it works better (at my job).

[@RetroSpector78]

Yeah ... there's always going to be a percentage of people that have negative experiences with certain brand. Same thing with hard drives, motherboards, .... QNap for example also had the whole ransomware issue that left a lof of people unhappy. As long as it works everybody is happy :)

[@paultech9385]

Amazing, good investigative work! Add a UPS and be sure to snapshot to an external drive along with the C2 backup as a good off-site option.

[@gavinrewell9703]

I have no skillset to do what you have done. Very impressive.

[@RetroSpector78]

Thanks a lot. Glad you enjoyed the video !

[@VirtuProse]

"Oh my!" I thought. How can someone be so unlucky? Didn't take a backup or anything. I'm so glad I'm not like him! "Oh my!" I thought. How can someone be so skilled? Didn't even seem like a problem. How useful to be more like him!

[@smada36]

Amazing fix! I have a DS1817+ and it plays on my mind every day. It's predecessor, the 1815+ was one that was notorious for bricking itself and I worry that the issue was not solved before the design of its replacement. Mine is about five years old so it is about the time for it to give up. I have it, and the router, on a UPS so it should be getting the cleanest, most stable power and connection I can feed it. I just backup everything that I don't want to lose in other places, but it is not viable to do that for everything. I'd probably buy another one. Building my own is possible, I have enough parts here to do it, but the Synology software is really good. It is nice that you can just put the disks into another box and it just works again.

[@jmkhenka]

1815 had/has a cpu that had a known documented bugg. The fault was INTELS not synology. Millions of devices got broken by that, most common routers, firewalls (we have replaced 20 firewalls due to the same cpu bugg) etc, and this was Enterprise hardware. There is a solution that works most of the time - soldering a resistor on two pins. But its a temporary bugg. there is much documentation on the nets about it, wich devices are affected etc. One of the Synology rackstations was affected, I had to reboot the NAS for updates and it never came back. A collegue of mine soldered the resistors and it worked again.

[@RetroSpector78]

Have 2 of those 1815 bricked boxes here that I will try to revive as well.

[@smada36]

@@RetroSpector78 I look forward to watching that. I have seen so many people on KZbin complain about them, it would be great to see a video with a positive outcome.

[@JenniferinIllinois]

Congratulations!!!! Happy to see you didn't lose your NAS.

[@XLGaming]

15:04 it could also just be a different bios revision for newer NAS boxes.

[@Subgunman]

Finding the bios on their web site is no problem. Obtaining the equipment to read/write to various EE proms is not an issue BUT Bit Banging that firmware can be an issue for many individuals. We used to do a lot of this bit banging on some Motorola radios many many years ago and many times there were forums that had posted the mods to the original firmware so one did not have to spend hours changing data line by line only to have to create the correct check sum so the radio could boot up properly. Easier to use the correct motherboard with the proper software and do a DIY NAS. You might not get the fancy case and removable drives but you will wind up with something that is easily repairable. A very interesting and thought provoking issue. Interesting comments and suggestions as well.

[@dustinslaboratory897]

I have a DS212 with 2x 4TB drives (in mirror). I only recently put it in service, but I keep a full backup on a RAID. I just don't trust the thing. The original owner who gave it to me stated that it had gotten slower and slower after every update it received. I had to manually disable a bunch of bloat with putty/ssh to get it back to its original performance. Anyway, great fix! I messed with bios flashing before, but this is next level.

[@blizzy78]

I'm glad my DS212 is running just fine for 10 years now :) I only boot it up every day to do backups, though. It's not running 24/7.

[@MarthallersMisadventures]

This was very impressive work. This is a video that I will remember for years to come!! Thank you for taking us along for the ride.

[@dennisvanmierlo]

Excellent video! I do agree that Synology should make the NAS more robust on the hardware to survive power outage. But an OS is never happy when power suddenly drops out. My advice to always use a UPS in combination with your NAS. This prevents a lot of these power outage issues.

[@dshack4689]

My NAS are UPS protected and still died with this led status error

[@50shadesofbeige88]

I can appreciate the idea of an all in one NAS, but this is a good example of why I opted for a recycled tiny Optiplex.

[@jmkhenka]

So.. you buy used hardware instead? Thats a nice solution, they will break to. When a cap goes it does not matter if it is synology or a optiplex. But mainly, there is 0 replacements for a box the size of a 4 bay NAS. I would love a freeNAS or opensource system, but i refuse to have a box 5 times the size and noise. Also Syno comes with alot of extra fluff like services and programs not available on FOSS devices, so you loose a lot of simplicity

[@ch33psk8]

Impressive repair. Great investigative approach. I only just replaced my old failing UPS powering my DS918+. As it turns out I am writing this comment atm during a power outage, happy to have dodged a possible bullet, phew!

[@ThorLite]

One of the best videos tou made.Really enjoyed it.

[@juanmacias5922]

This was amazing, great repair!

[@RetroSpector78]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it.

[@aguswidi9316]

Great CPR you did to your NAS

[@TeionM83]

There is a good reason for ICT fixtures to use various pins for contacting onto the test pads on the PCB. Also, programming is via BSC (Boundary Scan), because ICT is not ideal for that. ICT is good for detecting electrical failures on the PCB and that's what it was designed to do.

[@digital-experiance2390]

Hmm, meaning what and being helpful when? Care to contribute anything to this context? Of cource ICT is problematic with bios chips. Thats why he unsoldered it.

[@TeionM83]

@@digital-experiance2390 ICT has no problem with testing flash memories. Reading their content is another story. You need a specific fixture AND testing program for reading/writing flash in circuit. Useful? No. It's just a fact, why would it need to be useful?

[@PCBWay]

This is absolutely stellar! 👍

[@unibrowser1]

It's amazing you knew how to fix the issue. In order to prevent this, you should have the NAS on a UPS though 🙃

[@jkennan]

Very impressive fix. Way beyond the average user I suspect (i.e. me!)

[@ErkanKaya-d6v]

It's a pleasure to watch your videos😁

[@artursmihelsons415]

Nice repair and great video! 👍 I wonder, why Synology didn't put backup BIOS IC on so expensive device.. 🤔 Expensive PC mainboards have that option..

[@JWalterHawkes]

This is great. Thanks. Mine just died after an accidental power off... I'm ordering a new power supply (which I've read is a possible problem... my light doesn't steadily blink, just blinks once or twice then turns off, no fans.) and if the power supply doesn't do it, I may have to get another one. Thanks again for this!!

[@mvp_kryptonite]

Great vid! I had something similar after a powercut and luckily for me the power adapter gave up. Replaced it with a 3rd party one and it was up and running again. Now to rebuild my cache for the 2nd time, expensive SSD lasts much longer than cheap SSD in my experience with the 918+ (both Samsung SSD too)

[@hugosimoes5119]

It's not a problem with the crocodile SOIC8 hook. It's something interferinng with the reading, like you said. I have same problem when I hook the crocodile around the SOIC8 chip, it gives me some pins are not connecting properly. With the multimeter in continuity, it is connecting fine all the 8 traces but some component on the motherboard is interfering. I would remove the coin cell and leave things alone for a while. I had problems with my mini pc, that once in a while, rarely, it presents me a red led and does nothing else. This happened power was cut or with a normal power on. Reset button did nothing. I tried other 12v power supplies, still red led. Then I disassembled everything and removed the coin cell plug and went to sleep. The next morning, I hooked the coin cell and assembled everything back and it was working again. Some months later, same thing happened. After some minutes of coin cell out, it was ok again. I have to dissassemble the mini pc to get to the coin cell plug. Glad you sorted that problem with your NAS.

[@RetroSpector78]

Yeah figured as much. But the plastics on crocodile clip was very low quality and couldn't even manage to hold it on to the chip after a couple of tries.

[@hugosimoes5119]

@@RetroSpector78 Last year, I bought TL866II and EZP2019 programmers and both packages came with one crocodile thingy each. Yeah, the tip where the teeth are gets brittle with bad mounting over SOIC chip. I think AdamantIT demonstrated desoldering the SOIC8 chip and putting it on the crocodile also works.

[@igalaviz]

Congratulations on fixin your NAS!! Very nice diagnostic :)

[@GeoffSeeley]

Not sure I'd trust my data on a box that bricks itself on a power outage! Seems odd this bricking, almost like it's on purpose to make you buy another... No way cutting power should corrupt a flash chip like this.

[@jmkhenka]

I doesnt, does it? There is always flukes. Stuff break all the time. And who knows, power perhaps was lost when it was updating the bios..

[@robertlock5501]

That's what i'm inclined to think too

[@nickwallette6201]

More than likely some sloppy power management. If it’s a flash chip, it can be written to. Usually the difference between write and read is the state of a pin or two. If the pin states are poorly defined while voltage rails are rising or falling, it can easily lead to data corruption. This is why there are power management ICs to hold everything in reset when power is outside of preset thresholds.

[@riaanlouw1874]

I have a 214 / 414 and 918+ (with the expansion unit), and there has recently been a couple of power failures (loadshedding), in my country. Even though all three NAS devices are hooked onto a UPS, and are suppose to shut down in the event of the UPS getting to 50% backup time, my UPS failed on 3 seperate occasions, meaning all my NAS devices crashed. I never had the above problem of any of the devices being bricked, as they all started up normally again. So, I would agree, the above seem to be an oddity. Having said that, I'll be a lot more careful in future, and make sure my UPS batteries are replaced every year or so.

[@RetroSpector78]

Yeah, but there are lots of reports where people experiencing this blue LED of death after a power cut. I think there should be a procedure to reflash the thing in case it goes horribly wrong like this. Don't think every NAS consumer will go out and buy a UPS device for the extra protection.

[@erikandersen2477]

Dual bios is a must even though an UPS comes to mind to protect against power cuts and general power fluctuations :)

[@JARVIS1187]

So glad you were able to get it fixed! :) Good job!

[@RetroSpector78]

Thx ... took some investigation but managed to pull it off.

[@roysigurdkarlsbakk3842]

Nice one! I guess I'd start off with connecting the drives to a linux box to see what's there. Usually it's mdraid, after all, so it shouldn't be too hard to get out, but them, you'll need the space to back it up etc. This is one of the reasons I tend to stick to home-grown servers with mdraid (or something) instead of something fancy ;)

[@seangraham2879]

Glad to see you back I've missed your videos always love learning from

[@RetroSpector78]

I appreciate it ! More videos to come soon.

[@stevenretroworkshop2113]

I have a quick power outage and my computer did not work right. I have to replace the motherboard to get the computer working. I suggest an UPS Battery Backup and Surge Protector for computers and router.

[@Apismeliffera]

Bought a Synology NAS and a Back Up Power Supply for it at the same time. For what I spent on the NAS and the hard drives, the BUPS was inexpensive insurance against an unexpected power failure.

[@1834RestorationHouse]

Great troubleshooting there!

[@n.h.s.a.d.m.]

This kind of troubleshooting would be beyond most users. It's too bad there isn't an easier way to fix it, easier than removing a chip and reflashing it using a special writer interface. I wonder if this is a common way this unit fails. Congratulations on repairing it!

[@janhofmeier9427]

I had a similar problem with a powerline wifi adapter. I found the "binwalk" utility really helpful for analyzing the the segments of the firmware and reconstructing it. (There where some device specific calibration data and botloader, that weren't included in the firmware). In my case it was caused by a bad flash chip, with a few unwritable bytes, so I hat to replace it too. And I would be interested how the sotware you were using to compare the firmware is called.

[@99man]

Impressive critical thinking. Well done.

[@RetroSpector78]

thx ... glad you enjoyed it.

[@Aruneh]

Nice job fixing it, certainly not something I would have been able to do!

[@Cowicide]

It really makes me feel less of Synology that they are running a scam. They REALLY need to allow easy way to reflash the BIOS for these kind of issues ASAP. Having people throwing perfectly fine NAS devices into landfills is disgusting.

[@rubengarciajr7560]

Not just bios though. Any little thing can render the mobo unusable, and of course the issue is you can’t repair it or buy another one. For 500 units I suppose it’s not that bad but there’s units that cost 1000-2500.

[@2368rafa]

Hello, thanks for your video, but a query, how you get the bios file, when you download the firmware is in a .pat format, and tried to decompress with 7zip and nothing, can you please indicate how you did it? Thank you

[@tapdatmac]

This is why I have my NAS on a double battery backup. Partial Home Backup With a UPS connected!!

[@gilou006]

Very interesting, bravo for your skills. Caught a little mistake : the frame is not made of aluminum. It looks and feels (I have a Ds 920+) like iron.

[@angrydove4067]

Great save, I have a Synology as well, a different model butI hope I don't end up with a nice brick someday.

[@RetroSpector78]

I hope so too! Always have a backup in place. Cloud sync or removable drive ...

[@PitboyHarmony1]

So, it seems like the preventative solution to all this, is to use a UPS on units like this, and avoid power supply errors.

[@bloeckmoep]

Nahh, that is not a real solution. Corruption still creeps up in an always powered system, those tiny serial flash ICs are always a single point of failure. Regardless of vendor and maker from lenovo/ibm to gigabyte, seagate to samsung, all of them use a serial flash for their firmware. A real solution to this would be a second back up flash but disconnected from data and power lines, only to be jumpered when needed. Unlike the gigabyte pseudo dual bios where everything is always connected and prone to silent corruption of main and back up flash.

[@MeneGR]

@@bloeckmoep Those were my thoughts as well. Maybe the BIOS chip was already corrupt and the problem didn't present itself until the next boot, when the machine tried to read it.

[@bloeckmoep]

@@MeneGR : a lot of device fail that way, bit flip/rot while powered on for a rather long time. That's also the reason why gigabytes dual bios fails too, the slave chip is always powered and connected to data lines, only the chip select is low. Add to this, the rigidity of firmware and serial flash to accommodate failing or degrading memory cells... flustercluck ensured. Can remember, apple put out an ios update for their iphone 4 to accept failing/faulty/aged battery ics. Iphone batteries come with a serial flash containing battery parameters, storing runtime, recharges, battery life cycle etc etc. Now if this always on ic degrades, there are certain symptoms suddenly showing, like spontaneous freezes or shut downs. That was fixed in an ios update to make the firmware more forgiving of errors stemming from the battery.

[@donoester6744]

@@bloeckmoep Having no experience with standalone flash ICs myself, except that they are probably accessed through SPI. But don't they have an embedded flash controller that actually controls the erasing/writing? I'm just kind of surprised how easy it seems to be to corrupt data, but presumably corruption can occur anyway? Retention should be many, many years.

[@Knightfall23]

Re constructing those Hex codes gave me flashbacks to my x86 assembly language course I have a true respect for people who can decipher hex and assembly like it’s nothing. Boggles my mind always.

[@Knightfall23]

Great job on the fix - what text editor were you using on the Mac to compare text files?

[@tscottist]

This is normal for synology, I have had a bunch fail. Thanks for the info, I will try this out on one of the ones that died.

[@MikesTropicalTech]

Great detective work!

[@HouseNuova500]

Perfect job done here. With the right tools and the right brain, it's excellent. I own two Synology NAS (a 1511+ and a 1821+), and I hope this will not happen to me. I've made all the things necessary to have the chance to my side : the two are hooked to a UPS with a capacity more than enough to power them for more than 20 minutes... but shit can always happen.

[@dshack4689]

I go even further - I have 2 Synology NAS, one in my house and one in the shed, both each on their own UPS and the shed is linked by fibre and yet still my NAS#2 died =(

[@dieSpinnt]

To call this a chance find would be rude. That was sheer skill! And thanks for the informative and entertaining video. Good job! What was lucky though is that Synology stores the bios/system image as a plain file(with header) and not encrypted with any strange routine... which is usually the norm. Also that none of the other many components was defective ... That was lucky. :)) Don't forget the backups, as NAS (even in a mirrored configuration) is NO Backup.

[@mandokir]

He just randomly edited the BIOS with no prompt whatsoever. Of course it was lucky as hell.

[@Rivenworld]

One of the reasons I always use a UPS, gives me a chance to shut things down properly.

[@RetroSpector78]

Yes will look into that. But I do wish they would make it a bit easier for fix these kinds of issues.

[@ChipGuy]

Synology can't really do anything here. This problem is with all the Atom C2000 series and some of the Celeron SoC series. The C2000 has this LPC bus problem and the Celeron does something equally stupid on the SPI bus when in bad mood. I had the same issue on a rack unit. At the end we replaced the PCB which in this case is a removable card. Good to see that you were able to just fix the flash. Since I did not discard the module I can try the same using the spare (yes spare) NAS we got because of this.

[@VioletGiraffe]

Synology can't really do anything here? That's silly. They could protect the flash chip better, install a backup flash chip, or not use a SoC that spontaneously bricks itself in the first place.

[@Giepie]

I would love to know your results (if you try to repair). I have 2x Synology NAS's with the same symptoms (a RackStation RS2416+ and a 5 bay DS1512+). (If you have a KZbin channel, please share a link)

[@ChipGuy]

@@VioletGiraffe Obviously you have not read the datasheet and the AppNotes. The SoC does not support any of this.

[@ChipGuy]

@@Giepie I got the Rackstation RP8xx+ something. 4 bay with that C2000 SoC and also that proprietary USB (I think it's USB) but not USB formfactor flash drive in it. Now that I know what the problem is I can try fix it when I have time. But at the time it failed my only chance was to order the new module in with over night express, since 16 people relied on that NAS being operational.

[@Giepie]

@@ChipGuy I wasn't able to find replacement boards (at least not here in South Africa), so I was forced to replace these units. I kept the faulty units, hoping to fix them "when I have time" (famous last words 😁) I suspected the DOM's (disk-on-module) to be corrupt, never crossed my mind it could actually be the ROM. I don't have the chip programmers etc, but will consider getting one - unless someone knows how to flash the ROM without removing the chip. I'd love to see your results 😁 (hopefully this would encourage you to fix yours 😁😁)

[@CessSim]

Great video. I had an issue a while back with my DS918+ although that was virus related. Since then I now back up regularly to an external drive, plus via a Cloud service as another layer of protection but as you say you shouldnt have to buy a new NAS for this type of failure.

[@joebarrett4353]

I had utter faith in my mirrored NAS believing I had safe data. Having watched your vid, I am now backing it up to a good old fashioned hard drive. What a nonsense to have to do that because I don't have the skills to do what you did.

[@ronreyes9910]

I had a couple Synology NAS's in the past but didn't care for them. QNAP is my go-to NAS now.

[@ElvisRandomVideos]

Synology boxes are definitely unreliable boxes! Mine died and I had to resort to hacking the box just like you did to get more life out of it. In my opinion a NAS box should last over 10 years for me to trust storing my data in it! Thanks for sharing the video I was about to buy another Synology product and I’m clearly not doing so now!

[@mikeperri7246]

Thank you so much "Retro". Really informative video. I have a DS920+ now in its 2nd yr - working really well. But I've often wondered - what do I do if I have a problem with the Unit? I replaced one hard drive that failed. Simple enough. But a problem with the box is scary to contemplate. As you say, very disappointing that Synology appears to not to have thought this through. Or maybe they have and are happy for clients to go buy a new box when they have problems with it. I'm sure a few of us would be very grateful if you could take the time to attach a note outlining to diagnostic process and points us to the basics of using the serial port interface. Anyway. Many thanks. Great work. Synology should thank you.

[@dshack4689]

You need a backup of your NAS even more importantly than a UPS (and a UPS is very important!). NAS is not backup, it’s high availability for drive failure but more often it seems the drives outlast the NAS =(

[@BrandonFeldmeier]

Found this very interesting, thank you!

[@richardturkson5916]

Bravo! Simply impressive!

[@oblac]

Your skills are impressive my good man ... great job !!! Synology should watch and learn ... We all know they won't ... but one can hope ;)

[@JohnnieHougaardNielsen]

I've had a DS918+ die suddenly, in a similar way. Had another solution, but when I looked into the NAS failure, symptoms looked like the infamous "Low Pin Count" interface affecting some Celeron CPU models. When I later was going in to try to fix it (found a suggestion in a KZbin video), the machine was able to boot again, without issues.

[@randallgriffin7358]

Yikes! I am a normal guy without your skills or tools, and my problem is slightly different: two blue blinks then power off. So, my question is: "Can I install my 4 drives (2x8TB & 2x10TB) in a new Synology unit without data loss?" Or perhaps you do house calls?? You are an excellent diagnostician and very brave. Thanks.

[@sunniy25]

well done...soo interesting to look at

[@dash8brj]

Some smart tinkering there, got it back up and running. Why did Synology not include a backup read only flash is beyond me.

[@e42_channel]

Great Job. Congratulation. I had a similar issue with an Cherry Wireless Desktop keyboard, where I must reflash the USB Tranceiver Stick. Thanks god I have more than one set of these desktop/mouse sets and I could clone the 24W02 EEPROM.

[@JanJanson84]

I had this exect behavior (blue led flashing, disks not spinnig up) as well. I have an UPS but it said battery failure. Indeed the batteries need to be replaced. So I disconnected the UPS and connected the UPS directly to a power outlet and after that the issue started. It ran fine before and was shut down properly. After I tried rebooting it my guess was that it kind of waits for the directly connected UPS (via USB). After I connected the UPS via serial the system booted up just fine. I disabled the UPS support and now the system runs. I dont know if thats just a coincidence.

[@blademan7671]

Sorry about the loss. 1. Use a UPS with USB connection to Synology. UPS configuration allows for Syn to park heads on power loss, but still connected to UPS. 2. Backup your Syn. If you want to lower risk of data loss. My UPS has saved me a bunch of times.

[@gremfive4246]

Excellent job fixing it, I'm kinda suprised you have a prebuilt NAS I would have thought you would have built your own.

[@RetroSpector78]

Hehe ... guess I'm not as hardcore as you think :) Sometimes I just want things that work. I also have an iPhone instead of an Android cause I don't have a lot of interest customizing everything. But I might do some kind of custom NAS build or FreeNAS solution soon :)