Ratdude's Main Rig V6

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

No novabench as the current version is broken and supposedly they'll have it fixed next week (unsigned driver bull puckey).

That said, she does run decently... more on that tonight.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Worked late, too tired last night. No pics yet.

But, I did have an old copy of novabench on my server, so here's a classic novabench:

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Picture time:

Initial fitup testing: She fits!



Note the extra 35mm or so of extra board above the I/O shield area. That's what makes this board special; it's enhanced extended ATX. The only cases I've seen with appropriate provisions out of the box is Supermicro tower/4u convertable units with modular slim PSUs (like what I have) and some supermicro rackmount servers (actually where most X8DAH___ boards seem to come from, ironically enough). It uses a somewhat different standoff pattern (which uses the larger footprint), so retrofitting these into other cases might be, ahem, "interesting"


Final build pictures:

Just for laughs, I put in one of my breakout boards:



Last time I ordered PCBs from china, I ran 10 of them, and bought parts to build up 3. Just in case I ever want to re-purpose my HDD LED, now I can.



One issue is I didn't have an I/O shield with the board, and removing and installing the mobo in this system is a massive PITA (mainly due to the SAS cables, more on that later). So, instead, I unscrewed the board, and did this to sneak in the shield:







Now, about the SAS cables. As shown in other threads, the SAS backplane connections are a ship in a bottle to deal with, and the sidebands in particular are a pain due to the ends being slightly shorter than the SAS cables themselves and the sideband connectors on the backplane are slightly away from the SAS connections. As a result, I had to do this to make the sidebands reach:



Why SM didn't use a mini SAS instead of separate sideband and SAS (SATA) plugs is beyond me, although I've seen other companies do it too. I think it's stupid, to be honest.

CPUs, coolers, and RAM installed:



Duct installed, everything ready to go:



Looks good? Well, there is a problem. If you read my mess of posts above, you'll see that ding dong over here skewered the RAM, putting everything one one channel, not split between channels. As a result, the speed was dropped (a clue I missed) and I even got an ECC error out of the blue. Here is how it should have been:



No more ECC errors, RAM shows as triple channel at full speed.

One other gremlin I had to deal with was that the onboard graphics are always default, unless one disables it with a jumper. Was the cause of a lot of confusion during initial testing.

The LSI setup was "different", but once setup all is good. Runs fast enough, and has a much quicker boot time than the adaptec in V5.x.

So far, so good... Jury is out on the BBU, but I do have a spare if issues come up.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

I'm diggin' it!

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

X8* MBs from Super Micro are 3 generations old, so whatever the state of technology was then ... . X8 MBs are no longer in production and many/most X9 MBs are as well. Likewise the chassis models which the X8DAH fits and the PSUs for those chassis (I think there is a backward compatible current model). Super Micro does a lot of proprietary form factors.

As you find time I suggest calling Tech Support to find out what BIOS and firmware updates may be necessary. Tech Support is in the Pacific Time Zone.

[momaka]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Lol those CPU coolers look tiny in that case. Should be fine for the job, though. Besides, I like how they have their own clear shroud over them to keep the heat from spreading through the rest of the case. On that note, I really like the way your case has those three San Ace 80 fans - it's an effective way to establish good airflow across the motherboard. And they are good reliable fans too.

Looks like a very solid PC so far. DON'T KILL IT THIS TIME!

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

X8* MBs from Super Micro are 3 generations old, so whatever the state of technology was then ... . X8 MBs are no longer in production and many/most X9 MBs are as well. Likewise the chassis models which the X8DAH fits and the PSUs for those chassis (I think there is a backward compatible current model). Super Micro does a lot of proprietary form factors.

As you find time I suggest calling Tech Support to find out what BIOS and firmware updates may be necessary. Tech Support is in the Pacific Time Zone.

Power supplies are still in production, they've used this form factor for years. I have 80+ platinum rated 920w PSUs for it (bargain eBay score, see the V5 thread) so I feel I'm future proof for a while.

I haven't touched the BIOS yet... But whatever SM has listed should be the latest.

Momaka: San ace is SM's stock brand they use for everything. PSUs and coolers too. Good fans, that's for sure.

Also, the ATX PSU versions of this case (which I and topcat have used in other builds) has a 4th fan up top.

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

1 Power supplies are still in production, they've used this form factor for years. I have 80+ platinum rated 920w PSUs for it (bargain eBay score, see the V5 thread) so I feel I'm future proof for a while.

I haven't touched the BIOS yet... 3 But whatever SM has listed should be the latest.

Momaka: 2 San ace is SM's stock brand they use for everything. PSUs and coolers too. Good fans, that's for sure.

Also, the ATX PSU versions of this case (which I and topcat have used in other builds) has a 4th fan up top.

1 I believe the Gold-rated PWS-1K41P-1R, which shipped with those chassis, has been largely replaced by the Platinum-rated PWS-1K43F-1R, though the latter doesn't have the PM Bus feature. The 1K43F has been around since 2012. The PWS-920P-SQ and -1R are very different form-factors (and connectors); both are Platinum-rated.

2 You'll also find Delta fans in some Super Micro PSUs, and not just those PSUs made by Delta. Either way, good fans are the necessary accompaniment to heavy metal, .

3 You can check what is current through the blue "Links & Resources" box on this page, https://www.supermicro.com/products/...F.cfm?LRDIMM=Y

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

The PSUs I'm using are PWS-920P-1R units. I also have a 720W Gold rated unit, and some ancient 900W ones with no fan throttling. All fit my case and have been used in it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6



I bricked the damn thing.

I was playing around with splash screens. My first try worked, although the color pallet was messed up. The second try did it in though... now as soon as it tries to do anything graphical during POST, it craps out.

I'll order a new BIOS chip... and probably try hotflashing the old one so I have a backup. EDIT- No I won't, the bastard is a soldered 8 pin job (32mb Ami SPI Flash chip), not a socketed PLCC! :nutckick: I can get a chip (ordered from ebay) but I'll have to remove the old one (chipquik solder to the rescue) and solder in the new.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Idea:

What if I made a few PCBs to hold this form factor of chip, and soldered wires to the footprint on the board to connect to this board via a removable connector? Tada, socketed BIOS chip. SPI isn't anything fancy (hell it's used with Arduino, I used it for DAC's a lot) so flying leads should work out.

Then I get some of these 32mb SPI flash chips, and now I can hotflash and tinker all I want

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

I bricked the damn thing.

How do you do it!!

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

How do you do it!!

I can't help myself !?!?

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

How do you do it!!

He knows more than enough to be dangerous and is, .

Nosing around the Super Micro website, the 920P-1R is used in several current products, but does not appear on the power supply matrix. The -SQ is equivalent, with less acoustic noise.

[momaka]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

I bricked the damn thing.

Really?! Now your wife needs to jump in here and say, "this is why we can't have nice things!"

But seriously, why -oh- why do you have to even edit those stupid splash screens? The thing appears for like 1 second when you turn on your computer, and after that it's gone. And if you're the type of guy that doesn't power-cycle his PC daily, then there's even less of a point to spend so much effort on something that no one will even notice or care about. Heck, if you ever let me use your computer, that would be one of the first things I *disable* in CMOS - I hate splash screens with a passion. It just reminds me too much of Apple's "hide everything from the user" non-transparency BS looks. No thanks, I actually like to see what my PC is doing as soon as I press the power button.

Anyways...
I don't know, to me it just doesn't make sense to flash a board and risk bricking it for such small meaningless endeavor. If the flash was to fix CPU support or some other known *issue*, I would do it. But on boards that work fine as is, I NEVER touch the stock BIOS (even if it's an early release version).

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

He knows more than enough to be dangerous and is, .

Nosing around the Super Micro website, the 920P-1R is used in several current products, but does not appear on the power supply matrix. The -SQ is equivalent, with less acoustic noise.

Note to self to keep an eye out for a deal on an SQ... as on both V5 and V6 (before I f*cked it up) the PSU is the loudest component. Not that the 1R is bad, but for a workstation quieter is better.

That said, I do have 2 1R's (only one installed for noise and efficiency reasons) so spare parts isn't an issue right now.

EDIT- Here's the cheapest I've found on fleabay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Suppl...kAAOSweW5Vbgaj

Not too horribly expensive (based on the selling history, they will only go down to $110), but unless it's a night and day difference I can't justify the cost. Even if it is, I have better places to spend my money right now... Still, thanks for the heads up!

------

I've decided against the BIOS module idea... nowhere good to retain the cables and looking at the clock speeds these sort of SPI chips run at (~100MHz) flying leads aren't good enough. IIRC RF starts around 100kHz, so even though it's digital, impedance and signal path might actually matter. I'll just solder in the new (pre-programmed) chip, call it a day, and not mess with this BIOS. Knowing my luck the old chip had an SLIC table on it (server barebones board) which the new one probably won't have... Oh well. I have other means...

-PS- I'll always flash a newer stock BIOS or an SLIC'd one known to work. I often do try to SLIC my own too (Several of my workstations have been, although some took more trial an error than others), but those all had socketed PLCC BIOS chips. You'd think on an enterprise grade piece of hardware they wouldn't have done this SOIC chip crap... but looking at what form factors 32mb SPI flash chips come in, all are non-socketed SMD chips, and compared to, say a QFN package, this is the most serviceable of the choices. At least it CAN be serviced in some fashion without a heat gun and reflow oven...

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

The thing appears for like 1 second when you turn on your computer, and after that it's gone.

I never see the motherboard POST splash on any of my systems. Upon powerup, its already loading winders by the time the monitors come out of sleep mode. Even my office system (X7DWA-N), which is a slow POSTer, by the time the monitors wake up, its rolling through the SAS controller init.

Back in the days when a splash would actually show, I too disable splash screens, I always liked seeing the system specs & memtest more.

RD, is there a BIOS recovery option on this board? Some of them have a jumper that will force a basic POST off a boot block....which will allow booting off a floppy or USB in order to reflash a failure/corrupted binary.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

RD, is there a BIOS recovery option on this board? Some of them have a jumper that will force a basic POST off a boot block....which will allow booting off a floppy or USB in order to reflash a failure/corrupted binary.

Ah. The manual mentions the AMI BIOS recovery manual, which I've attached.

Will try tonight. I've already ordered Chip Quik and a fresh chip, but not having to remove the mobo would be nice (more of a pain than the resoldering itself, actually). How I missed this in the manual I do not know...

[PeteS in CA]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

rd, if that used 920P-SQ in the Fleabay picture is what is actually being sold, its datecode is 42nd week of 2012 ("C42"). The current Rev is 1.2, but I don't think a Rev 1.0 would be a problem ("I can say no more.").

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

rd, if that used 920P-SQ in the Fleabay picture is what is actually being sold, its datecode is 42nd week of 2012 ("C42"). The current Rev is 1.2, but I don't think a Rev 1.0 would be a problem ("I can say no more.").

Yeah, and it's not being sold as a new unit for $250 either. This isn't an enterprise grade mission critical server I'm building here. If I was, used wouldn't be touched in the first place.