Ratdude's Main Rig V6

[ratdude747]

Coming soon: I'm building (er, upgrading) another workstation... in due time.

Why? V5's board fried it's LAN chip (or the BGA joints failed), and another x7dwa-n to replace it is, ahem, not in the cards. For now I can use a USB 3.0 adapter, but with the system not always stable (especially when the LAN tries to start working on occassion), I'd rather not keep it that way long term.

However, I did best offer this beuaty down to $85 shipped:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-X.../372077037122?

Which will be my starting point.

I will be resuing about 60-75% of the parts from V5.5:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=53867

Nice thing is since the current case uses modular PSUs, I have room for such an enhanced-EATX board. The versions that use regular ATX-size PSUs only go up to "regular" EATX.

What will have to change (needs purchased/obtained):

• I/O shield (none pictured, readily available on ebay)
• CPUs (need to decide which model to go for)
• Coolers; I need to decide what style as my case has the ducting and fans to run passive ones like intalled but I don't know what TDP they're rated for
• SAS card (as my beloved UIO card isn't compatible, but at the end of the V5 thread I came up with ideas)

...and RAM, which is why this will be an "in due time" project. ECC DDR3 (the good fast kind) is still a but pricey it seems, so it may be a while until I can get some. I've seen it for $50 for 16GB, which would work, but $85 is as much as I dare spend at the moment.

This will be fun...

[momaka]

Re: Ratdude's Ming Rig V6

What's a "Ming Rig"???
...
Sorry, I couldn't resist this trollolol moment.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Ming Rig V6

Mods: Please fix my bleeping thread title.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

Fixed it fer ya.

The market is flooded with 56xx-series Xeon processors right now. SLBVY 3.6GHz is the fastest quad core Westmere, a pair can be had for 80~90 all day long. SLBVX is the fastest hex-core Westmere @ 3.46, they're still up there a little @ around 200 or so for a pair. I don't see you doing anything that would tax 12 cores though, I'd take the extra speed and 8 cores.....but that's your call.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

Fixed it fer ya.

That isn't what I had in mind...

The market is flooded with 56xx-series Xeon processors right now. SLBVY 3.6GHz is the fastest quad core Westmere, a pair can be had for 80~90 all day long. SLBVX is the fastest hex-core Westmere @ 3.46, they're still up there a little @ around 200 or so for a pair. I don't see you doing anything that would tax 12 cores though, I'd take the extra speed and 8 cores.....but that's your call.

Noted. I've seen some as cheap as $30 a pair. I'll have to see...

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

If you want to get it up & running, I have a pair of Nehalems @ 2.26 (e5520) for free.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

If you want to get it up & running, I have a pair of Nehalems @ 2.26 (e5520) for free.

Also noted... until I have RAM sourced the CPU issue is irrelevant. This board has a CPU and cooler, so for testing I'm covered. Obviously I'll want to do better than that for the real build.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

4gb (smallest available) modules are a dime a dozen... 16gb (largest supported) modules are still pricey and harder to come by.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

4gb (smallest available) modules are a dime a dozen... 16gb (largest supported) modules are still pricey and harder to come by.

Which is what I figured. This beast has 18 slots for DDR3, but I bet filling them with 4gb modules won't work due to the limitations on ranks. I'll have to hit up the manual and see... 32GB is what V5 has but If I had to run 16, fine. Downgrade but whatever.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

Well shit. If I want to run at the full 1333, I'll have to limit myself to 6 RDIMMs, one per channel (single or dual rank only). Like with the Opterons, one can choose speed or slots, or a mix, but not all of both. 24GB would be the max using 4gb modules, which are indeed substantially cheaper than the big stuff.

Edit- What the hell, threw in an offer for 6 of such... They do make 1gb and 2GB modules, but the pricing on those isn't much different (and I'm not that much of a cheapass). 24GB, while a downgrade, from what I can tell will be a good starting point at least.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6, since I murdered my X7DWA

Look what I found:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-MegaRAID...torefresh=true

Any good?

edit- Bought it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

As per Topcat's suggestion, I went ahead and ordered a spare BBU:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/LSI-BBU06-Ba...ontroller-raid

Not too pricey.

Still figuring out CPUs and coolers... but dang, since I found a cheaper fix for RAM (and BTW if I go with Westmere's, I can do up to 6 modules per CPU at 1333, not 3 ), maybe this will build up faster than I expected.

Something else Topcat pointed out is this thing can do SLI... and since they provide 3 slots between the two 16x slots, if I found another GTX 970 like I'm running now (espcially an identical chinese Zotac with the same OC speed), then I could make it work and still have RAID and USB 3.0. I'll probably axe the TV tuner (what I have now is PCI, and while I have a PCIe one sitting, I never use the thing), so this would be a viable future upgrade. We shall see...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Bought CPUs:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PAIR-Intel-X...gAAOSw3YJZRDbu

They're the fastest E-series 6 core units. The fastest quad core E series is not much faster clockspeed wise (2.67 vs 2.53), but with the future being multi threaded (hell my freaking HTC M9 has 8 cores!), I think it's worth a little extra to have more cores.

I went with E series because they're only 80W a pop (not 95-130 in the X series), and I like things cool and quiet. Also, they're substantially cheaper; if I need more speed I can spend big bucks later.

Still working on RAM... nobody accepts reasonable offers it seems. At least I tried what topcat tried and was shot down (unlike topcat, lucky bastard).

----

RAID card came in today. Haven't tested it yet, but I like what I see. Even has an activity LED header so if I wanted to add in one of my breakout boards (to map the HDD LED to the card), I could. I probably won't, as I have activity lights on all 8 HDDs already.

At this point, it's RAM and coolers... and then I can convert V5.2 to V6.0.

Edit- the coolers I want: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dynatron-G65...QAAOSwSlBYvMBr

But steep pricing (OK, not really, more like I don't want to spend that much right now). I want to use my fan duct, so I need a 2U cooler (so a Cooler Master Hyper TX3 evo or the like won't do). I'll see if there are other options as I don't know what the supermicro fanless ones are rated for in a duct (since I'm not running an L series CPU or the like).

[momaka]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Edit- the coolers I want: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dynatron-G65...QAAOSwSlBYvMBr

But steep pricing (OK, not really, more like I don't want to spend that much right now). I want to use my fan duct, so I need a 2U cooler (so a Cooler Master Hyper TX3 evo or the like won't do).

No, you are right - $30 is quite a bit on the high side for a heatsink, especially a small one with a small fan. Probably wouldn't matter in a server room full of loud servers, but why would you want to use that as a main "rig"?

Need the small/slim form factor? Why not go with liquid cooling, then? You might even be the first one to ever put liquid cooling on server hardware, lol.

On the more serious side of things, what are the heatsink's physical size requirements? Sometimes, you can find one from a similar workstation/server on eBay for much cheaper. I've seen full-sized all-copper heatsinks sell just for the price of shipping ($7-10) - a steal if you ask me!

Fixed it fer ya.

Lol, nice one.
RD, how many boards have you murdered for your main rigs so far?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

No, you are right - $30 is quite a bit on the high side for a heatsink, especially a small one with a small fan. Probably wouldn't matter in a server room full of loud servers, but why would you want to use that as a main "rig"?

Need the small/slim form factor? Why not go with liquid cooling, then? You might even be the first one to ever put liquid cooling on server hardware, lol.

On the more serious side of things, what are the heatsink's physical size requirements? Sometimes, you can find one from a similar workstation/server on eBay for much cheaper. I've seen full-sized all-copper heatsinks sell just for the price of shipping ($7-10) - a steal if you ask me!

2U. 2U dynatrons barely fit (which is good) in the fan duct. Not too loud when PWM controlled.

Lol, nice one.
RD, how many boards have you murdered for your main rigs so far?

Here's all of the boards that I can remember failing in a main rig:

Pre main-rig V2:

-Tyan dual slot 1 board (DOA due to bad caps, the board that brought me to BCN)
-AMI Dual Slot 1 coppermine (died years after being retired, asterisk)
-Some asus 939 gamer board (never did work right, does that count?)
-Supermicro PDSGE: the first board Topcat ever gifted me, had a bad 775 socket, served my parents well after I was done with it (still in the "main rig" I used it in), died one day never to run again. I converted it to fanned northbridge heatsink, and I suspect the fan failed, cooking the northbridge (used in a hot attic). Case and PSU eventually reused for X5DAL rig #2.
-Gigabyte dual 462 board: topcat freebie #2, failed recap killed one CPU socket, which ultimately led to main rig V1 being gutted and swapped for the third board he gave me, main rig V2

Post Main rig V2:

-Supermicro X5dal-tg2: Main rig V2.x. Dead for a while due to bad BIOS mods, revived with a fresh chip direct from supermicro. Ran for a long time after that. Currently not running but PSU recap failure suspected (need to order caps, doh!)

-Supermicro X6DAE-G: Main rig V4.1 One USB header port fried from day one. Another bad bios mod killed it. Replaced with a cheaply scored X6DA8-G2, although I could use said replacement board to hotflash the bricked chip to revive the X6DAE-G if I ever wanted to.

Tyan S2885 Thunder K8W (X2): Main rig V3.0 Never ran right due to AMD AGP bridge horse puckey (no drivers for anything other than win98, win2000, and winXP x32). One has a wrong cap replaced and bloated (never got to fixing), the other had a recapped joint fail in storage (cap fell off???). Both are probably fixable if I ever had a use for them

Tyan S2895 Thunder K8WE: main rig V3.5. Died one day when a CPU socket fried. Oddly will run off the other socket if only one CPU installed. Fried when Main rig v5.0 was a confirmed to exist in the future; the V3.x line did come back later when V5.x rejected most of the V3.x parts and I obtained a much better Supermicro H8DCI to replace it (still runs as my wifey's rig, V3.8)

X7DWA-N (V5.x): Not fully dead, but the NIC fried at the same time I installed a new GPU, never to work fully again. When it does "work" the sytem BSODs a lot. Due to the intermittent nature I presently suspect a BGA failure but without a hot air station I can't say for sure. Might be investigated down the road as a future project.

------------

Board came in today. I have pictures, which I'll put in a fresh post.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Bought more things... RAM (in mail), I/O shield, and a failed attempt at coolers.

Turns out adding fans to the fanless cooler included (and a second clone) doesn't work as the RAM slots and the like are too close for a fan sticking out. I tried cutting the fins down to add clearance, but all that did for me is ruin a fanless cooler.

So dynatron's it is. Found some with a best offer, wish me luck.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

I owe you all pics.

She's running... sorta. Only detects half of the 24GB of RAM I installed... and on top of that, it only says I'm in single channel. Huh?

I followed the memory order in the X8DAH manual (DIMM1 first)... which would mean DIMM1A/B/C on each CPU, right? Running 6x 4GB DDR3 ECC's

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Funny, now it shows all 24GB but still single channel?

Maybe I need to do DIMM1A, DIMM2A, and DIMM3A instead?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Looked at a table in the manual... Yup, I did it wrong. 123, then ABC. Doh!

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V6

Fixed. Will run novabench on it... and pics will come tomorrow.