Ratdude's main rig V5.0

[Per Hansson]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Wasn't able to read the text on the switching regulators so I used the LDO instead, as I also found prices on that.
I still stand by that I think it's a kludge to have to use a molex power cable for the cards.

Just as an example your quote of: "full-height cards may configure themselves as 'high-power' to reach 25 W, while half-height x1 cards are fixed at 10 W. "
I'm not implying Wikipedia is wrong but that's just even more kludge/bullshit/crappy design.

So what makes my half height card only able to draw 10w but a full height magically can do 25w? It's just a silly standard.
Case in point: my 800GB Intel 910 SSD is half height yet can draw up to 25w in standard configuration or up to 28w (38w peak) if I change a setting on it.
That's quite allot more than the magic 10w it's supposed to be limited for.
But I digress again

[mariushm]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

I think the limitations have to do with designing motherboard PCBs and how traces are routed to the pci-e connectors, how much guaranteed power a card should expect from the slots and other safety/whatever factors.

For example a small form factor PC may power the whole system from a 19v laptop adapter style power supply and the motherboard may have a small dc-dc converter on it to power fans and one or two hard drives, so let's say about 4-5 amps in total, and then it would make sense to have a limit of 10w/25w for pci-e x1 and x4 connectors because too much draw from cards could brownout sata devices.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

I think the limitations have to do with designing motherboard PCBs and how traces are routed to the pci-e connectors, how much guaranteed power a card should expect from the slots and other safety/whatever factors.

For example a small form factor PC may power the whole system from a 19v laptop adapter style power supply and the motherboard may have a small dc-dc converter on it to power fans and one or two hard drives, so let's say about 4-5 amps in total, and then it would make sense to have a limit of 10w/25w for pci-e x1 and x4 connectors because too much draw from cards could brownout sata devices.

Yeah. To simplify, if you make it so it will fit in a half height system, only expect 10W per slot.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

However, revealing where it's coming from (how Topcat got it) would reveal some stuff Topcat hasn't gotten to posting, so I'll let that be topcat's story to tell.

Well, how'd I miss this?!

The story behind it, I have a client that deals in unused NOS, factory returns, and refurbishing. They buy caps from me all the time....but unlike normal clients, these guys pay me in hardware they have around their facility....they deal with datacenters and other IT-related industries and end up with a lot of unused server & workstation supermicro stuff, as well as switches, routers, and gadgets that even I wouldn't have any idea how to use or what they even are...but anyway.... When they need caps, my contact emails me or calls, telling me theres a goodie box on the way and tells me what caps he needs....usually 3300uF 6.3v for soem reason.... That's where this X7DWA came from some time back, in new condition. It was the board used in the Ultimate File Server thread.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. Since completion of the UFS, my guys sent me another goodie box with an X8DTI-F with a pair of 2.4GHz Westmere processors in it. I already have one of these boards in another system with a pair of 2.2GHz Nehalem CPU's in it, which I'm saving for something else (cough shovenose:colo: cough)....so when I had a chance for another one...yea. Its a server board with onboard GPU (matrox g200), etc....and since the X7DWA is more of a workstation board, plus the X8 platform uses DDR3 and overall is an upgrade for a server, I pulled the X7DWA and swapped it out with the X8DTI, with 48GB RAM. The HDD and OS config remained the same as what was shown in the thread... I just didn't post about this.

Anyway, I had absolutely no use for the X7DWA system, and wasting something like that is just blasphemous, I gave it to Larry, since he was passing through the area on unrelated business, it made it easy (I didn't have to deal with shipping it). He'll make far better use of it than me....if it remained here, it would just sit in the parts room until it became an unusable antiquity...

Ok, storytime is over now.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Back from work trip, cable arrived.

Working on pics, for now, a benchmark:



One thing I did notice is that they were tossing smart errors at first, likely due to overheating. The apartment was hot and the side cover off (no air flow), and they roasted. With the apartment at a cooler (more reasonable) temp and the cover installed they run reasonably cool.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Warning for topcat:

https://community.spiceworks.com/top...vers-are-loade

Having that issue here (switching to RAID 10)... I'll try again with fresh drivers (the ones I sent you may not be the latest after all?). edit- found some that ill try, they're attached.

edit- right driver, no bueno. Looks like Raid 10 + this controller + Win 7 is a fail...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Picture time!

While doing some testing on V4.1 I had this out of service, which was the chance I needed to take pictures and make some more changes.

First, an overview of the guts:



Those HDD numbers aren't accurate as to make the breakout cable happier I reversed the numbering.

I added a Hauppage 1600 QAM card so I could watch the Indy 500. I also added a dual 1394 header to tap into the firewire chip on the board:



Not that I use either of those a lot... but they come in handy when I do.

The new SAS drives and cable:



Only one zip tie required... this cable assembly is a perfect fit and well worth the two weeks it took to come in from china. Every other cable I saw was too long, wrong power plugs (molex instead of SATA), or used pigtails AND cost $30+ (startech.com I'm looking at you, too long too).

Finally, the plethora of connections in the back:



Yes I did find and replace that missing thumbscrew.

Look good? It certainly performs well (minus the RAID card bootup time, but I'll forgive that).

[TechGeek]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

That cable management...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

That cable management...

Good or bad?

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

gets a thumbs up from me.

[TechGeek]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Could you clean that up a bit? Move unused cables to the back of the case?

[Sparkey55]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Good or bad?

Looks great to me, alot more tidy than what I have seen from other shops.

[kaboom]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Could you clean that up a bit? Move unused cables to the back of the case?

Hey, RD, looks like those firewire cables are choking (or blocking???) the fan in that video card.


We don't want any overheating BGAs.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Well, how'd I miss this?!

The story behind it, I have a client that deals in unused NOS, factory returns, and refurbishing. They buy caps from me all the time....but unlike normal clients, these guys pay me in hardware they have around their facility....they deal with datacenters and other IT-related industries and end up with a lot of unused server & workstation supermicro stuff, as well as switches, routers, and gadgets that even I wouldn't have any idea how to use or what they even are...but anyway.... When they need caps, my contact emails me or calls, telling me theres a goodie box on the way and tells me what caps he needs....usually 3300uF 6.3v for soem reason.... That's where this X7DWA came from some time back, in new condition. It was the board used in the Ultimate File Server thread.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. Since completion of the UFS, my guys sent me another goodie box with an X8DTI-F with a pair of 2.4GHz Westmere processors in it. I already have one of these boards in another system with a pair of 2.2GHz Nehalem CPU's in it, which I'm saving for something else (cough shovenose:colo: cough)....so when I had a chance for another one...yea. Its a server board with onboard GPU (matrox g200), etc....and since the X7DWA is more of a workstation board, plus the X8 platform uses DDR3 and overall is an upgrade for a server, I pulled the X7DWA and swapped it out with the X8DTI, with 48GB RAM. The HDD and OS config remained the same as what was shown in the thread... I just didn't post about this.

Anyway, I had absolutely no use for the X7DWA system, and wasting something like that is just blasphemous, I gave it to Larry, since he was passing through the area on unrelated business, it made it easy (I didn't have to deal with shipping it). He'll make far better use of it than me....if it remained here, it would just sit in the parts room until it became an unusable antiquity...

Ok, storytime is over now.

I'm missing out, LOL.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Could you clean that up a bit? Move unused cables to the back of the case?

There isn't much free area in the back of the case... so no, thumbs down from me.

Looks great to me, alot more tidy than what I have seen from other shops.

Thank you. I take pride in the build quality and attention to detail in my builds.

Hey, RD, looks like those firewire cables are choking (or blocking???) the fan in that video card.


We don't want any overheating BGAs.

One would think so but not really... it encircles the fan opening and I haven't really noticed any different temps or fan behaviors. That said, I did have that concern at first (and why I didn't add them at first). I do plan to eventually upgrade the GPU (as Topcat is kicking my ass in that department ) which may not agree with said cables... I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Well Shit.

The other night the RAM overheated again... and the fan was still attached! My wife left the AC off for 4-6Hrs... that's all it took. Stupid Easy Bake FBDIMMs.

I'm probably going to save up for a nicer case, with an SAS backplane and 865W PSU. I've had enogth of the undetected overheating.

I technically could trade cases with:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=41187

but I really would like a proper modern SAS backplane.

Edit- found one, making a lowball offer:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-I...MAAOSwKfVXLlS7

That ought to fit the bill.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

you kilt it?!

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

you kilt it?!

Nope, just had the available memory glitch happen. Edit- posted this (both post and edit) from it.

On the plus side this case has clear plastic cooling reflectors that should cool the RAM. Air flows under the the active part of the heatsinks and through the RAM; the plastic parts keep the air from going around the sides.

900W Redundant PSU... I don't want to spend the money (I have it to spend though) but for $215 that's a lot of case and PSU. I think I will buy it if I can get the price down at all.

All that's missing are two caddies and the SAS cables (which I think I have sitting in my parent's basesment; I got a pair bundled with V4.1's 9650).

Topcat approved case?

Edit- may be a show stopper in that it seems to be a server PSU (no PCIe power connections). I'd have to hack it in, which I probably could do?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Here's one I'm not getting (cost mainly, but also it looks funny):

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-564-_-Product

Who said EATX wasn't for gamers? Supermicro, what have you done?

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's main rig V5.0

Upon closer inspection I will need two SAS breakout cables with sidebands... luckily I saw NOS ones on ebay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-C...oAAOSwQjNW-EBP

(and other NOS ones for the same price)

Also found cheap caddies:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-3...YAAOSwJcZWb7-2

So yeah, if I can get the price down, we have a winner. I'd have to mod the PSU to cable board to have a couple PCIe connectors (which I may just get on digkey and wire up using recycle wires, Unless somebody has some salvaged pigtails they'd want to sell me). 900W, yeah, that's all on the main CPU rail as the sticker on the front is for older Xeon (probably when SAS first came out, late model netburst).