Hi guys, do you think it is possible to connect the exisiting SlimSAS to a SAS expander card? I need to attach more devices but I would like to spare some watts of an HBA card, since most of the HDDs won't run at the same time (so bandwidth won't be an issue). Do you think it is possible?

Posting here for anyone else who may be using ASUS Pro WS W680-ACE motherboard and are getting an F6 error code on boot. Turning off fast boot in the bios fixed the issue for me. Thanks @1adam12 and @Daniel15 who suggested this, I was on the verge of returning the motherboard as defective.

5 hours ago, Daniel15 said:

fast boot can't handle booting from USB for whatever reason.

The reason, btw, is because fast boot achieves its speediness by only enabling core hardware and features for POST and leaving everything else to the OS. 

 

Some of this "unnecessary" functionality that doesn't get loaded includes USB booting. 

I recently got this motherboard as well and i've ran into a couple of questions that i'm unable to figure out on my own. (most other questions have been answered in this topic, thanks!)

 

How do the power and reset switches work? do i have to choose to control the power via IPMI OR the power/reset buttons on the chassi? can i not do both somehow?

 

I just didn't read the instructions clearly and skimmed over the CHA section 😂

 

Is it possible to disable the IPMI webui session timeout?

 

unfortunately doesn't look like it's possible.

 

Has anyone successfully connected 4 sata drives with a SAS backplane with a reverse breakout cable to the 4 SATA ports on the motherboard? i'm wondering if my cables are junk or if the SAS backplane of my chassi is incompatible (somehow)

Edited June 6, 20242 yr by MammothJerk

50 minutes ago, MammothJerk said:

How do the power and reset switches work? do i have to choose to control the power via IPMI OR the power/reset buttons on the chassi? can i not do both somehow?

The IPMI card has pins for both plugging into the motherboard header pins, as well as passing through to the case buttons. You don't lose functionality, depending on the size of your case you might need extensions though. I ended up making some longer cables so I could cable manage them. 

Edited June 5, 20242 yr by fredskis

47 minutes ago, MammothJerk said:

How do the power and reset switches work? do i have to choose to control the power via IPMI OR the power/reset buttons on the chassi? can i not do both somehow?

You will have both. The PWR and RST wires from your case/chassis' I/O plug into the IPMI card, where two other wires are then connected to the motherboard's PWR and RST pins.

 

I can't currently check to answer your other questions.

5 hours ago, MammothJerk said:

Is it possible to disable the IPMI webui session timeout?

 

Just checked this on mine too. It looks like it is in Settings > Services

 

13 minutes ago, fredskis said:

Just checked this on mine too. It looks like it is in Settings > Services

 

looks like you can only set it to a range 300-1800 but not disable it completely, bummer

Didn't see this, but for those have KVM + igpu issues, make sure you change under the IPMI tab to linux in line drivers. At least that worked for TrueNAS.

14 hours ago, muddro said:

Didn't see this, but for those have KVM + igpu issues, make sure you change under the IPMI tab to linux in line drivers. At least that worked for TrueNAS.

Can you please provide a screenshot of this setting? 

On 6/22/2024 at 3:00 PM, Daniel15 said:

Can you please provide a screenshot of this setting? 

 

1 hour ago, fredskis said:

 

Just to confirm, this is the mATX version of the board?

 

These boards are similar enough that it makes it difficult for morons like me to figure out which one is being discussed and I think a lot of you have the mATX version.

3 hours ago, fredskis said:

 

I've got the mATX board, and mine doesn't have an "IPMI" tab.

 

There's tab labelled "Server Mgmt" instead, but it doesn't have an option like the one you mentioned:

 

My screenshot was from the ATX sized WS W680-ACE IPMI where the IPMI card is a separate add-in card that occupies a PCI-e slot and needs to be wired in to front panel headers, power, etc (ugly). Seems they're not so comparable to the built-in mATX version though if these differences exist?

 

Have you got the latest BIOS?

 

Edit: actually, going by your screenshot, seems you've got the same version as me. Hmm. 

 

Edited June 24, 20242 yr by fredskis

13 minutes ago, fredskis said:

Have you got the latest BIOS?

I've got the latest BIOS but I've only got the 1.1.11 BMC firmware instead of 1.1.12. I'll try upgrade it.

 

11 minutes ago, Daniel15 said:

I've got the latest BIOS but I've only got the 1.1.11 BMC firmware instead of 1.1.12. I'll try upgrade it.

 

Interesting, 1.1.34 is the latest version for the full sized board/card. (I've got 1.1.33 installed)

https://www.asus.com/motherboards-components/motherboards/workstation/pro-ws-w680-ace-ipmi/helpdesk_bios?model2Name=Pro-WS-W680-ACE-IPMI

Has anyone had an issue with Unraid freezing up after some number of days?  Haven't pinpointed exactly what is causing it yet.  It will work fine and then freeze and I can use IPMI to see the UNRAID login screen but can't actually enter any text in it via ipmi.. requires a hard reboot?

 

I am on 6.12.10

Edited July 1, 20242 yr by theDrell

7 hours ago, theDrell said:

Has anyone had an issue with Unraid freezing up after some number of days?  Haven't pinpointed exactly what is causing it yet.  It will work fine and then freeze and I can use IPMI to see the UNRAID login screen but can't actually enter any text in it via ipmi.. requires a hard reboot?

 

I am on 6.12.10

You should create a thread in general support with your diagnostics.

Ideally, set up a syslog server and post that file after a crash.

On 7/1/2024 at 3:08 PM, theDrell said:

Has anyone had an issue with Unraid freezing up after some number of days?  Haven't pinpointed exactly what is causing it yet.  It will work fine and then freeze and I can use IPMI to see the UNRAID login screen but can't actually enter any text in it via ipmi.. requires a hard reboot?

 

I am on 6.12.10

Which CPU do you have? 13900K and 14900K have known stability/reliability issues (not just on this motherboard). Other CPUs in the same generations should be OK though.

 

Are you using SR-IOV by any chance (to share the iGPU with multiple VMs and the host)? I've had a few crashes caused by it.

 

Like the other reply said, set up syslog and check the messages when it locks up. There should be a crash of some sort. It might be a CPU stall.

Edited July 13, 20241 yr by Daniel15

On 7/12/2024 at 10:13 PM, Daniel15 said:

Which CPU do you have? 13900K and 14900K have known stability/reliability issues (not just on this motherboard). Other CPUs in the same generations should be OK though.

 

Are you using SR-IOV by any chance (to share the iGPU with multiple VMs and the host)? I've had a few crashes caused by it.

 

Like the other reply said, set up syslog and check the messages when it locks up. There should be a crash of some sort. It might be a CPU stall.

Yeah I actually setup syslog and there wasn't much there and did a support thread.  Its 14900k.  I had upgraded the bios due to the lockups and it got worse.  Then I booted to winpe and upgraded the intel management engine, which should have 0 to do with anything really, and now it seems to be stable.. Has been up for a week and I am running another parity check to see.  Before I upgraded the Intel ME engine parity checks had been a given to freeze it.

On 7/15/2024 at 1:52 AM, theDrell said:

Then I booted to winpe and upgraded the intel management engine

 

How did you manage this by the way? Was a Windows installer ISO sufficient? Or did you have to bodge together something custom?

As I understand it, the Intel ME driver etc (Windows-only) installer also includes firmware updates for the chipset or some subcomponents of it? Unless I've misunderstood it... but I always see on motherboard manufacturer manuals/guides, to ALWAYS upgrade Intel ME. 

3 hours ago, fredskis said:

 

How did you manage this by the way? Was a Windows installer ISO sufficient? Or did you have to bodge together something custom?

As I understand it, the Intel ME driver etc (Windows-only) installer also includes firmware updates for the chipset or some subcomponents of it? Unless I've misunderstood it... but I always see on motherboard manufacturer manuals/guides, to ALWAYS upgrade Intel ME. 

What I did was download this.

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/

 

Then booted to it.  Installed the Intel Management engine inside it once it was booted.  I had already downloaded the Asus firmware with it and put it on the usb stick, and then used that to upgrade the Intel ME.  It seems to be running much better now.

 

Also the new bios said to upgrade the Intel ME "Before BIOS update, please download the Intel ME update tool from the ASUS support site and update the ME firmware to Version 16.1.30.2307 to ensure optimized system settings."

But that doesn't seem to imply that it has to be done.

Edited July 16, 20241 yr by theDrell

On 2/21/2024 at 12:25 PM, sharpling said:

Thank you,

Think I found the problem, 

The mobo seems to use port sharing between slimsas and pch nvme slots. I have slimsas connected to a sas backplane - disconnect it and the nvme drives are detected / working.

I will test if breakout cable allows any sata drives at all but i think it's the whole port - so no slimsas ports in case you want use pch m.2_2 or m.2_3.

Update: after putting back hba’s I now noticed that connecting slimsas also disables the x4 pcie slots so the problem points more towards bad cable or hardware.

i just ran into the same issue. setting the slimSAS port to SATA and plugging in a cable, the nvme slots AND all the pci slots stop working (even the ipmi board in the x1 slot stops working)

 

Did you ever get it figured out with slimsas -> sas backplane cable? i was hoping to avoid getting a second HBA card if i can.

 

i wasn't aware that these cables have any directionality to them and i am unable to find a "reverse breakout" SFF-8654 to SFF-8087 cable.

this is the cable i got: https://www.inline-info.com/en/products/cable/sas/11195/inline-slim-sas-kabel-sff-8654-zu-mini-sas-sff-8087-12gb/s-0.5m

edit: the manufacturer responded to my inquiry

Quote

The cable is intended for the following connection:

 

mini sas (SFF-8087) HOST -> Slimsas (SFF-8654) TARGET - (mini sas port on motherboard/hba to slimsas port on ssd/hdd).

so it would appear they DO have directionality, i'll see if i can find such a cable on ebay instead...
 

Edited August 14, 20241 yr by MammothJerk

1 hour ago, MammothJerk said:

setting the slimSAS port to SATA and plugging in a cable, the nvme slots AND all the pci slots stop working

 

Sometimes some of the onboard features share/reuse PCIe lines, and thus some PCIe or NVMe slots stop working when you use them. It's weird to see all of them stop working though. The frustrating thing with this board is that Asus refuse to release a block diagram for it, which would allow us to see all the shared PCIe lanes and what they're attached to. I emailed them asking for one and they said they couldn't release it publicly <_<

Anyone that has has noticed that lspci reports PCIe devices being downgraded on this motherboard? I have a w680 and a c246 and the w680 struggles a lot with negotiating the PCI speeds it seems, even if you set them in the BIOS. If anyone has encountered this issue I'm really interested to know what's going on. I've tried all kinds of BIOS changes, but none seems to change anything.