6 minutes ago, EdgarWallace said:

Yes that is why I choose that CPU. It is power efficient, supports ECC as well as non ECC and is 50% (single core) respective 4x faster (multi core) than my XEON CPU.

I will give your settings a try - probably the best starting point :-) thanks for your guidance!

Happy to help.

I regret going with the i9. The thread count is great, but it took a lot of fiddling around to get it to run cool and stable. Plus 1 RMA due to vmin issues.

I believe your CPU is a great choice.

In 2024 each stick i puchased was $200. Today that cost is $400-$800 depending on the vendor, and if new or used.

Kingston Server Premier 32GB 4800MT/s DDR5 ECC CL40 DIMM 2Rx8 Hynix M Server Memory - KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM.

On 7/19/2026 at 1:21 PM, landS said:

The ipmi hasn't beenn useful for me (I needed the pci slots).

I didn't realize this at first, but at the top of the PCI-E slots there's a very tiny x1 lane that is made specifically for the IPMI card. I suppose if you have a x1 device and were counting on that slot then the IPMI card won't be of much use, but I don't think most people will be using cards like that. If you include that x1 slot then there are five PCI lanes.

I've been building computers for about 20 years - shorter than many, I'm sure, but still... I'd never seen a x1 slot before and totally missed it because it's so tiny, and wasn't at all what I was expecting. Someone else had to point it out to me on these forums, and I was able to recover a standard-sized PCI slot as a result.

I'd still favor having the IPMI be integrated to the motherboard instead of a completely separate board, but it's less of a hit than it seemed at first.

@Ledgem That is true, and that slot is presently phsycally unused.

I ran out of PCI bandwidth the way my mini-sas connector is configured, plus

2 VM GPUs: Gigabyte 5060 Ti 16GB OC 3x fan, Palit 3050 KalmX 6GB Fanless, plus

2 VM USB cards: Inateck 2 Port PCIe USB 3.0 Card

Plugging the IPMI in would drop the mini-sas conneciton, unless I took out 1 of the other PCI cards.

I confirmed this issue with Asus support.

Plus, I really wanted to use my internal ODD with the VMs - something like, 'MZHOU 2 SATA Expansion Card, PCI-E 3.0 GEN3 JMICRON + JMB582 Chip', however that was also a no go. I instead replaced my internal ODD with external mini-usb ODD drives.

Edited August 14Aug 14 by landS

The below is ChatGPT, but I was able to run through this and wanted to make sure my AI-assisted journey was captured for future searches.

Successfully updated Intel ME firmware directly from Unraid Linux — No Windows or bootable PE required

Wanted to document a successful native Linux Intel Management Engine firmware update on my Unraid server, since the usual recommendations involve booting Windows PE or Hiren's BootCD.

Hardware/software:

• Motherboard: ASUS Pro WS W680-ACE IPMI

• CPU: Intel Core i7-12700K

• OS: Unraid 7.3.4, Linux kernel 6.18.58

• Original BIOS: 3401

• Original Intel ME: 16.1.25.1885

• Updated Intel ME: 16.1.40.2765

• Final BIOS: 4601

What worked:

1. Downloaded the official MEUpdateTool_16.1.40.2765_TP.zip from ASUS for my exact motherboard.

2. Extracted FW/ME.bin, which contains the firmware image.

3. Obtained the Linux x64 version of Intel's FWUpdLcl (version 16.1.25.1991) from the Win-Raid CSME 16 discussion.

4. Verified file hashes, motherboard identity, existing ME firmware, and updater functionality.

5. Stopped the Unraid array and ensured backups were available outside the NAS.

6. Ran the firmware update directly from the Unraid terminal.

Commands:

# Confirm existing firmware
cat /sys/class/mei/mei0/fw_ver

# Confirm updater can communicate with Intel ME
./FWUpdLcl -fwver

# Verify firmware image version
./FWUpdLcl -fwver ME.bin

# Optional: save existing ME update image
./FWUpdLcl -save ME_before.bin

# Actual firmware update
./FWUpdLcl -f ME.bin

The update completed with:

Sending the update image to FW for verification: [ COMPLETE ]
FW Update: [ 100% ]
FW Update completed successfully and a reboot will run the new FW.

After reboot, Linux reported:

0:16.1.40.2765
0:16.1.40.2765
0:16.1.25.1885

The third firmware-version entry remained unchanged, but the primary firmware updated successfully. ASUS BIOS also confirmed ME firmware 16.1.40.2765.

I subsequently updated to BIOS 4601 using ASUS BIOS FlashBack, and Unraid booted successfully. All 22 array data disks and ZFS cache pools came online and reported healthy.

Important caveats:

• This is one confirmed successful update on the ASUS Pro WS W680-ACE IPMI, not a guarantee for other motherboards.

• ASUS officially distributes a Windows updater; this Linux approach is not ASUS-supported.

• The Linux utility is an older, community-redistributed Intel executable. Its version predates the target firmware.

• Use only firmware intended for your exact motherboard.

• Verify the firmware hashes and retain off-system backups before attempting an update.

• A failed firmware flash may require specialized hardware recovery. The saved ME image is not a complete SPI-flash backup.

Result: Intel ME 16.1.25.1885 → 16.1.40.2765 successfully updated directly under Unraid Linux, without Windows, a VM, or a temporary boot environment.

Hopefully this helps others running Linux-only servers who need Intel ME firmware updates.