Motherboard help

[paths]

I am in the process of building a Unraid server and have some questions.

 

I decided on and bought the Antec 900 Case and a Corsair 520HX power supply. But now I am trying to decide on a Motherboard.

 

What is best board for features and compatability? I checked the recommended list and the Abit Ab9 Pro I was going to use seemed to be rated good, but mentions some have compatability issues. anyone running this board with at least 10 drives and doing so reliably?

 

The other board I was looking at was the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P.

 

My main criteria was as many Sata ports as possible. But I read that you want as much stuff off certain busses as possible. do these boards meet that need? Or is there something else out there that would work better?

 

Thanks

[prostuff1]

I am in the process of building a Unraid server and have some questions.

 

I decided on and bought the Antec 900 Case and a Corsair 520HX power supply. But now I am trying to decide on a Motherboard.

 

What is best board for features and compatability? I checked the recommended list and the Abit Ab9 Pro I was going to use seemed to be rated good, but mentions some have compatability issues. anyone running this board with at least 10 drives and doing so reliably?

 

The other board I was looking at was the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P.

 

My main criteria was as many Sata ports as possible. But I read that you want as much stuff off certain busses as possible. do these boards meet that need? Or is there something else out there that would work better?

 

Thanks

 

I am using the Abit Board and everything is working fine for me.  I have the unRAID pro license and 8 total disks hooked up.  1 of the disks is parity and the other is the cache disk.

 

Everything has worked fine for me pretty much from day one.  Just make sure to update the BIOS to the latest and set the correct boot order and you should be good to go.

 

I will also be updating the Hardware page in about a months time with the tested level for that board.  I restarted the server last night after messing with it, did a parity check, captured the syslog and I will do it all again in about a months time so that this board can be certified level 2.

[SSD]

As far as I know, the only compatibility issue with the AB9 is that it won't run headless.

 

If you already own that board I would use it, no hesitation.  It has more SATA ports than any other motherboard.  Unfortunately, the company is out of business, so future BIOS updates are not going to happen.  A number of leaders here, including WeeboTech and prostuff1, use this board.

 

If you are looking at a new board, I'd recommend that you look at the SuperMicrso C2SEE.  It is the "standard" motherboard, meaning that Limetech uses it in their current server offerings.  It is the surest sign of compatibility - both now and in future versions.  Although it only has 6 SATA ports, it has 2 PCI-e 4x+ ports and 1 PCI-e 1x port.  That is enough to economically add 10 more drives allowing you to reach 16 high speed SATA ports (none on PCI bus) using 2 Adaptec 1430SAs + 1 SiL 3132 add-on controllers.

 

The hardware compatibility pages lists a number of other motherboards that folks have had good luck with.  Do your homework, though.  Just because someone claims success, it doesn't mean that it has been extensively tested.

[paths]

Thanks for the input....

 

I really like Abit Mobo's but I was unaware they are not longer a company. sad as I have had nothing but lukc with them in the past and my HTPC and desktop mobo are both Abits...

 

I think I am going to try the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P mobo as it seems well made and some are alrady using it with success. If it winds up having some issue I can use that as a learning experience and go from there.

 

Now the other question is, what processor should I use? I don't want to go overboard on it, but do not want to undercut myself if having a better processor could help me in the system down the road?

 

I am assuming a dual core will be a good choice for this application. What speed etc should I look for or what other procs should I look at?

 

 

[prostuff1]

Thanks for the input....

 

I really like Abit Mobo's but I was unaware they are not longer a company. sad as I have had nothing but lukc with them in the past and my HTPC and desktop mobo are both Abits...

 

I think I am going to try the GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P mobo as it seems well made and some are alrady using it with success. If it winds up having some issue I can use that as a learning experience and go from there.

 

Now the other question is, what processor should I use? I don't want to go overboard on it, but do not want to undercut myself if having a better processor could help me in the system down the road?

 

I am assuming a dual core will be a good choice for this application. What speed etc should I look for or what other procs should I look at?

 

 

 

The lowest speed dual core should be more then enough and pretty future proof.  I have an E1200 running on my machine and it has been nothing but great.

[SSD]

Answer is highly dependent on how you plan to use the unRaid server. If just as a file server, get a cheaper one. Fast processor performance means little to nothing to unRaid. But if your short term plans include running VMs on the server, or other processor intensive tasks like transcoding video, a faster CPU might be in order. I run a slower CPU and have no regrets.

[paths]

I was going to do e1500 on the proc, but the place was out of it, so instead of go lower I went to the e5200 since it was not very expesnive and should easily handle anything I would need the box to do for a while.

 

now, I just need to get my psu tomorrow and the mobo and get it built. I hope to do that this weekend.

[paths]

Figure I get everything together and there is an issue somewhere in my setup as I can not boot up.... rrrrrrr

 

I can not boot up the fan on the processor starts then stops, the stock heatsink/fan is secure so I am unsure what it is at the moment. I never had issues installing any Abit mobo before... anyone have any gigabyte tips?

[SSD]

If your computer starts to power on and then powers itself down it is normally something major that is not hooked up right.  Did you plug in the little 4 pin power connector? 

 

It could be a bad PSU (or underpowered PSU if you have a ton of drives connected).

 

Is anything showing up on the monitor?  If you have an internal speaker sometimes you get some beeps that can help indicate the problem.

[paths]

I think I got a bum mobo from the egg..

 

I took it out of the case and put it on the box it came in, in case it was shorting out or something, but the same thing happens. It starts to boot and stops and keeps repeating that. Small chance it could be the processor, but it stops to quick and I do not make it to the bios screen or anything.

 

also, unfortunately the antec 900 case does not have a speaker so I can not use that.

 

I did notice while looking on it, that the mobo had some bend to it while sitting there, I am thinking the mobo is a little warped and maybe something is wrong with it. I have one place near me that has the same mobo (Microcenter) but they said they dont pricematch and it is about 20.00 more there. I am going to return this one to newegg, but have to decide if I want to wait for a replacement or just get a refund and spend the extra $$ at microcenter.

 

 

[RobJ]

It could be the motherboard, but other possibilities are bad or incorrectly installed memory, bad power or incorrectly installed power plugs, poorly installed CPU heatsink (missing or badly applied paste), faulty addon card, etc.  Try booting with the absolute minimum of peripherals and cards and only one memory stick, and no drives, then try the stick in different slots.  Also some of the new boards have a port 80 (I think that is what it is) LED, with a 2 digit numeric display of boot codes, that in conjunction with the mobo manual, are really helpful in determining at what point the boot failed.  Also, if there was a bend in the board, make sure that the offsets are correctly installed, so there's no short somewhere.

[paths]

well I tried a new mobo and had the same problems. So I exchanged the processor.

 

But now I have  a question for you RobJ since you have this very board yourself, or at least I think you do.

 

do you have to have a HD installed to get to the bios? I do not think you need one, I never recall needing it on the abits I used. I haven't tried the new processor yet, but I am running out of things to change out and try. I just thought about not having and HD hooked up, but that doesn't show up until after the bios loads.

[RobJ]

well I tried a new mobo and had the same problems. So I exchanged the processor.

 

But now I have  a question for you RobJ since you have this very board yourself, or at least I think you do.

 

do you have to have a HD installed to get to the bios? I do not think you need one, I never recall needing it on the abits I used. I haven't tried the new processor yet, but I am running out of things to change out and try. I just thought about not having and HD hooked up, but that doesn't show up until after the bios loads.

 

No, sorry, I don't have that board.  Mine are listed to the left of this post.  Perhaps you were thinking of this post?  I did notice it, and liked it, but could not afford it.  According to that thread and the Hardware Compatibility page, I don't believe we have a confirmation yet that it is fully compatible with unRAID.

 

You should never need an HD installed to get to the motherboard BIOS.  I *think* that may be true for a very few addon cards though, to fully access their BIOS.

 

Have you tried the other suggestions, about memory sticks, power, etc?  It's very unlikely to be the processor itself, so long as you have checked that it is on the compatibility list for that motherboard, and even that can often be fixed by a BIOS upgrade.

 

You might check the Newegg reviews for ideas about it.  I just took a quick peek, and there are some very good suggestions to check out.

[paths]

It is working now....

 

It was a bad processor.... I picked up a new one yesterday and put it on just a short while ago and it worked fine. Had to go through everything else first as I did not have an extra processor lying around. Switched memory around, different video cards, temoved everything from the ase, use different PSU, and even tried a new copy of the Mobo that thankfully I do not need and can return. But I am happy now. The Mobo looks good and the antec Nine Hundred case and setup should be nice.

 

I do not have any drives in it yet, but I booted unraid and was just wondering around the directories checking it out.

 

Now I need to get some drives hooked up. I have a 1.5 TB in my HTPC, along with 2 500's I will probable take the 1.5 from there and add 2 more to this server.

 

Do you have a switch? I was looking at a dlink 2205 on Amazon, but will dig around on here more to see what others recommend.