Asus A8R32MVP Deluxe - Level 1 Tested


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This is a gaming / overclocking / "enthusiast" board, so you could say it is overkill for a NAS (ditto for the processor, video card and RAM). But it ran well for me for 2 1/2 years so I decided to utilize it for an unRAID build. I haven't noticed many boards here with ATI/AMD chip sets. So far so good with this one.

 

[Edit]Forgot to mention that in addition to the parity check I did some md5 check sum tests to verify that files written to each data drive are correct.[/Edit]

 

I noticed some glitches in the motherboard sensor mapping, that I'll mention in case someone wants to fix that code:

  • "M/B Temp" displays CPU Temp reading and vice versa
  • "VCore 2" is displaying +3.3V sensor reading
  • "+3.3V" is displaying something else

 

Also wondering if anyone has given thought to enabling the Asus Cool 'n' Quiet process in unRAID? This throttles back CPU clock, Vcore and MB controlled fans when the system is not under load. Would make sense for my home application where the server will be idling 80-90% of the time.

 

NAS Hardware running unRAID Basic 4.5-beta6

Motherboard: Asus A8R32MVP Deluxe

BIOS: 7.01

NB: ATI Crossfire Express 3200

SB: ULI M1575

Onboard SATA Controller: Silicon Image 3132

Onboard NIC: Marvel 88E8053 PCIe Gigabit LAN Controller / 888001 PCI Gigabit LAN Controller

Processor: AMD Opteron 185 @ 2.6GHz

RAM: 2GB 400MHz DDR

Storage: 3 X 1TB WDC_WD1001FALS-00J7B1 (read testing at 106-109 MB/s)

PSU: Enermax Liberty 500w

Case: Antec 200 w/ two added 120mm intake fans

 

[edit]Note: I found an apparent conflict between the primary on-board network controller and one of the four USB controllers.

 

The LAN 1 (PCIe) network controller has difficulty negotiating a 1000 Mbps connection to my gigabit switch while running with the unRAID flash drive plugged into USB ports 3 or 4.

 

I believe this is because USB ports 3 & 4 are on the USB controller which shares an interrupt (and possibly power?) with the LAN 1 controller.

 

Fortunately there are 3 other USB controllers to chose from. e.g., No problem with the LAN 1 controller with the flash drive plugged into USB ports 1 or 2, the ones adjacent to LAN 1. (In a tower case configuration LAN 1 is the uppermost. LAN 2, which is PCI, and USB ports 3 & 4 are below LAN 1.)[/edit]

 

[edit 2]I under-clocked (2.0 GHz) and under-volted (1.175 Vcore) the Opteron to save some energy. Also turned off all the auto over-volt settings that the BIOS leaves on by default with the Auto config.[/edit2]

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