need a replacement motherboard


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Hey guys, new build complete and up and running.  Thanks again for the advice and support!  I continue to play with the fans and settings but at least now they do not run at 100% unless things heat up, so that is good.  The only thing that bugs me is the LSI card takes a long time to initialize, like 3 or 4 minutes before you see the words Initializing....., then it shows all of my drives and continues with the boot.  Once reading the USB drive, unraid boots crazy fast now.

 

@ Tribble - here is the IPMI status screen while my server is at idle.  Not sure how to get cpu voltage actual reading while idle.

 

 

status.JPG

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This is another thread reporting slow initialization of the card.

 

I think disabling the interrupt 13, which is only needed to allow the computer to boot off of a disk mounted on the controller, may speed up the boot process. You need to enter the BIOS config feature of the card by pressing some a special key when prompted during the boot process. May take some hunting to find the option.

 

But given rarity of reboot - you might just leave it alone if it is not giving any operational issues. It may have side effects, like suppressing the BIOS prompts altogether if you have multiple controllers in the server, and making it a challenge to re-enter the BIOS setup if you should ever need to do so.

 

If you do pursue making a change, if you could chronicle what you did to aid future users that would be great.

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Thanks bjp999!  I will disable int 13 and share the steps.  it was a PITA while building and rebooting a lot, but now that I'm up and running, you're right about not being a huge deal.

 

I'm liking this mb and setup, and ITMI is awesome, and so is the ITMI plugin.  I'll be installing the Plex docker soon and test the video streaming and transcoding stuff.  I now have 4k tv and some good 4k movies to test out. :)

 

 

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 bjp999 - I was not able to find int 13 settings in the 9207 bios settings.  I did find other settings, tried them all for the past 5 hours, no help. 

@ johnnie - My system is taking 3:04 at the LSI screen, then it Initializes and works fine.  I would love to know what settings you have exactly.

 

I have searched, read the manuals and tested, with no luck.

 

What bothers me is you guys have this same card and you didn't change the settings, so I assume the Bios is still loading (Default mode) , and at 10 seconds, wow!

 

I opened a support ticket, below is all the things I tried.  We'll see how good tech support is.

 

I have tried booting with no drives attached to the 9207 and then added 1 drive, and then my last test was with all 8 connected.  Each time boot time is the same.

I get no errors during boot and when booted into Unraid, I see all my drives and everything works great.  Boot time is the only issue.

This is the only add-on card I have installed.  I tried a different PCI slot, didn't help.  I added a picture showing which PCI slot I used for the 9207.

I have tried changing the settings in the 9207 bios;

  -Support Interrupt = Bypass Interrupt   This didn't help with boot time so I put it back to Default = Hook Interrupt

  -Boot Support = I tried Bios only, then OS only, didn't help.  The only setting I did not try is Disable, because I was worried that Unraid / Linux would not see the drives attached to the 9207.  I left this setting on Enable for Bios and OS

   -On my Supermicro motherboard, I tried setting the INT19 (Interrupt 19) Trap Response to Postpone.  The Default is Immediate.  Because it didn't help, I put it back to Immediate.

 

It would be awesome to know the bios settings for your X11SSM-f and the exact settings on your 9207.

 

 

pci slot.JPG

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4 minutes ago, Switchblade said:

-Boot Support = I tried Bios only, then OS only, didn't help.  The only setting I did not try is Disable, because I was worried that Unraid / Linux would not see the drives attached to the 9207.  I left this setting on Enable for Bios and OS

That probably is the offending setting. You do NOT need boot support for the drives to be seen and used.

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I tested a little more after my post.  With it Disabled, the boot still takes 3:04.  Because it didn't help the boot time, i did not let it boot into unraid, as I was worried it may not see my drives and freak out.   I was very surprised that boot time remained the same.  The LSI bios showed the message, Adapter Disabled by User, but that was after the 3 minute wait to get there.

 

Thanks for confirming it can be Disabled.  I think that is a good idea anyway.

 

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14 hours ago, Switchblade said:

@ johnnie - My system is taking 3:04 at the LSI screen, then it Initializes and works fine.  I would love to know what settings you have exactly.

 

The X11 itself takes a while to go through the boot process, but that's normal as all 3 I have are the same, the LSI takes a few seconds only, my 9207 was on an X9 at the moment but I installed it in an X11 with a single disk connected and caped the video below, also screens for the settings, all set at default:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6r2mvb127kmftrz/1.avi?dl=0

 

 

 

1.jpg

2.jpg

3.jpg

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Thanks Johnny!  This helps and I appreciate you creating the video and screenshots.

 

The only setting not confirmed is the Global Adapter page, which you ALT N to get to.  This is where the Support Interrupt is.  Can you please just check that setting?  If Default, it will say Hook Interrupt.

 

From your video, I see one big difference - firmware and bios, and even the name of the card.  

 

The name of the card is different, mine says LSI and yours says Avago.

 

Your MPT2BIOS ver is 7.39.02.00

Mine is 7.37.00.00

 

Your firmware shows 20.00.07.00 IT

Mine is 19.00.00.00 IT

 

your NVDATA ver  14.01.00.06

mine is 11.00.00.06

 

I'm thinking the first thing I should try is to update the firmware and bios versions.  From the Broadcom website, 

 

Current version is 7.27.01.01  (4/4/2016)  Yours says 7,39.02.00, yet that one isn't even on their website??

Current firmware is 20.00.07.00 IT  (4/4/2016)  (9207-8i_Package_P20_IR_IT_Firmware_BIOS_for_MSDOS_Windows)  Looks to be the same as yours.

 

From looking at the firmware upgrade package, it looks like it will update the firmware and bios at the same time, so no need to do bios by itself.  Does that sound correct?

 

I assume I should disconnect my data drives before updating firmware.  Anything to watch out for when doing this upgrade?

 

Thanks again!

 

 

LSI.JPG

avago.JPG

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Firmware and bios updated on the 9207 to match yours and now mine boots in 10 seconds like yours Johnnie.  Thank you again for the screenshots and help.   It even changed the name from LSI to Avago.

 

My last task for this new build, which I have been procrastinating due to the effort, is to convert my FS to XFS.  

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hey guys.  I was looking to run a Windows 10 VM with my setup and it doesn't look like the onboard video supports it.  Just curious if you agree or if perhaps I'm doing something wrong.  I guess I could add a video card, but wanted to confirm if VM works with X11SSM-F

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5 hours ago, Switchblade said:

Hey guys.  I was looking to run a Windows 10 VM with my setup and it doesn't look like the onboard video supports it.  Just curious if you agree or if perhaps I'm doing something wrong.  I guess I could add a video card, but wanted to confirm if VM works with X11SSM-F

 

VMs work fine with remote desktop, never tried but I believe you can't  passtrough the onboard video, if you want that you'll need to add a GPU.

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49 minutes ago, Diggewuff said:

My Xeon has an iGPU. Do you know if the support of it is already impossible because of hardware limitations of the X11 main boards or if it's only software? I don't want to use it for a display but for hardwaretranscoding of 4K h265 content. 

 

The X11 can't output video using an iGPU, not sure if it's possible to passtrough it to a VM.

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I created a vm and tried to run it, failed with weird mixed video.  It was showing the video output of my unraid server AND it was trying to display the video for the vm, and the screen was all screwed up and the server hung.  I had to reboot to get out of it.  So it seems that this mb cannot support vm's unless you install a video addon card.  

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