Thinking about the E-2186G....


Recommended Posts

Ok, last try.  Found an OK Price on a 2186G.  If that shows up (Rather than a monkey in lederhosen or whatever) then I'll use it.  If not, I'm likely to put this MB/RAM up for sale and switch gears to a TR.  Could be a good price on a SM C246 board with 32G of ECC Ram coming for those who might be interested ;).

Link to comment
  • Replies 109
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

2 minutes ago, Tybio said:

Interesting, the iGPU in the E series is even newer than the one in the i5/7/9 9th generation...not sure what that means :).  UHD P630 vs UHD 630

Yeah, one of the articles said that even though the iGPU in the 9x00 family is still called UHD 630 since it is still technically, a Coffee Lake chip, it is a slightly different architecture and, thus, the need for an i915 driver update.

 

It's like when Coffee Lake was released, it was technically still a socket 1151 chip, but it required a 3xx/C246 chipset even though 2xx/C236 were also socket 1151 architectures.

 

Intel is getting really confusing to follow lately.

Link to comment

For what it's worth, I ordered a couple of E-2176G's from Provantage on Friday 12/7 and got them on Monday 12/10 with standard shipping. They shipped from New Jersey the same day that I placed the order. I installed one of them in a non-unraid server build I was doing for someone else, and I can confirm that it is really a E-2176G and not some other model.

 

The second one is waiting for a good c246 mini-ITX board to become available to upgrade my unraid server :)

Link to comment
2 hours ago, Verser said:

For what it's worth, I ordered a couple of E-2176G's from Provantage on Friday 12/7 and got them on Monday 12/10 with standard shipping. They shipped from New Jersey the same day that I placed the order. I installed one of them in a non-unraid server build I was doing for someone else, and I can confirm that it is really a E-2176G and not some other model.

 

The second one is waiting for a good c246 mini-ITX board to become available to upgrade my unraid server :)

Rub it in.... :P

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Verser said:

The second one is waiting for a good c246 mini-ITX board to become available to upgrade my unraid server :)

 

From ASRock Rack. Both Mini-ITX.  Both support 8 SATA (4 through OCULink).  I can't find them in stock anywhere yet, but, these look like very good Mini-ITX options.

 

Server MB with IPMI

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=E3C246D2I#Specifications

 

Workstation MB

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=C246 WSI#Specifications

 

OCULink Cable

https://store.supermicro.com/50cm-oculink-sata-cbl-sast-0933.html

 

 

Other Mini-ITX supporting Xeon E-21xx:

 

SuperMicro Mini-ITX w/IPMI - C242 Chipset (Only 4 SATA)

https://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/X11/X11SCL-IF.cfm

 

ASUS Mini-ITX - C242 Chipset (6 SATA)

https://www.asus.com/Commercial-Servers-Workstations/P11C-I/

Edited by Hoopster
Link to comment
12 minutes ago, Verser said:

Thanks! I've had my eye on the E3C246D2I. It looks like it should be perfect for my needs. Now I'm just waiting for it to come in stock somewhere.

That would be my choice if I stay with Mini-ITX.  Both of my servers are currently Mini-ITX, but, due to a recent case upgrade, I think my next server will be mATX or even ATX for more expansion slots.

Edited by Hoopster
Link to comment

New Motherboard arrived, same issue.  No on-board video.  I'm returning the CPU to Provantage and buying another from a different vendor, that said.....this has already been the worst hardware build I've ever done, and I've built my on computers since the 8086 days.  If this processor doesn't work out, I'm going to return it and take a serious think about my next steps.

 

Just to confirm, I'm testing with 4 things connected.

 

1> CPU Power

2> MB Power

3> CPU Cooler fan

4> HDMI OR DP cable

 

So it isn't like it could be an addon card or anything.

Link to comment
1 hour ago, Tybio said:

New Motherboard arrived, same issue.  No on-board video.

I had the same issue with my Xeon E3-1245 V5 build; no onboard video.  In my case, it turned out there were three bent CPU socket pins in the upper left corner of the socket.  Straightening them fixed the video issue.  However, the problem returned a few months later.  When I put the server to sleep as a test, it never woke up again; no video no matter what I did.  I ended up swapping out the motherboard (ASRock was very accommodating) and have never had the problem since.

 

However, since you have now tried on two different motherboards, I highly doubt it is the same issue.

 

I am sure you have probably been through everything with SuperMicro anyway to eliminate the board as the issue.

 

Very frustrating to say the least.  There is nothing worse than that sinking feeling when a board won't post or there is no video and you can't even see if you are able enter the BIOS.

 

Have you got a video card you can put in to try and get into the BIOS and do some digging around?

Edited by Hoopster
Link to comment

I was able to put a 1070ti in it, and did get to the bios...but it was not behaving normally.  I couldn't modify anything and the mouse was only moving, not selecting.  I really think the CPU was jacked up in some way, at least...currently I'm praying the CPU was jacked up.

 

One more problem with this and I may just bag the whole upgraded.  I can still return the RAM and CPU...so would just have to eat the MB.

Link to comment

Well, it is in and up!  I had some issues with my LSI card so I'm working in the support forum at the moment trying to recover my array....but the processor is in and running just fine after forcing the BIOS to use the internal GPU...leaving it to auto got me no video on the HDMI or DP ports.

Once I get things up and running I'll report back, but it is idle with nothing running other than the OS at ~27c which is about 15c cooler than the old E3 was running...though that's likely down to the new cooler vs the old E3's included intel cooler.

Link to comment
On 12/19/2018 at 1:05 PM, Tybio said:

... and I've built my on computers since the 8086 days. 

My first build was an Altair 8080 in 1975 😊.    I built several 8080 and Z80 based systems in the late 70's, and a LOT of others since then.   I've had a couple of systems that had similar frustrations to what you just went through, but it's been a LOT of years since those issues.    In any event, glad you've got this (finally) resolved !!

 

Link to comment

For reference, these are the default IOMMU groups on the Supermicro X11SCA-F:

 

IOMMU group 0:	[8086:3ec6] 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 8th Gen Core Processor Host Bridge/DRAM Registers (rev 07)
IOMMU group 1:	[8086:1901] 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x16) (rev 07)
[8086:1905] 00:01.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/E3-1500 v5/6th Gen Core Processor PCIe Controller (x8) (rev 07)
[1000:0087] 02:00.0 Serial Attached SCSI controller: LSI Logic / Symbios Logic SAS2308 PCI-Express Fusion-MPT SAS-2 (rev 05)
IOMMU group 2:	[8086:3e96] 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Device 3e96
IOMMU group 3:	[8086:1911] 00:08.0 System peripheral: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v5/v6 / E3-1500 v5 / 6th/7th Gen Core Processor Gaussian Mixture Model
IOMMU group 4:	[8086:a379] 00:12.0 Signal processing controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Thermal Controller (rev 10)
IOMMU group 5:	[8086:a36d] 00:14.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH USB 3.1 xHCI Host Controller (rev 10)
[8086:a36f] 00:14.2 RAM memory: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH Shared SRAM (rev 10)
IOMMU group 6:	[8086:a368] 00:15.0 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device a368 (rev 10)
[8086:a369] 00:15.1 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Device a369 (rev 10)
IOMMU group 7:	[8086:a360] 00:16.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH HECI Controller (rev 10)
IOMMU group 8:	[8086:a352] 00:17.0 SATA controller: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SATA AHCI Controller (rev 10)
IOMMU group 9:	[8086:a340] 00:1b.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #17 (rev f0)
IOMMU group 10:	[8086:a32c] 00:1b.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #21 (rev f0)
IOMMU group 11:	[8086:a338] 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #1 (rev f0)
IOMMU group 12:	[8086:a33d] 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #6 (rev f0)
IOMMU group 13:	[8086:a33e] 00:1c.6 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #7 (rev f0)
IOMMU group 14:	[8086:a33f] 00:1c.7 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH PCI Express Root Port #8 (rev f0)
IOMMU group 15:	[8086:a328] 00:1e.0 Communication controller: Intel Corporation Device a328 (rev 10)
IOMMU group 16:	[8086:a309] 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Device a309 (rev 10)
[8086:a348] 00:1f.3 Audio device: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH cAVS (rev 10)
[8086:a323] 00:1f.4 SMBus: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SMBus Controller (rev 10)
[8086:a324] 00:1f.5 Serial bus controller [0c80]: Intel Corporation Cannon Lake PCH SPI Controller (rev 10)
[8086:15bb] 00:1f.6 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection (7) I219-LM (rev 10)
IOMMU group 17:	[1d6a:d107] 04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Aquantia Corp. AQC107 NBase-T/IEEE 802.3bz Ethernet Controller [AQtion] (rev 02)
IOMMU group 18:	[8086:1533] 06:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
IOMMU group 19:	[1a03:1150] 07:00.0 PCI bridge: ASPEED Technology, Inc. AST1150 PCI-to-PCI Bridge (rev 04)
IOMMU group 20:	[10e3:8113] 09:00.0 PCI bridge: Tundra Semiconductor Corp. Device 8113 (rev 01)

It looks good, other than having a shocking lack of USB controllers to pass through, the only one I see is linked to the shared sram item.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Tybio said:

It looks good, other than having a shocking lack of USB controllers to pass through

And there will be no passing through the audio controller (unless ACS override works) as it is lumped in with lots of things that cannot be passed through.

 

That seems to be a common, and problematic, grouping on many boards.

Link to comment

Ok, the build is done!  I've updated my post in the compulsive design forum for people who want details and pictures.

 

I just wanted to drop this in here, tested Plex hardware transcoding today and got it working...the iGPU works out of the box with unraid 6.6.5 (Standard steps to enable hardware transcoding in Plex).  It is /throtteled/ when transcoding from 4k to 1080p (Meaning it can transcode well faster than the playback).  Obviously only the video stream is hardware assisted...so I'm bouncing from 5-10% CPU when playing.  That is with 2 VMs running and a boatload of dockers...my normal CPU is hovering at the 5% or less level.

 

The normal temp of this server is ~29C, with transcoding it jumps up to ~35C.

 

1243555702_ScreenShot2018-12-26at1_23_23PM.thumb.png.bd838557ccf27c5b210b9db432be4a1f.png

Link to comment
  • 2 weeks later...

I have been having multiple issues with my server recently some of which I believe are related to me trying to do too much with it (loving Docker)
This has prompted me to start researching a new build.

My current setup is:

  • Case: Norco 4224
  • Motherboard: SM X8SIL-F
  • 2x SAS cards: AOC-SASLP-MV8 8-Port
  • CPU: Xeon L3406 (30W TDP)
  • RAM: 4GB ECC

Can you please advise what ECC RAM you are using and how much.
I assume my existing SAS cards will work with this build? I am trying to keep to reuse as much hardware as possible.
Have you got the IPMI console working over HTLM5? I would love to not use IPMIVIew.

Link to comment

No luck on the IPMI console over HTML5 or java.  I'm going to open a case with SM on Monday.

 

I got 32G of ECC RAM From Supermicro, they were $200 a stick.  If you are just doing dockers and not VMs then consider 2x8G sticks, you can always add 2 more later to get to 32G....but with just dockers running there is really no need for 32G...even 16G is swimming with head room :).

Link to comment

Recommendation to all, before you upgrade for 4k transcoding..please be sure to look into tone mapping issues.  Though the 2176G I have can transcode 4k, with Plex (and thus all others as far as I know as Plex is the best on the fly transcoding around) 4k HDR video content will look horrid after being transcoded.  It is washed out and dark.  The reason for this is the HDR translation, right now there isn't any...so unless the client can understand HDR, the picture is going to look bad. 

 

I've even seen this on my Nvidia Shield.  I can direct play and it is perfectly handled by my shield TV (I have a 1080p TV right now, so everything is being converted until the super bowl sales!).  When I select another quality profile, like 720p in Plex to force transcoding...the video plays fine, but is totally washed out and just dull looking.  

 

I've not found a solution as yet, so even if the processor "CAN" do 4k transcoding real time...the resulting video may not be worth the effort.

Edited by Tybio
Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.