Notes about Supermicro X11SCA-F

[ramblinreck47]

On 11/21/2019 at 11:03 PM, cemaranet said:

@ramblinreck47 I'm using windows server with physical machine, not unraid, and i managed to do it with above settings except syslinux.cfg 

The Primary display settings was a bit tricky to find, i think i had to go through display agent menu or something (CMIIW)

Just a catch though, you wont be able to use any monitor, the IKVM will display black screen if you plug it to a monitor.

Okay. Cool. Thanks for responding. It’s great that you got things working properly for Windows. I’m hoping someone who used UnRAID can verify actual steps to get everything working properly.

 

I’m still pretty sure that for my build I’m going to do a Ryzen 5 3600 + X470D4U + P2000 but I still can’t shake my interest in a E-2278G + Supermicro/ASRock rack MB w/ IPMI. Some of the people here apparently got it working but I don’t want to end up buying everything without someone verifying that’s QuickSync will work properly with Plex and still keep IPMI. If it didn’t work, I’d either have to return everything and waste my time or add a P2000 and that would waste the iGPU.

[Hoopster]

On 12/18/2019 at 7:48 AM, ramblinreck47 said:

I still can’t shake my interest in a E-2278G

Good luck finding one of those.  Intel has "launched" the E-22xx Xeons twice this year and they have yet to appear in any retail channel. Every retailer website says, "out of stock," "backordered," "currently unavailable." etc.  Many of the motherboards that support it also suffer from lack of availability; although you can probably find the Supermicro.

[ramblinreck47]

20 hours ago, Hoopster said:

Good luck finding one of those.  Intel has "launched" the E-22xx Xeons twice this year and they have yet to appear in any retail channel. Every retailer website says, "out of stock," "backordered," "currently unavailable." etc.  Many of the motherboards that support it also suffer from lack of availability; although you can probably find the Supermicro.

Provantage currently has it available for Special Order straight from the manufacturer. They have a timeline you can check out that says when it should actually get to you. It’s been drifting further and further but finally settled at 29 days. I’m not in a real hurry and that’s not too long of a wait for me. I’m still not ready to do a build due to still paying off my student loans so I got plenty of time to see if they ever come In-Stock.

 

I found an ASRock Rack E3C246D4U + E-2288G combo for sale but I really want to stick with a Supermicro board which will work perfectly with my Supermicro CSE-836. The ASRock board I know won’t read the data from PSU.

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, ramblinreck47 said:

Provantage currently has it available for Special Order straight from the manufacturer.

I saw that, but every time I look at it the "days to process" get further out in the future.  I even e-mailed Provantage and asked if they really expect to ever see these processors or if it was just a paper launch by Intel for PR purposes.  They have never responded. 

 

The processor has shown up in OEM systems, so it does exist; however in the retail channel is another story and you may have a long wait.

[ramblinreck47]

32 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

I saw that, but every time I look at it the "days to process" get further out in the future.  I even e-mailed Provantage and asked if they really expect to ever see these processors or if it was just a paper launch by Intel for PR purposes.  They have never responded. 

 

The processor has shown up in OEM systems, so it does exist; however in the retail channel is another story and you may have a long wait.

Lucky I’m in no hurry then. Intel really screwed up here. If it’s not anywhere close to being available by the time I do a build, I’ll just roll with that ASRock + E-2288G combo or go with a X470D4U + Ryzen combo.

 

Btw, could you possibly verify the settings I posted several posts back? Makes no sense to keep this as a possibility if I can’t even figure out what’ll take to get it work the way I want to.

 

 

[devros]

On 11/21/2019 at 10:49 AM, ramblinreck47 said:

@burg3, @rinseaid. @cemaranet, and @cheezdog can any of y’all verify if these are the settings that need to be done to get IPMI/BMC working with QuickSync active at the same time? I’ve been really thinking about going with a E-2278G (if Provantage can ever get one) and a X11SCA-F for my Plex server upgrade. I just want to completely understand what settings are needed to make it work if I go this route.

 

 

 

Looks like there is a new BIOS/IPMI Firmware out very recently:

 

BIOS: 1.1

IPMI: 01.23.04

 

No real release notes unfortunately.

 

Currently I'm running unRAID 6.8.0, have a VGA display, IPMI/LOM console, and Quick Sync with my Plex docker all working great.

 

My BIOS setting are the same as above, except there no longer seems to be a "Primary PCIE" option since I did the BIOS upgrade.

 

I have "i915.disable_display=1" in syslinux.cfg

 

and the following in my "go" file

 

modprobe i915
chown -R nobody:users /dev/dri
chmod -R 777 /dev/dri 

 

Happy to have been the guinea pig here.  Aside from the "Primary PCIE" option disappearing I'd be curious to know if anyone else notices any other differences with the upgrades.

[bwnautilus]

On a slightly different topic, has anyone tried 32GB ECC DIMMs on this MB?  I know Supermicro will only work with certain brands.

I'd like to max out the RAM to 128GB with a E-2278G (when these become available).

[ramblinreck47]

For those that have this is board, did you have to use two Ethernet cables (one to LAN1 and one to LAN2)? Or did you just funnel everything through LAN1 (IPMI and regular internet access)? I see in the manual that LAN1 is shared with IPMI but I wasn’t sure if you should also just use the other LAN port for regular operation as well at the same time.

 

I’d rather go with the X11SCH-F which has a dedicated LAN for IPMI but that board seems to be out of stock everywhere.

Edited January 13, 2020 by ramblinreck47

[ARNiTECT]

On 1/1/2020 at 9:56 PM, bwnautilus said:

On a slightly different topic, has anyone tried 32GB ECC DIMMs on this MB?  I know Supermicro will only work with certain brands.

I'd like to max out the RAM to 128GB with a E-2278G (when these become available).

Yes! I received the Intel E-2278G a week ago, and 4 no. 32Gb ECC UDIMMS. I just booted for the first time into ESXi showing 128Gb of memory.

the DIMMS are: 4 no. "32GB (1x32GB) Samsung M391A4G43MB1-CTD DDR4 ECC UDIMM, PC4-21300 (2666)"

I'll carry on with the build now.

[bwnautilus]

On 1/21/2020 at 3:06 PM, ARNiTECT said:

Yes! I received the Intel E-2278G a week ago, and 4 no. 32Gb ECC UDIMMS. I just booted for the first time into ESXi showing 128Gb of memory.

the DIMMS are: 4 no. "32GB (1x32GB) Samsung M391A4G43MB1-CTD DDR4 ECC UDIMM, PC4-21300 (2666)"

I'll carry on with the build now.

Cool, thanks for this.  BTW, where did you buy the E-2278G?  I can't find them anywhere.

[ramblinreck47]

On 1/23/2020 at 7:21 PM, bwnautilus said:

Cool, thanks for this.  BTW, where did you buy the E-2278G?  I can't find them anywhere.

I’m not the OP but here is a link to Provantage where it is In-stock at the moment...

 

https://www.provantage.com/intel-cm8068404225303~7ITEP6KU.htm

[ramblinreck47]

Anyone have issues with putting HBA's (LSI 9211-8i's) in the PCIE slots? I got a little spooked looking at this thread: 

 

I'm wondering if it's possible to happen to this motherboard because it has very similar metal shielding over the PCIE lanes. Maybe I'm just being overcautious but I thought it was worth asking. I could always go with the X11SCH-F and get a dedicated IPMI LAN port, no special configuration for IPMI and QuickSync at the same time (at least that's what's been reported in this thread) and no metal shielding but it's a lot harder right now to find in-stock.

[JonathanM]

10 hours ago, ramblinreck47 said:

I'm wondering if it's possible to happen to this motherboard because it has very similar metal shielding over the PCIE lanes

Pictures?

[ARNiTECT]

On 1/24/2020 at 12:21 AM, bwnautilus said:

Cool, thanks for this.  BTW, where did you buy the E-2278G?  I can't find them anywhere.

Lambdatek UK.

2 showed up in stock on a Sunday afternoon, so I grabbed one!

[ramblinreck47]

1 hour ago, jonathanm said:

Pictures?

 

[JonathanM]

1 hour ago, ramblinreck47 said:

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Well then. Yep, I'd either remove the offending shield or not use a card with components that can touch the bare metal.

 

See my comments in that thread, to sum it up, SOMEBODY messed up. Either the standards organization did a poor job of defining the card or the slot, or one of the manufacturers is not following the standard by putting metal or components that close together. 3 different entities, any one of which could be at fault.

 

End result, don't use those components together without modification.

[ramblinreck47]

4 minutes ago, jonathanm said:

Well then. Yep, I'd either remove the offending shield or not use a card with components that can touch the bare metal.

 

See my comments in that thread, to sum it up, SOMEBODY messed up. Either the standards organization did a poor job of defining the card or the slot, or one of the manufacturers is not following the standard by putting metal or components that close together. 3 different entities, any one of which could be at fault.

 

End result, don't use those components together without modification.

So, you’re recommending to not use this motherboard with a LSI 9211-8i? I don’t want to change my HBA card and I definitely don’t want to modify the motherboard in a way that would hurt the warranty.

 

Can someone who has this motherboard and a LSI HBA inserted in one of the top two PCIE slots comment on this subject? If it’s too risky, I’ll just get the X11SCH-F and hopefully passthrough the iGPU for Plex and pray it works similarly to this board.

[devros]

I've had a 92xx and a 93xx HBA in there with no issues.

[JonathanM]

24 minutes ago, devros said:

I've had a 92xx and a 93xx HBA in there with no issues.

Do those cards have components right next to the slot like the 9211 in the above linked post?

[devros]

Yup.

 

Not only do I run my plex server off this motherboard, but I have about 40-50 HBAs in production at work, all on SM motherboards.  Sometimes with as many as 4 packed right together.  

 

In 12 years I've never seen this happen.  Not only with the server motherboards at work, but also with this motherboard and the previous SM one on my last server.

[JonathanM]

20 minutes ago, devros said:

Yup.

 

Not only do I run my plex server off this motherboard, but I have about 40-50 HBAs in production at work, all on SM motherboards.  Sometimes with as many as 4 packed right together.  

 

In 12 years I've never seen this happen.  Not only with the server motherboards at work, but also with this motherboard and the previous SM one on my last server.

Any chance you could take a close up photo from the same angle as this?

[devros]

I'll try in the next day or two when I have the time.

[ramblinreck47]

On 1/28/2020 at 10:43 PM, devros said:

I'll try in the next day or two when I have the time.

Any chance you could upload a picture?

 

I'm getting closer to doing a build and the X11SCH-F is just really hard to find at the moment. I'll probably have to go with a X11SCA-F simply because it's easier to find.

[devros]

10 hours ago, ramblinreck47 said:

Any chance you could upload a picture?

 

I'm getting closer to doing a build and the X11SCH-F is just really hard to find at the moment. I'll probably have to go with a X11SCA-F simply because it's easier to find.

 

[cherrybullet]

On 12/28/2019 at 11:48 PM, devros said:

Looks like there is a new BIOS/IPMI Firmware out very recently:

 

BIOS: 1.1

IPMI: 01.23.04

 

No real release notes unfortunately.

 

Currently I'm running unRAID 6.8.0, have a VGA display, IPMI/LOM console, and Quick Sync with my Plex docker all working great.

 

My BIOS setting are the same as above, except there no longer seems to be a "Primary PCIE" option since I did the BIOS upgrade.

I don't know if this thread applies to the board X11SCL-IF too, but I'm experiencing this no igpu problem. I've tried changing the recommended BIOS settings, but have only found the "Onboard Video Option ROM" option, and not the "Primary PCIE" option that you mention. And I updated the BIOS to the latest version already :(