Intel Socket 1151 Motherboards with IPMI AND Support for iGPU

[abadacus]

So I've narrowed my search to the following short-list, are there any here that I should stay away from (or highly recommend) ?

Also, might there be any reason that any of these boards might not accept single channel (single stick) 16gb?

 

Asrock E3C246D4U2-2L2T

Asrock C246M WS

Gigabyte C246N-WU2

Gigabyte C246M-WU4

Asus WS C246M PRO/SE

Asus WS C246M PRO

[Hoopster]

On 7/11/2022 at 8:58 PM, abadacus said:

So I've narrowed my search to the following short-list, are there any here that I should stay away from (or highly recommend) ?

Also, might there be any reason that any of these boards might not accept single channel (single stick) 16gb?

 

Asrock E3C246D4U2-2L2T

Asrock C246M WS

Gigabyte C246N-WU2

Gigabyte C246M-WU4

Asus WS C246M PRO/SE

Asus WS C246M PRO

Since almost everyone here is using the ASRock Rack E3C246D4U, I doubt you will get many comments on the others.  Have you tried searching the forums for reference to those other models to see if anyone is using them for unRAID and has any comments?

 

Checking the downloaded manuals, RAM QVLs, etc. for the boards you are considering will give you a better idea regarding support for specific CPUs, RAM modules, NVMe SSDs, etc.

[fatkat]

Does anyone have the most up to date BIOS? 

[Hoopster]

2 hours ago, fatkat said:

Does anyone have the most up to date BIOS? 

If by "latest" you mean BIOS L2.35 for the ASRock E3C246D4U, you can find it on the prior page of this topic.

[JM2005]

It has been some time since I've posted in this thread.  I wanted to see if anyone had run into this issue that I am having with my unraid server.  If I reboot the server, it will hang sometimes and act like it cannot see the USB boot stick.  The first error that popped up when this happened was "MPT bios fault 10h encountered at adapter pci".  I though a had a bad card so I replaced my LSI SAS9201-8i cards, and it still kept on happening.  I removed both cards and attempted to reboot computer and it did not show this error but would not boot any USB stick I created.  Looking in the motherboard bios it had lost the current time, so I replaced the CMOS battery after discharging. This did not fix the issue.  I can turn off power switch on the power supply and turn it back on and it will start working again.  It's a strange issue as it will sometimes reboot several times before it will fail.  I even changed my unraid usb stick to a new one.  I noticed that the motherboard keeps losing the time when it fails and will not detect my unraid usb stick.

 

To recap what I have tried:

1. Created new USB unRaid boot stick

2. Replaced CMOS battery after fully discharging

3. Removed SAS9201-8i cards

4. Flashed Bios to latest version

5. Power cycle resets and starts usb booting working again until reboot.

 

My motherboard model is an ASRock Rack E3C246D4U MB w/IPMI and CPU is Intel Xeon E-2288G CPU. I am hoping I explained this well enough.  I would appreciate any help.

 

Thank you.

JM2005

[JM2005]

Any suggestions for a newer version of this board (ASRock Rack E3C246D4U).  I have not found a solution so i have decided to replace it with a newer version if there is one.   

 

Thank you for any suggestions.

 

JM2005

[Hoopster]

2 minutes ago, JM2005 said:

I have not found a solution so i have decided to replace it with a newer version if there is one.   

I have never seen the error you reported on the E3C246D4U.

 

To see the list of current (and planned) ASRock server motherboards, go to the ASRock server products page and filter by Intel and sockets 1151, 1200 and 1700.  That will give you an idea.

 

By the way, the latest boards are now very, very expensive if you can find them.  $400-$700+

[JM2005]

Yeah, it is a weird issue that just came out of nowhere.  I really liked this motherboard, and I may just buy the same one again if I can find a good price on it.  I want to keep my same parts just replace the motherboard.

 

Thank you for replying.

[Hoopster]

4 hours ago, JM2005 said:

I really liked this motherboard, and I may just buy the same one again if I can find a good price on it.

$240 at Nextwarehouse.  That's a good price for this board considering it was ~$280 back when most of us bought them.

 

"More to come" is their way of saying "not in stock but we may get some more."  Still, it is probably worth contacting them to see if they really will get more.

 

I have purchased a couple of boards and other parts from them.  I also happen to live in one of their "no tax" states.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Hoopster

[JM2005]

Does this motherboard have a CMOS clear jumper? I've looked and I cannot find it.  I must be going blind.  

[Hoopster]

30 minutes ago, JM2005 said:

Does this motherboard have a CMOS clear jumper? I've looked and I cannot find it.  I must be going blind.  

According to the specs online the E3C246D4U has a Clear CMOS pin which can be shorted.

 

However, the manual, which is for several related versions of C246 boards, does not show any clear CMOS jumper.

 

Very confusing and an indication that you are not going blind. 😁

 

You may have to resort to removing the battery for a period of time to clear the CMOS.

[JM2005]

Well, I wanted to give an update.  I replaced the motherboard with exact same model and replaced both LSI cards and Power supply and Memory. I have flashed the new motherboard with the latest bios and still have the same issue.  Oh yeah, I replaced my unraid USB boot stick with a new one too and restored from backup.  This is crazy!   

[Hoopster]

6 hours ago, JM2005 said:

Well, I wanted to give an update.  I replaced the motherboard with exact same model and replaced both LSI cards and Power supply and Memory. I have flashed the new motherboard with the latest bios and still have the same issue.  Oh yeah, I replaced my unraid USB boot stick with a new one too and restored from backup.  This is crazy!   

Yes, that is crazy and has to be very frustrating.  Google search results on that error all point to issues with one of the LSI cards. Perhaps in the BIOS of the card.

 

When I flashed my Dell H310 with 9211-8i IT firmware I chose not to flash the BIOS to the card.  I have no idea if that makes any difference.

 

"MPT bios fault 10h encountered at adapter pci"

 

Here's a similar report in TrueNAS forums:

https://www.truenas.com/community/threads/solved-mpt-bios-fault-when-using-cross-flashed-lsi-9240-8i-on-x10sl7-f.86193/

 

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Hoopster

[kaiguy]

Welp, started getting unraid lockups due to CPU_CATRR again after over a year of stability. No changes to my unraid or server config aside from swapping in some larger disks over the past couple of weeks. It's now happened twice in the last 4 days, the most recent one during a data rebuild.

 

The day before the first recent CPU_CATRR I enabled Plex's new credit detection, which I believe is fairly CPU intensive. Considering the hangs have occured during the time where Plex is doing its maintenance tasks (between midnight and 4am), I'm fairly certain this is the catalyst, and makes me worry my CPU cooling is just insufficient for max load. I'm going to keep the Plex container shut down until my rebuild is complete, then I might try disabling Turbo Boost (as I seem to recall that helped back in late 2021 when I was getting it fairly frequently, but it's been enabled for quite some time now). Bummer.

[Hoopster]

Welp, started getting unraid lockups due to CPU_CATRR again after over a year of stability. No changes to my unraid or server config aside from swapping in some larger disks over the past couple of weeks. It's now happened twice in the last 4 days, the most recent one during a data rebuild.
 
The day before the first recent CPU_CATRR I enabled Plex's new credit detection, which I believe is fairly CPU intensive. Considering the hangs have occured during the time where Plex is doing its maintenance tasks (between midnight and 4am), I'm fairly certain this is the catalyst, and makes me worry my CPU cooling is just insufficient for max load. I'm going to keep the Plex container shut down until my rebuild is complete, then I might try disabling Turbo Boost (as I seem to recall that helped back in late 2021 when I was getting it fairly frequently, but it's been enabled for quite some time now). Bummer.

Turbo boost remains off on my system. Any CPU_CATERR I have seen has always been with Turbo Boost enabled. Been a very long time since I saw one.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kaiguy]

Might be too early to fully confirm, but disabling Turbo Boost has helped my server survive a few more nights without a CPU_CATERR. I'll stick with you, @Hoopster, and keep Turbo Boost disabled from now on. Thanks for your input.

[Hoopster]

And, he's back! 

 

I experienced problems with the BMC chip on my backup server so I contacted ASRock support and, what do you know, the next day I was contacted by our friend William Lee.  After several attempts at resurrecting the BMC chip, William authorized an RMA and replacement board which is in process now.

[digidep]

8 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

And, he's back! 

 

I experienced problems with the BMC chip on my backup server so I contacted ASRock support and, what do you know, the next day I was contacted by our friend William Lee.  After several attempts at resurrecting the BMC chip, William authorized an RMA and replacement board which is in process now.

 

Did you ask him if there were any new BIOS?

[Hoopster]

1 hour ago, digidep said:

Did you ask him if there were any new BIOS?

I did not as the board with the BMC/IPMI issue (E3C246D2I) does not require a special BIOS for iGPU functionality.  It is in the public BIOS for that board. 

 

I continue to run the L2.35  BIOS on the E3C246D4U without any issues.

[digidep]

3 minutes ago, Hoopster said:

I did not as the board with the BMC/IPMI issue (E3C246D2I) does not require a special BIOS for iGPU functionality.  It is in the public BIOS for that board. 

 

I continue to run the L2.35  BIOS on the E3C246D4U without any issues.

 

Minus your whole turbo issue

[Hoopster]

 
Minus your whole turbo issue

I have just had that disabled so long and never really missed it that I forget it was even an issue.


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[jbear]

I have had mixed success enabling turbo on my E3C246D4U, I have since DISABLED it, and have just left it that way for stability reasons.  I rarely have issues with it disabled.

 

BMC Firmware Version 1.80.00

BIOS Firmware Version L2.35

ME Firmware Version 5.1.4.208

Microcode Version 000000de

[kaiguy]

Closing the loop. Since disabling turbo boost (once again), I have not encountered another CPU_CATERR crash, even with some pretty intensive CPU workloads.

[Hoopster]

I recently had an issue where it was not possible to enter and navigate the BIOS via a remote keyboard in the HTML5 IPMI KVM.  This was with my ASRock E3C246D2I Mini-ITX motherboard in my backup server.  This worked as it should in the KVM on the E3C246D4U.

 

ASRock asked me to reflash the BMC firmware to the same version (1.61, the latest available) through the IPMI Maintenance page. That worked and it is now possible to enter the BIOS from the IPMI KVM.

 

Just in case you notice some BMC/IPMI issues, reflashing BMC firmware could fix them.

[kaiguy]

Thanks for the heads up, @Hoopster. I've never ran into that before, but I have had an intermittent issue where trying to login to the HTML5 IPMI gui would just keep going back to the login screen. The only way to correct it was to shut down and pull the power from the server, but I might try reflashing the BMC next time I encounter it.