I'm working on my first build with old parts that I have around. Read that there are issues with NForce 4 and earlier chipsets, but most of those threads are pretty old. I've been able to boot and get to root login. Currently i'm in the process of preclearing 3 of my drvies (WD 250GB sata, 80 GB IDE maxtor and a 160 GB sata toshiba pulled from PS3).

 

I'm not exactly sure what's required to pass level 1 testing but from wiki:

The first level should require at least 3 drives (limit of free license), should have successfully computed parity, and should have successfully checked parity. A syslog should be posted to make sure there are no nasties that might point to compatibility issues. (The syslog will also document parity check performance).

 

Does computing and checking parity require me to move any test files to/from the array? or is it just building array?

 

Also - what else can I do before i can "Trust" this mobo and not have future data corruption issues.

 

 

MOBO specs :

 

CPU

    * Ready for AMD400FSB Processors

    * Supports AMD-K7 / Athlon / Athlon XP /Barton FSB 200/266/333MHz FSB Processors

Chipset

    * NVIDIA nForce™2 C18D chipset with MCP-T

    * Supports Advanced Configuration and Power Management Interface (ACPI)

    * Accelerated Graphics Port connector supports AGP 8X/4X (0.8V/1.5V)

Memory

    * Three 184-pin DIMM sockets

    * Supports 3 DIMM DDR 200/266/333 (Max. 3 GB)

    * Supports 2 DIMM DDR 400 (Max. 2 GB)

Serial ATA150 RAID

    * On board SATA 150 PCI Controller

    * Support 2 ports SATA 150 RAID 0/1

Audio

    * 6-Channel AC 97 CODEC on board

    * Professional digital audio interface supports optical S/PDIF Out

    * NVIDIA SoundStorm with real-time Dolby Digital 5.1 encoder

IEEE 1394

    * Supports IEEE 1394a at 100/200/400 Mb/s transfer rate

LAN

    * On board 10/100M LAN Physical layer interface

ABIT Engineered

    * ABIT SoftMenu™ Technology

    * ABIT MaxFID™ Technology

    * ABIT SERILLEL™

    * ABIT CPU ThermalGuard™

Internal I/O Connectors

    * 1 x AGP8X/4X, 5 x PCI slots

    * 1 x Floppy Port supports up to 2.88MB

    * 2 x Ultra DMA 33/66/100/133 Connectors

    * 2 x SATA 150 Connectors

    * 2 x USB 2.0 headers, 2 x IEEE1394 header

    * 2 x CD-IN

    * 1 x IrDA

 

Back Panel I/O

    * 1 x PS/2 Keyboard, 1 x PS/2 mouse

    * 2 x Serial, 1 x Parallel

    * 1 x S/PDIF Out port

    * Audio connectors (Front Speaker, Line-in, Mic-in, Center/Sub, Surround Speaker)

    * 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x RJ-45 LAN Connector

 

...I had this board for desktop use.

While CPU, disks, graphics (external anyway) and PCI-Slots (had 2 DVB-S cards inside)

showed a good, stable performance, I had issues with USB (simply would drop from

the OS) and with performance/stability of the ethernet under Linux.

So, for unRAID use I'd expect the following backdraws:

 

- Ethernet is a 100MBit/sec only and forcedeth driver unstable

- flash drive might disappear from OS during operation

 

...also energy wise it's going to be a waste of ressources (mainly caused by the CPU, I'd think)

I remember it operated around 120-170W with a XP2800+ processor.

The successor I employed (same cards and disks, new board with an Athlon 64-X2 at 35WTDP) ran around 60-80W.

 

...I had this board for desktop use.

While CPU, disks, graphics (external anyway) and PCI-Slots (had 2 DVB-S cards inside)

showed a good, stable performance, I had issues with USB (simply would drop from

the OS) and with performance/stability of the ethernet under Linux.

So, for unRAID use I'd expect the following backdraws:

 

- Ethernet is a 100MBit/sec only and forcedeth driver unstable

- flash drive might disappear from OS during operation

 

...also energy wise it's going to be a waste of ressources (mainly caused by the CPU, I'd think)

I remember it operated around 120-170W with a XP2800+ processor.

The successor I employed (same cards and disks, new board with an Athlon 64-X2 at 35WTDP) ran around 60-80W.

 

 

 

Thanks for your post. When you say flash drive might disappear, do you mean after it's already booted and running - or just during boot?

 

It took me a while to get the USB to working (using plop floppy to point to USB), but now it seems to boot fine. Before I started the pre-clear, i mounted the 250GB as parity and the 160GB as data disk and built an array. Then I read up on preclear and decided to do that before adding any data. I am running 6 cycles and it should be done when I get home today. Will post results when I get home.

 

For the time being, I'm trying not to spend any money on hardware and get myself comfortable with unraid. I'm more of a hardware guy but haven't touched anything in years (socket a was last time i built a system) but I have never used linux so everything scares me . If/when I get this up and running I'll have to make a few boxes for my brother, sister, and some friends. Luckly me

 

 

 

 

And more power to you, for trying!

 

After countless hours of frustration with an nForce 4 board though, I'm probably biased, but I don't think there is *anything* you could do that would make me trust one of those boards again!  Free isn't free, if it results in weeks of hassle and frustration.  It could be much cheaper to just spend a few bucks.

Thanks for your post. When you say flash drive might disappear, do you mean after it's already booted and running - or just during boot?

 

...booting was a hassle, but plop should do fine.

I had problems with USB drives or other USB hardware.

Problems were not boot related...I booted from internal disks.

After a while (minutes/hours/days) the usb devices disappeared

from the list of available devices.

This happened under Linux and WinXP as well.

My suspicion was that PowerManagement is not well implemented with this board.

After changing  my mobo all was well with the same USB devices attached.

Thanks for the input RobJ and Ford Perfect. I ended up biting the bullet and bought http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/mb/content.php?S_ID=506 Biostar N68S3 from newegg shell shocker deal with AMD Athlon II X2 245 Regor 2.9GHz  for $90 cnd. Also bought 2 WD 2 TB EARS and some corsair ddr3 ram (2x1GB).

 

Should have the mobo and cpu today or tomorrow. Getting excited waiting for the shipment to arrive!