Super Micro X8DTH-iF WS build

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Hopefully it fixes your bugs

Hope it goes smoothly for you, otherwise I thinks it'll be a PITA to flash

 

[Audioaficionado]

I used rufus-2.2 to make a DOS bootable USB thumb drive. It booted right up and flashing was a breeze. Also updated to the latest Intel RST driver. We'll see if she holds or folds pretty soon.

Hmmm... now windows wants me to reactivate it?!!. BIOS change and it thinks it's a new motherboard lol.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

let's hope for the best.

Makes no sense to see windows lockup like that.

 

[Audioaficionado]

Seems to be working

I installed and activated win7 over a week ago. Actually I activated it twice after the first one got killed by a reg hack. After all the BIOS and driver updates, it triggered the hardware change algorithm. So I tried to auto reactivate online. It failed. Then I entered the same key as before, but now it's deemed invalid by the MS server. So I use the next key on my list of 8 and it took.

Now that first key will be the one I exchange for Win10 free update If it still doesn't fly I'll give 'em a call and work it out over the phone. That key is valid and legit as I got it through the ED Dream Spark Campaign while a college student. I can't help it if a key gen somehow served up my key by luck.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

That's good to hear!

Windows 7 key should have 50 activations on them so a call into support should clear that up yeah

 

[Audioaficionado]

Next time I need to install on another machine, I'll deal with that COA. I'm most likely getting a free upgrade to win10 RTM for being an 'insider tester'. Don't have to spend any of my win7 COAs

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Not a bad deal if you like Win 10 anyways

 

[Audioaficionado]

Success!!!

Finally got a real graphics card running. No more crappy Matrox onboard graphics chip to deal with.

Put it slot 3 and set 'offboard graphics' option in BIOS and it worked. Last time I tried before any BIOS updates it failed and I had to reset the CMOS to get back into the BIOS screen.

Now lets see if I can get it to run with cards in slots 3 & 6. If so, I can fire GPU_FAH back up.

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

AWESOME!

BIOS update FTW!

 

[Audioaficionado]

Just loafin' X8DTH-iF

 

[Silver_Pharaoh]

Mmmm 16 core lovin

No slow downs either eh?

 

[Audioaficionado]

Wait until I get my two hexacore CPUs later this year

 

[aftermath]

These are still very nice systems.

I had some of the problems you have had and could have chucked my 10pence worth in. I have had idle stability problems on first build, I think it was the PCIe OS native mode which might be to do with PCIe-PCIx bridges and power management; I was seeing IML messages for PCIe errors with that on.

I have also disabled C-states as they created problems with Audio.

Wait until I get my two hexacore CPUs later this year

Do it!

3.6 all core turbo.

I had to add a extra fan to the south bridges and have one dangled by the VRM fairly sure that one is not needed.

X8dah+-f
It is actually on just fans are turning slooww



GPU is a 770 oced to 1.356 Ghz
lower card with additional fan is 8GB fiber channel HBA



Edit: to add a little about the build:
supermicro comes with CPU back plates.

The screws I have that fit the threads have small heads. To hold the waterblocks on I used big washers .

The old system in the case was a twin opteron 2439, the cpu layout was such that the top radiator feed directly to the pump-res bleeding was very easy with a 2cm adapter directly above on the radiator as a buble trap.

Now the CPU block acts as the buble trap and the system gurgles when I need to beeld it. I have to pick it up and shake the thing.

 

[Audioaficionado]

My SB isn't all that hot, but the two NB under those somewhat large passive aluminum heatsinks could fry an egg. I've got a 200mm case fan I'm going to mount on the side panel and have it blow right onto the NB/PCIe area to keep things cooler when I start up FAH again with two HD 7870 AMD graphics cards. Since I don't have any onboard sound, it was trivial to just plug in a USB2 sound card.

Nice WC X8DAH setup

 

[aftermath]

My SB isn't all that hot, but the two NB under those somewhat large passive aluminum heatsinks could fry an egg. I've got a 200mm case fan I'm going to mount on the side panel and have it blow right onto the NB/PCIe area to keep things cooler when I start up FAH again with two HD 7870 AMD graphics cards. Since I don't have any onboard sound, it was trivial to just plug in a USB2 sound card.

Nice WC X8DAH setup

Ah yes quite true they are the north bridges!

How is the temperature of the Intel network adapter on your system? I've anglled the fans slightly to get some flow towards it.

Whilst there is onbord sound on my system I use off board interfaces (1 usb, 1 Firewire) the onbord is quite poor, sound is very shallow and nothing sounded right on it.

With no fan I was seeing 85°C temperatures on those chips, fans spun up to 100% so I shut down. Intel have tech docks for the colling on the 5320 chipset and the coolers are to specification. I have a later rev of the board with fan headers for them.

 

[Audioaficionado]

I've got some VRMs that get hot just under the DIMM slots by CPU1 on the right.

Can't put any graphics cards in top slot 7 as it hits the DIMMs. Yours doesn't have that issue.

Even a card in slot 6 is sitting right on top of the NB heat sink. I taped some PE plastic on the card edge to prevent anything on the card from grounding out on the heat sink. I'm assuming heat sink is at ground potential.

RDIMM chips (especially the center controller chip) get surprisingly hot. There's just no way to directly mount active cooling on any of them, so I'll just blow that 200mm fan on all of it.

These boards are designed to be in a wind tunnel like server rack mount case to keep all the surface mounted components cool. Our cases aren't quite what SM and Intel had in mind, but it's easy to make it work with lots of air flow on all areas of the board and paying attention to any potential dead spots around tall components like PCIe cards.

 

[aftermath]

I see your point re air flow, My case shape with the motherboard recessed relative to the lower fans makes this especially bad.

This runs my DAW so I have avoided brute force air approach. The additional fan on the NBs is a 4-pin PWM.

My ram feels cool around it, compared to the older DDR and DDR-II I'm used to, Its low voltage which helps. Supermicro's ILO/Health reports dim temps at 35°C. The VRM modules are all cool enough to touch.

 

[Audioaficionado]

Supermicro's ILO/Health reports dim temps at 35°C

Where did you find this?
The Super doc III app doesn't do much IMHO.

 

[Audioaficionado]

This makes me wish I'd gotten the model that doesn't have IPMI

 

[aftermath]

Where did you find this?
The Super doc III app doesn't do much IMHO.

It's in-built web page.
Bit warmer than I remember
Its no HP ILO for sure.