Dell PowerEdge C8220 Build and Questions

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hmartin

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Sep 20, 2017
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@hmartin - after I posted that, I did some research on the X540-AT2 and realized that was a 10Gb card. I do not have a NIC other than the onboard ports. And they are for sure 1Gb. I am not sure why my device manager shows them as X540-AT2's. Maybe I installed the wrong driver? I wouldn't think so, but its possible.
Can you post the PCI ID of the card? You can find the PCI ID under "Hardware Ids" of the device properties within Device Manager.

How to Find Drivers for Devices Using a Hardware ID | Dell Deutschland

The PCI ID of the X540-AT2 should be 8086:1528
 

drabadue

Active Member
Sep 15, 2016
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Can you post the PCI ID of the card? You can find the PCI ID under "Hardware Ids" of the device properties within Device Manager.

How to Find Drivers for Devices Using a Hardware ID | Dell Deutschland

The PCI ID of the X540-AT2 should be 8086:1528

Sure enough, the hardware ID is 8086:1528

upload_2017-10-19_4-31-0.png

I had no idea that this board had a 10Gb ethernet connector. It is a C6220 according to BIOS, but I always guessed it was a C6220 II based on the physical connector layout. I am really surprised though, as there is no documentation supporting this board to have 10Gb onboard ethernet. Now I am tempted to buy a 10Gb NIC to throw in another computer to see if it will actually link at 10Gb.

The part number for the board is 0083N0.
 

drabadue

Active Member
Sep 15, 2016
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Forgive the messy wiring, but here is a quick update to the case I am making. Still need to make a custom harness, 3D print some more brackets, and finish putting it all together. I have been using it as you see it for about 3 months now. Just have been pulled into other projects and haven't been able to get this wrapped up yet.








The rear panel/grilles, top radiator supports, gpu support, psu support were all designed and printed by me. I have plans for the front fan, and top to be all 3d printed once done.
 

hmartin

Active Member
Sep 20, 2017
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Sure enough, the hardware ID is 8086:1528

View attachment 6878

I had no idea that this board had a 10Gb ethernet connector. It is a C6220 according to BIOS, but I always guessed it was a C6220 II based on the physical connector layout. I am really surprised though, as there is no documentation supporting this board to have 10Gb onboard ethernet. Now I am tempted to buy a 10Gb NIC to throw in another computer to see if it will actually link at 10Gb.

The part number for the board is 0083N0.
Really interesting, since the C6220 II spec sheet (PDF) doesn't state the 10Gb is onboard.

 

kkthxbai

New Member
Nov 28, 2017
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I am interested in building a server but would like to also use it for gaming when I am home and not needing all my VM's for work running. I was interested in putting a GTX 1070 into the mix. Was wondering if I would have any performance issues doing so.
 

MumbleFysh

New Member
Mar 3, 2017
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Glad to see everyone is still working on their builds. I'll post updates about mine tomorrow, I have changed alot. It's been running non-stop for the past few months with zero issues; its now my main development machine.
 
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iLya

Member
Jun 22, 2016
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@drabadue,

Thanks for all of the time that you've put into answer questions but I need to ask you for a favor and help me troubleshoot my C6220 board.
I was able to connect the power supply and the 2 LEDs do the correct blinking procedure and I get the green power button to light up.
When I click it, I don't see any video show up. If I hold the power button, it is turned off and if I try to click it again it turns on.
But nothing that I have done so far has allowed me to see any output on my monitor.

Any suggestions of where I can go from here?
 

iLya

Member
Jun 22, 2016
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Is this your first server <unknown> motherboard or another... before to start <switch on>(fireup) it <in first time> you always should start with BIOS reset. Check this way and please report here.
The board part #: 9N44V
This looks like a Gen II C6220 MB

I tried all sorts of power up operations along with MA firmware reset and CMOS/BIOS reset.
I am able to get into the BMC interface over HTTP once it loads but I get no video and when I attempt to launch the iKVM from BMC, I get no output either.
 

iLya

Member
Jun 22, 2016
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Regarding the UPDATE of BIOS (C8220, W6W6WG).

I was on BIOS version 2.1.2 The New version from the www site should be 2.7.1.
I chose this one because it was for 64 bit and was a .exe file that would install bios for me.

After reboot... I have usual normal blinking of 2 lamps... power button lights Green... but on the monitor there is a light dark screen without any letters, signs or stars.

I tried to reset bios/cmos... and... noresults. May be I did it wrong way.

Probably BMC successfully works above of all this situation, I will try to find something right there.

People, do you have any idea how to rescue it? Please help?

#bios #nvram_clr #brick
@igoresz, I actually ended up buying a C8220 my self since I could not get the c6220 node to work and I was able to successfully flash BIOS to version 2.7.1 as well as the latest version of BMC v2.62 and everything is working just fine for me.

If you are still able to get to the BMC, maybe you can try to flash BIOS through the BMC's Update screen and see if you can go to a lower version of it. The way to flash it through the BMC is to grab the .hdr file from inside of the BIOS package and upload it through the BMC page and it should reboot.

What I was not able to do however is to update the onboard LAN firmware even though the dell website has newer firmware available however none of the update packages worked for me.
I also noticed that the latest BIOS stated that it should support E5-2600 v2 CPU's without any mention of the board revision, but I did validate that the W6W6G boards don't boot up properly with v2 CPU's :(

I've just received a second C8220 board that I'll be testing but the strange part is that I can't seem to find any details based on the board number which is DP/N 0CNW04 so I have no idea what it will support and I hope it works.
 
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igoresz

New Member
Dec 16, 2017
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Moscow
@iLya, thank you. I will try.
I could not get the c6220 node to work
I started to read [this] thread. It is about c6220, but it's usefull enough (the "8220x marketing project" was started from 6100/6105/6200).
I've just received a second C8220 board that I'll be testing but the strange part is that I can't seem to find any details based on the board number which is DP/N 0CNW04 so I have no idea what it will support and I hope it works.
This (rare) board was already used here once. See above info about it: page-2, Wictar.
Снимок.PNG(Rare 0CNW04 CNW04 Dell DCS7200S Mainboard)
 

iLya

Member
Jun 22, 2016
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@iLya, thank you. I will try.
I started to read this thread. It is about c6220, but it's usefull enough (the "8220x marketing project" was started from 6100/6105/6200).
This (rare) board was already used here once. See above info about it: page-2, Wictar.
View attachment 7709(Rare 0CNW04 CNW04 Dell DCS7200S Mainboard)
Huh, interesting that it doesn't have those end connectors on the MB. I didn't pay attention.
Well I've got some testing to do with it and see if it works for what I need it to do.
Right now I have my current node running with E5-2680 but its eating up a bit too much power for what I want to use it for, so I have E5-2670 coming to see if I can lower the power usage a bit before I build out a cluster without the blade chassis.

This is a fun board to play with as long as you have all of the proper parts like the PSU, cabling, CPU's, heat sinks, etc...
 

iLya

Member
Jun 22, 2016
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Regarding meaning/significance/implication, my fun idea was to make 'strong'/'compacted' pc with 2 average\carefull power cpu(16cores\32process) 3x pcie/gpgu gen3 unit (incl 1x30usd 160wt Tesla) for 150-250 usd totally. I have collected\realized it. I used an oldie usual atx psu, self made primitive psu cabling, amd heatsinks 15years old, ... and some of luck on ebay\aliexpress. It's like long story about hobbies of enthusiast type people. Afterall I set up all correctly I will give this pseudo pc to one of my sons, one of them is already interesting what does his papa create there))

p.s. sorry for my english, I almost do not use it in RL, only for this kind of forums).
Sounds like a fun project you did there.

I am looking to build a cluster of these servers to do some home lab testing.
I actually figured out how to boot this board into a WinPE environment through the PXE -> iPXE process.
Eventually I will get this hooked up to my FreeNas iSCSI storage through iPXE boot so I don't have to have any drives in them and with being able to add a 10GB NICs, you can build a pretty powerful compute node that can be hooked up to some external storage system over RDMA which I've already figured out how to setup.
 

falanger

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Jan 30, 2018
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Good afternoon. I also decided to assemble a computer based on the C8220X board, the one that has 2 SATA connectors near the front connector SAS. Who can check these connectors at work? Whoever connected GPGU Tesla to this board? Who-Nibut figured out what the other contacts of the control connector do except the two-pin contact board and the PC_ON? Controlling the fans? Indicators HDD/Power?
Sorry for the bad language, I'm writing through an interpreter.
 

falanger

Member
Jan 30, 2018
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That board that I bought 083N0 and I do not want to use the SAS mezzanine, I need built-in HDD controllers, the board's length is critical. The version of the motherboard of its BIOS, I can verify only after receiving the parcel and connecting it. Now I ask what other owners of C8220 083N0 could use to take advantage of the ports on the board and the connectors.
 

falanger

Member
Jan 30, 2018
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Though thanks for the tip to the SAS board. It does not increase the length, the main thing is that it does not interfere with the installation of GPGU-modules on the PCI-e slots.
 
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