Recent content by VR Bitman

Performance seems to be good. I say "seems" because I am unable to test the Brocade BR-1020 CNA with the Mikrotik switch. Apparently the BR-1020 does not support Mikrotik transceivers and as soon as I connect one the event logs get populated with "unsupported SFP module" messages. At the moment...

flynnibus, my post wasn't very detailed, but I did mention all of my steps. Again, I had disabled legacy video support in the BIOS setup menu. This will prevent the error you mentioned, which is the exact same error I mentioned in my first post.

Well, I finally got my NAS system up and running. I'm using Windows Server 2012 R2 as operating system and the components I have mentioned above. This is how the array looks like: These are the results of my initial tests: I'm no storage expert, but the numbers seem OK to me. As I...

I'm sorry, I didn't have time to post all the details. It was a long afternoon. I'll write a detailed post on my blog soon. But yes, I had to update the firmware before ESXi 5.5 would boot off USB. Note that IBM isn't officially supporting ESXi 5.5 on older servers; it seems to work fine but...

After some bad luck with the Q1900M motherboard, I have decided to switch to another model instead of asking for a replacement Q1900M. I went with the ASRock H81M. Among other advantages, this model requires less modifications / adapters as it has two x16 (mechanical) slots. Given that the CPU...

I have switched to an ASRock H81M motherboard. Also, I will not be posting in this thread anymore. I will continue here: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/help-me-build-a-vmware-home-lab.3828/page-3

Solved. I disabled legacy video support in the BIOS setup menu, created a new bootable ISO with a text-based UI using the Bootable Media Creator, and mounted it forcefully via the IMM. I was then able to update both the IMM and UEFI firmwares with success. Now the server boots correctly off...

I've contacted the seller again and we seem to agree that there is a good chance of a faulty batch. They are graciously looking into the matter and will let me know soon. If and when I will get a fully functional Q1900M motherboard I will report back with details on whether the M5014 is...

And what would this motherboard be incompatible with? Any standard video cable? Unless I'm missing something, these boards are DOA. For the record, I've tested it on my workbench "as is". For my first tests I hadn't even connected a mouse or keyboard, as absurd as it is to think that standard...

It seems I'm having some very bad luck with this product. It produces no video signal no matter the output (D-sub, DVI, HDMI). I tested the board with multiple monitors, cables and PSUs; even with a PCI-E video card. No signal. I then opened an RMA request with the seller and even received...

As a part of a home laboratory, I am building a 3-node ESXi cluster. One of these nodes is an IBM x3650 M2 2U server with 8GB RAM (for now) and 2x Intel Xeon E5504. As the title says, this server seems to be very picky about what to boot from and how. My goal is to install ESXi 5.5 onto an...

Thanks for reporting Rowan. If I'll run into fatal issues with Bay Trail my first choice is the H97 platform for sure.

I have decided to try building it with the ASRock motherboard, so I went ahead and ordered everything except the case, which I won't be needing for my initial tests. I've replaced the SilverStone PSU with a cheaper Enermax unit (but not of lower quality). I've also replaced the Fractal Design...

Interesting... what CPU are you using and what kind of performance numbers are you seeing?

Thank you everyone, your feedback is much appreciated. This in particular is exactly what I hoped to hear. I think I will go ahead and order the ASRock Q1900M, and in case of bad luck I will try this modification. That's a very informative thread. I remember coming across it a few years...