Datto Xeon D 1541 board -- $501.15 shipped + 6/8% ebay bucks for some

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nev_neo

Active Member
Jul 31, 2013
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I'm sorry but I dont have any other ideas. I've been using these - M393A4K40BB1-CRC0Q for my boards - 2 each and they seem to work fine.
I did Memtest them all together on the bench when I first got them, they worked fine for the 1/2 day they were running.
Maybe the board is bad?
On another note, I could not get the boards updated to 1.3. I was able to flash the BMC and the BIOS to 1.2 but that was it.
 

DaSaint

Active Member
Oct 3, 2015
282
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Colorado
If its any consolation i am having issues with this board and Samsung Memory as well, i have 32 and 16GB chips, it seems that 1st pass goes fine then 2nd pass is when it starts throwing errors in the .3-.5MB range, and continues on.

Probably a bad board, i tried using it prior thinking all was good but then it hit a critical error and brought down my freenas box, (firmware updated with ASROCK and BMC updated)

Sadly this isnt the 1st time i have had issues with ASROCK boards, i should have learned from the 1st time, they aren't up-to par with Supermicro. and ASROCK's support... Just Forget about it (when i was RMA'ing a Legit board)
 

Orsuw

New Member
Mar 31, 2019
3
0
1
I got 2 sticks of Crucial 32 GB (CT32G4RFD4266) to do a final test. The board does get a bit further with 2 sticks in it, but still doesn't boot up properly. It at least shows Dr Debug codes, but then ends at code 67, which seems to be some kind of chipset initialization error. And again boots up fine with only 1 stick.

Well, I guess I'll just have to write it off. Too bad really as it is such a nice board featurewise.

Thanks for both of you for helping out.
 

DaSaint

Active Member
Oct 3, 2015
282
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Colorado
The Feature-set is like Freenas GOLD but the lack of Ram support is depressing for sure...

I was just reading an article from @PigLover who mentioned that memtestx86+ hasnt been updated in years which is why chipset is UNKNOWN, and the fact the errors i get are sub 1MB might be more related to bios issues.

The recommendation was to test against Passmarks MemtestX86 free edition might be something i test as well
 
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PnoT

Active Member
Mar 1, 2015
650
162
43
Texas
I've got a few of these boards and notice around 49C it will ramp the fans up and then slow them back down to normal and keep cycling which has been very annoying. I've tried to adjust the fan and temp settings in the BIOS but nothing seems to shift the cycling up or down the temperature range. Ideally I'd like to move it upwards towards 55C so the ramping never happens.

I have not tried any alternate coolers yet because they don't seem to be working well from users that have posted in this thread. The airflow over the CPU (1U case with 6 32cfm fans in the front) should be adequate.

Any ideas?
 

PnoT

Active Member
Mar 1, 2015
650
162
43
Texas
Aftermarket coolers (pure copper ones) still don't keep these boards under 51C which is where the fan ramping starts. Has anyone managed to tame these things?
 

DaSaint

Active Member
Oct 3, 2015
282
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28
Colorado
Things been solid, might have had some bad DIMMs in the past but got mine running TrueNAS Scale w/NVME drives + Tesla P4 + SAS-3008 Controller and 96GB Ram

8x8TB Raid Z2 Container and
8x12TB Raid Z2 Container

Multiple TrueNAS Scale Apps etc.
 

Branko

Member
Mar 21, 2022
41
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8
Things been solid, might have had some bad DIMMs in the past but got mine running TrueNAS Scale w/NVME drives + Tesla P4 + SAS-3008 Controller and 96GB Ram

8x8TB Raid Z2 Container and
8x12TB Raid Z2 Container

Multiple TrueNAS Scale Apps etc.
Got mine today, put ram in it, connected both power cables and IPMI network, I can login to IPMI, but I can't
boot it either from IPMI or by power switch. Ideas, anyone?


Edit: solved, it seems. It works now that I disconnected VGA cable
 
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foureight84

Active Member
Jun 26, 2018
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Oh man, this is a sweet motherboard. Wish I had found this a few years ago when they were a bit more accessible and affordable.
 

Branko

Member
Mar 21, 2022
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Oh man, this is a sweet motherboard. Wish I had found this a few years ago when they were a bit more accessible and affordable.
I was looking for new Xeon D motherboard ($800-$1200 range here in EU), and couldn't aford to skip this $230 Ebay offer :)
 

ericloewe

Active Member
Apr 24, 2017
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The datasheet for the Xeon D-15xx series (see here, section 5.2, page 84/82) states that both PCIe 3.0 root ports on the CPU (not to be confused with the PCIe 2.0 ports from the integrated PCH) can bifurcate down to x4/x4 and x4/x4/x4/x4.

If the system firmware setup menu doesn't support this configuration, it should be possible to manually hack the UEFI NVRAM to configure the CPU registers to the desired bifurcation setting and/or create a custom system firmware image that defaults to the desired option (even though the menu is inaccessible).
 

Branko

Member
Mar 21, 2022
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8
Or maybe we should just bug Asrock to do homelab nation a favor and open it :)

After all, their latest BIOS is 3 years older than, for example, Supermicro for their Xeon D boards
 

ericloewe

Active Member
Apr 24, 2017
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Shouldn't be too difficult, just flip a flag to unhide the bifurcation settings menu. But I'll believe it when I see it.
 

Branko

Member
Mar 21, 2022
41
17
8
Shouldn't be too difficult, just flip a flag to unhide the bifurcation settings menu. But I'll believe it when I see it.
I tried to find such option using AMIBCP, but that got me nowhere...could not find option in BIOS,
my guess is that there's probably separate module that need to be added using MMTool, but
we'd probably need some BIOS modding expert here ;)
 

Branko

Member
Mar 21, 2022
41
17
8
*edit*

Was able to flash to IT mode with the following commands via DOS boot:

(DOS):
sas3flsh -o -e 6
sas3flsh -o -f <firmware> -b <bios>
sas3flsh -b <UEFI BSD firmware>
Where did you find "bios" and "UEFI BSD firmware" files, I downloaded latest IT firmware
from TrueNAS web, but it only contains "firmware"

Edit: nm, downloaded generic ones from Broadcom site and they worked
 
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