128Gb RAM in PowerEdge T140 possible?

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
OK, it seems the E2X00 Xeons don't support any other ECC types: Is Registered ECC Memory Compatible with Intel® Xeon®...

```
Description Can I install the Intel® Xeon® E-2224 Processor and Registered ECC DIMM (RDIMM) memory on a server board?

Resolution Only Unregistered ECC DIMM (UDIMM) memory is supported with all Intel® Xeon® E-2100 Processors (formerly codenamed Coffee Lake) and Intel Xeon E-2200 Processors (formerly Coffee Lake Refresh).```
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
2,059
1,478
113
Your UDIMMs are x8 configuration, not 8 rank (likely single or dual rank). The single socket platforms that share CPU sockets with the consumer line cannot take RDIMMs or LRDIMMs, just UDIMMs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir and ElCoyote_

BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
2,059
1,478
113
My guess is you won't see any, with DDR5 arriving at the end of the year. The platform would also need to support the higher density should they come out in DDR4. Probably wouldn't be all that cost effective anyway, given that 32GB UDIMMs are double the price of RDIMMs. For $1k in RAM, you might as well go to the higher end platforms that support RDIMMs.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ElCoyote_ and Samir

fswllc

New Member
Apr 2, 2023
2
1
3
Can you guys comment on which bios version recognizes 128gb? currently on 2.1.6 with an R340 and we are needing to up our memory to 128gb. Wondering how far I would need to update if at all.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
@fswllc I don't think you need any specific BIOS version as it seems to work with any,
I'm currently on 2.12.2 with my T140.
2.1.6 is very old, btw..
Supporting 128G in the T140 depends on the cpu you have. If you have a Xeon, that's great. If you have another type of cpu, these are capped at 64G anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
So my T140 was fine and performing well with 128G for 3 years:
unnamed (1).png

However, with BIOS 2.14.1, i was greeted by a boot failure and this message:
unnamed.png
I rolled back to 2.13.1.
I guess it's just Dell trying to show us who has the final word.
Very sad day
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
Thanks for the update. That's too bad. I wonder why Dell went out of their way to block a working solution.
I think they wanted to prove to everyone that they would have the 'last' word and give us (homelab) the finger. This is big corp doing big corp things. The Xeon in my T140 supports 128G RAM and I ve had 128G for the past 3 years (4x32 UDIMMs).
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

CyklonDX

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2022
784
255
63
Not to be on Dells side, but I don't think its the case; The io address space is typically shared - if they cheaped out on mobo and you install some better gpu with 24GB or more vram or something big in address space you may run into some nasty issues.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
Not to be on Dells side, but I don't think its the case; The io address space is typically shared - if they cheaped out on mobo and you install some better gpu with 24GB or more vram or something big in address space you may run into some nasty issues.
Sorry but I disagree.. The T140 takes several types of CPUs (most of which cap at 64G) and the Xeon -D 2100/2200 CPU is the only one that goes up to 128G. I think they (Dell) got lazy and decided that 64G was the 'Maximum Capacity' in the SPECS of the machine. Proof is that for the T150 the CPU situation is the same: Multiple possible CPUs (core i3, Pentium, Celeron and Xeon, all of which cap at 64G, except for the Xeon-D).. but on the T150 the 'allowed' Max memory is 128G. The T140 vs T150 H/W situation is quite similar = 4 UDIMM slots and the only difference being a minor CPU refresh.
T140 Technical Guide: https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Product_Docs/en/poweredge-t140-tech-guide.pdf
T150 Technical Guide: https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/Product_Docs/en/dell-emc-poweredge-t150-technical-guide.pdf
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
Anyway, I realized my T140 is still under a support contract so I've opened a Service Request with Dell.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

CyklonDX

Well-Known Member
Nov 8, 2022
784
255
63
i am not questioning the cpu capability, just motherboards.

I've seen similar things on old R510, where we had cpus that allowed 288GB each but motherboard capped at 128G, and yes we could load 192G but after inserting few network cards back then and memory capacity actually went down to 100+ something Gig. After questioning dell, they released memory cap on the bios.

If not the case then great.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Samir

Samir

Post Liker and Deal Hunter Extraordinaire!
Jul 21, 2017
3,257
1,445
113
49
HSV and SFO
I think they wanted to prove to everyone that they would have the 'last' word and give us (homelab) the finger. This is big corp doing big corp things. The Xeon in my T140 supports 128G RAM and I ve had 128G for the past 3 years (4x32 UDIMMs).
I think you're giving them too much credit. It's far to easy for them to have simply messed up something in the firmware that botches the max memory. I bet the guys on the bios-mods forum can fix it.
 

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
i am not questioning the cpu capability, just motherboards.

I've seen similar things on old R510, where we had cpus that allowed 288GB each but motherboard capped at 128G, and yes we could load 192G but after inserting few network cards back then and memory capacity actually went down to 100+ something Gig. After questioning dell, they released memory cap on the bios.

If not the case then great.
Oh yeah, the 11th Gens and Nehalem-era CPUS were very delicate constructs.
So far, My T140 has been running just fine with:
- 128G ECC UDIMM (Hynix 2933 DDR4 @ 2666)
- NVidia Quadro P2200 5GB GPU
- Dell/Intel X710-DA4 (4x10G), also unsupported.
- PERC H740P 8G with 4 x 7.68Tb SAS 12G SS200 HGST SSDs and a 2Tb Samsung EVO 870 bot drive

This platform is full of strange bugs: The T140 iDRAC misinterprets the remaining endurance on the HGST drives and thinks I have 0% of endurance remaining when in fact I am still at 100% on all 4 of them. Probably a Math calculus error. ( y = 100 - x)
1696546597010.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir and CyklonDX

ElCoyote_

Active Member
Jul 22, 2016
193
118
43
I think you're giving them too much credit. It's far to easy for them to have simply messed up something in the firmware that botches the max memory. I bet the guys on the bios-mods forum can fix it.
Yeah, maybe they will possibly take it as an issue and fix it in the next BIOS update.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Samir