Asrock Rack E3C246D2I

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Frozenstitches

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Oct 1, 2017
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I just ordered one from Newegg. I also contacted asrock about the oculink cable. They are using a JPC p4713sp10600-1. The rep said they were contacting JPC to get more info for customers and about US availability. I asked if the Supermicro CBL-SAST-0933 would work and they aren’t sure. I may pick up one to test.
 
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Th3NinjaPenguin

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Nov 1, 2018
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What CPU did you go with. Been waiting on this board to release for months but can't find the processor I want on Newegg.

Also is 64gb ram enabled yet? I saw their site say soon.
 

Melwin

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Feb 5, 2019
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Great question!! I was wondering the same the other week. The JPC cable gives me zero results on Google and the SM counterpart is hard to find in Europe.
 

Frozenstitches

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Oct 1, 2017
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I found a E2146G on Newegg. It was sold by a third party. The price was just a little more than a 8700k.
I was supposed to get the board yesterday but it’s not here. Tracking said it was delivered, sometimes they just bring our packages to to post office even though it came ups or fedex.
I am using only 16gb or ecc ram to start with so I won’t know the limitation unless I see something in the bios.
It is a bummer about the cable. That cable from Supermicro is the most expensive cable I have ever purchased. I did email JPC and they don’t sell to consumers. They said the were working with asrock on getting them out I think. But I received this in a follow up from asrock
“The Oculink cable we made is compliant to the industrial standard. So, if the cable from Supermicro is also compliant to the same industrial standard, it should work. However, in certain case, it could occur to a difference of the A9 pin, it usually uses high/low for switching between PCIe/SATA mode, and our company’s cable is designed to pull the low. Some other Oculink cable in the market could possibly be designed not to pull low. But our E3C246D2I’s PCIe/SATA mode switching mechanism is controlled by a jumper, so it shouldn’t cause affect. Hope that helps.”
 

Nas

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Apr 7, 2019
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I also just bought one of these and am looking for this fabled cable. I'm in the UK though – struggling to find any real availability of the cable but I see some European retailers listing it with 2 to 4 weeks availability. So, perhaps availability will improve in a few weeks (here).
 

Frozenstitches

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Oct 1, 2017
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I hope that you are able to find one NAS. I think Supermicro might be the only one available for us at the moment. Oculink is still kind of new and I do know Supermicro does have some boards with that. I kind of wish they would have had used mini-SAS connections or included that cable instead of a single sata.

So far I am not haveing good progress with my server re-build. First UPS delivered it to the wrong place and I didn’t get it till yesterday. Second I can’t get it to post. I can get into the IPMI console. I believe I am using the wrong ram and this board may be very picky with ram. I am using a stick of crucial 16GB ECC 2666. It’s not on the QVL list.
 

Nas

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Apr 7, 2019
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Sorry that you are having trouble with your board.

I used two sticks of Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME (16GB 2666 MHz ECC unbuffered) and a G5400T CPU. Everything was fine at the first attempt. Just checked, and the RAM I got is on the QVL. According to it, mine is Micron-based – one would have thought your Crucial ones would be as well?

I've run it through Memtest as well and that seemed fine (with the default of four runs).

I noticed that the ASRock page for the board now says:

1 OCuLink connector with 4 SATA ports*
...
*Please contact sales to by the cable​

I guess I could try emailing them, but I thought you already did that...
 
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Frozenstitches

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Oct 1, 2017
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Ok, she is up and running. Ram was good was a power issue.
For using the Supermicro OCuLink cable you do have to move the jumper pin.
 

Melwin

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Feb 5, 2019
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Ok, she is up and running. Ram was good was a power issue.
For using the Supermicro OCuLink cable you do have to move the jumper pin.
Good to hear (as I have Micron made - SuperMicro branded ddr4 waiting for the board to arrive.) You don't happen to know if the OCulink ports share the same IOMMU-group as the rest of the SATA?
 

Speedster

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Apr 28, 2019
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Interesting that the iGPU in your 2146G doesn't show up on the lspci output, I guess ASrock disable that. Shame - I wanted to get this board and a 2146G, and use the iGPU for transcoding but it looks like that won't be possible.

Do you know if the NVMe slot still functions if OCuLink is in SATA mode? I asked Asrock (got no reply) and can't tell from the manual.
 

Frozenstitches

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Oct 1, 2017
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I just got the iGPU enabled in the bios.it shows in in /dev/dri I enable Plex hardware Transcoder, but have been too busy to test how many transcodes I get.
I don’t have a NVMe drive to test.
 
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Speedster

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Apr 28, 2019
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Thanks, good to see the iGPU works!

B&H just had a discount on Lexar NM520 2242 M.2 NVMe drives, I got one in anticipation for this board. Worst case if you cant have M.2 and OCuLink concurrently I can still use my LSI controller and forgo a Quadro...
 

Melwin

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Feb 5, 2019
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I looked up how to get the IOMMU group but I don't understand most of that.

https://pastebin.com/embed_iframe/k4GLhwDJ
Thanks!

Interesting that the iGPU in your 2146G doesn't show up on the lspci output, I guess ASrock disable that. Shame - I wanted to get this board and a 2146G, and use the iGPU for transcoding but it looks like that won't be possible.

Do you know if the NVMe slot still functions if OCuLink is in SATA mode? I asked Asrock (got no reply) and can't tell from the manual.
If i remember correctly one of the SATA ports are disabled if you use NVMe. OCuLink is unaffected
EDIT: Never mind. Had my thoughs on M.2
 
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Speedster

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Apr 28, 2019
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If i remember correctly one of the SATA ports are disabled if you use NVMe. OCuLink is unaffected
That's what I thought, but the block diagram on pg 14 of the manual seems to contradict that - it says you lose SATA_1 if you use a SATA SSD in the M.2 slot.

There are four HSIO lanes for the M.2 slot; four (or 4 x SATA) for OCuLink, then the other SATA ports have HSIO lanes for SATA protocol. Using a NVMe (PCIe) drive in M.2 should not use a SATA port. My interpretation is the SATA controller has 8 ports that can be split amongst M.2, OCuLink and the physical ports on the board, with the assignment priority being physical ports, M.2 (SATA) and then OCuLink.
 

Frozenstitches

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Oct 1, 2017
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Thanks, good to see the iGPU works!

B&H just had a discount on Lexar NM520 2242 M.2 NVMe drives, I got one in anticipation for this board. Worst case if you cant have M.2 and OCuLink concurrently I can still use my LSI controller and forgo a Quadro...
I thought it was working but I am having issues with permissions I believe. I followed the guides for Unraid, but it fails to transcode at all. I had to remove the device from the docker. I’m going to keep working on it when I get free time.
 

Frozenstitches

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Oct 1, 2017
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Just updated, the BMC update went good, the Bios had a hang at reboot and a reset fixed it. Updated it all through IPMI.
It really sucks about OCulink cable being so damn expensive and hard to find for the EU guys. Really that is the only gripe I have with this board. Also an

Update on the H/W Transcoding, I cannot get it to work, Unraid does not support 9th Gen IGPUs at all.
 

Nas

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Apr 7, 2019
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I had a hang on reboot (during POST) as well. Also noticed that I'm getting a message about invalid Intel MAC addresses at the very end of POST (though it carries on booting anyway). I did put a 10 GbE Ethernet card in so I suppose there's an outside chance that it's related to that...