Cheap chinese x79 mobos

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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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Worst part these guys want me to shoot a youtube video of it not working. I'm not wasting my time on that. As it was since it came with zero documentation I had to dig around to find the front panel IO to know which was for the power/reset, luckily that is somewhat standard across those boards.

Seriously? all that for a refund /exchange? if so, i don't know if i want to buy it now
 
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TType85

Active Member
Dec 22, 2014
630
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Garden Grove, CA
Yes. I have been building computers for over 25 years and am very familiar with troubleshooting. I tried with 1,2 and 4 sticks of ram both ECC and non-ECC. Checked the CPU socket no bent pins, tried 2 CPUs (1 V1, 1 V2). Tried multiple video cards. All known good parts. It doesn't post. It is DOA. Very disappointed in the board and the response from the eBay seller.
I got it working. There was an issue with the 8-pin CPU plug that we were able to re-solder. Quality control issue from china... whouda thunk it....
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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i just bought another lenovo s30 v2 WS the other day for $124 shipping included. good price but don't know why i did it ;(...... i think i have an addiction ;(
 

joddlarn

Member
Jul 14, 2018
50
23
8
Sweden
I got my x79z-vb10 the other day and sat it up yesterday.
It seems to be working, but I can't figure out how to get all four pcie x16 to work at the same time. I've hooked up an E5-2650v2 CPU, 64gb ddr3-ecc and a basic gpu. When I add a 10Gbps nic and two m1015 cards I can only get two cards to work, either the cards in the grey slots or the cards in the black slots.
When I set the pcie mode to 16x in bios the black slots work, if I set 8x8 (or any other mode, 8x4x4, 4x4x8 or 4x4x4) the cards in the grey slots work.
The option for 4G decode is active and I have tried alot of different settings for pcie.

Anyone else have had this problem?
For me, even 4x4x4x4 would be enough, even if 8x8x8x8 would be nicer.
 

e97

Active Member
Jun 3, 2015
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I got my x79z-vb10 the other day and sat it up yesterday.
It seems to be working, but I can't figure out how to get all four pcie x16 to work at the same time. I've hooked up an E5-2650v2 CPU, 64gb ddr3-ecc and a basic gpu. When I add a 10Gbps nic and two m1015 cards I can only get two cards to work, either the cards in the grey slots or the cards in the black slots.
When I set the pcie mode to 16x in bios the black slots work, if I set 8x8 (or any other mode, 8x4x4, 4x4x8 or 4x4x4) the cards in the grey slots work.
The option for 4G decode is active and I have tried alot of different settings for pcie.

Anyone else have had this problem?
For me, even 4x4x4x4 would be enough, even if 8x8x8x8 would be nicer.
finally got around to grabbing a a couple GPUs. There doesn't seem to be a way to get all the PCI-E x16 slots working.

Either 2 black, or 1 grey 1 black or 2 grey will work - so they are all connected.

Mfg says 2 x PCI-E x16 and 3x PCI-E x1 will work so 5 PCI-E slots in total simultaneously.

Here's the block diagram:

x79z b10.png

I also tried disabling the South Bridge (PCH) pci-e to see if I could get at least x1 on the other two pcie-x16 slots but no dice.

Since all the slots are connected x8/x8/x8/x8 should be possible.. I'm going to try manual resource allocation next.

edit: unless the hardware routing only switches the first 8 lanes to each slot then we might be out of luck.. I'm starting to think this is the case

edit^2: Wonder if the russian overclockers know anything: China x79/c602 разгон
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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i ordered one of those x79 with the 2 pcie 16 and 2 pcie 8 and 3 pcie 1. still waiting for it. the status of shipping hasn't changed. i am wondering if it will even make it here. might have to ask for refund. wondering if it's even worth getting it if you can't even get the pcie slots properly working.....
 

saivert

Member
Nov 2, 2015
138
18
18
40
Norway
How come it is only X79 though? Did some factory end up buying way too many of these chips back in the day? All these boards are recently manufactured. I know why they make them (to cash in on the influx of 2nd hand LGA2011 CPUs) but to have seemingly endless supply of EOL chipsets.

Also I understand for some it is just a hobby, but all considering I think it would be a waste of money and time to jump on this. For about $300 (which was thrown around here as a avg. total system cost) there are many alternatives if all you want is a basic computer. To keep costs down you would have to pair these with low clock Xeons or even ones with low core count.
 
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_haru

Member
Mar 24, 2018
47
6
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21
Perth, Australia
AFAIK these boards use ES chipsets from a lower tier than X79. considering the lack of demand for chipsets it probably would have been easy to just scoop up a ton of them for next to nothing
 

e97

Active Member
Jun 3, 2015
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Found this post from another user in Argentina from a few weeks ago: Китайский LGA2011 (Huanan X79 2.XX, X79Z 2.Xx, YW-X79-E, G218a, x79-m, ms-7777, 3.2x, 3.3A, 3.5a-c) • Конференция Overclockers.ru

So pinged the mfg - they said they are looking into a firmware update to see if they can get this to work.

If anyone else has the X79Z VB10 / X79Z B10 motherboard and want this fixed, I encourage you to email the mfg, the rep's name is Sophia:

Email: sophiagiga [at] xlzmotherboard.com

The more folks that write in about this issue, the more likely it is prioritized to be fixed!

As a backup plan, I'm also sourcing boards from a tier 1 mfg so everything will definitely work but will be pricey, as they say: you get what you pay for.
 
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joddlarn

Member
Jul 14, 2018
50
23
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Sweden
...
If anyone else has the X79Z VB10 / X79Z B10 motherboard and want this fixed, I encourage you to email the mfg, the rep's name is Sophia:

Email: sophiagiga [at] xlzmotherboard.com

The more folks that write in about this issue, the more likely it is prioritized to be fixed!
...
I dropped her an email too, hopefully more people do the same :)
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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So basically only 2 of the 4 long pci e slots works simultaneously? if you have cards in all of the four x1 slots, would any of the long slots work? that is really screwy....
 

joddlarn

Member
Jul 14, 2018
50
23
8
Sweden
So basically only 2 of the 4 long pci e slots works simultaneously? if you have cards in all of the four x1 slots, would any of the long slots work? that is really screwy....
From what I've found out is that you can get a maximum of five slots to work at the same time. But never more than two of the x16 slots.
 

joddlarn

Member
Jul 14, 2018
50
23
8
Sweden
I dropped her an email too, hopefully more people do the same :)
Sophia from xlzmotherboard replied to my mail with:
"For this model , about the graphic card, the 4 slots PEI ex16 can't use at the same time, and only 2 slots could use the same time, and others PCI ex1 slots could use the same time, and 5 slots could use at the same time"
I asked if the issue could be addressed by an bios upgrade but the above was her answer to that.

I also got a reply from the seller of the board and it was "problem is design problem".

This problem seems to not be fixable. So I went along and bought a Supermicro X9SRL-F motherboard instead.
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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Sophia from xlzmotherboard replied to my mail with:
"For this model , about the graphic card, the 4 slots PEI ex16 can't use at the same time, and only 2 slots could use the same time, and others PCI ex1 slots could use the same time, and 5 slots could use at the same time"
I asked if the issue could be addressed by an bios upgrade but the above was her answer to that.

I also got a reply from the seller of the board and it was "problem is design problem".

This problem seems to not be fixable. So I went along and bought a Supermicro X9SRL-F motherboard instead.
I think i will ask for a refund...... This is no better than the rest of the other boards with less slots..... I guess the only positive of this board is the 8 ram slots? that's not good enough....

I thought this would have been a better solution than the lenovo s30. guess not.

Well, if anyone else looking for a good X79 platform, should try the lenovo S30.
 

TType85

Active Member
Dec 22, 2014
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Garden Grove, CA
Well, if anyone else looking for a good X79 platform, should try the lenovo S30.
The HP Z420 is a also great platform. It has a proprietary PSU but the adapter cable to a standard one is like $15 from amazon. The advantage over the S30 is more HDD/ODD expansion; 3 5.25 bays vs 2 so you can put in a 5x3.5 hotswap in it.

You just have to make sure you get ones that work with the V2 CPU's on both machines.