Cheap chinese x79 mobos

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hobby386

New Member
Nov 4, 2019
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Anyone have any hands-on experience with these OEM motherboard with x79 chipset on eBay?

I like that they support registered memory which I have some lying around and are cheaper to buy. I also like that they come in M-ATX form factor for a smaller build.

The only question is longevity and whether they will last with 247 operation and for how long? So far I haven't found any "reviews" that's worth the time it takes to watch or read it.

Some people say they fail after 2 month or 6 months, but who knows? They LOOK like they could be pretty quality. I don't know enough about motherboard designs to know if the parts are good quality parts or not.
As far as I know.
Many X79 chips come from the server motherboard disassembly.Is old
For now, the OEM X79 technology is mature.
 

Neil Jefferies

New Member
Jun 28, 2019
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neilstechdocs.blogspot.com
This is a good source for BIOS mods China x79/c602 overclock xeon, ecc reg ddr3 (Google translate is your friend!)

I have a Xinlizhi X79 2.4F which has been running 24x7 for the past 6 months as my son's gaming rig (E5-1650 V2 and 32Gb RAM) no problems with Windows.

On the basis of that I have just acquired a dual socket Huananzhi.

...the fact that the BIOS's seem to be labelled C602/X79 leads me to believe that the real differentiator between these chipsets may be marketing and a couple of polyfuses.
 

BeTeP

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Mar 23, 2019
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X79 (or X99 or that matter) in the Chinese board's name does not mean that the board is specifically using Intel BD82X79 PCH chip. It's merely an indication of which generation of the Intel CPUs might be compatible with the board.
 

Neil Jefferies

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Jun 28, 2019
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neilstechdocs.blogspot.com
I would have thought that but the X79 and C602 share the same datasheet from Intel, the X79 is literally just the lowest C600-series SKU. All these motherboards seem to have feature sets (e.g. 6 SATA ports, no Intel ME) which match actually using an X79...although, as far as I can see from the docs, if you design for an X79 you can actually drop in any higher SKU and it will still work.

That's a good way to use up leftovers!
 

alex_stief

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May 31, 2016
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I think it is safe to assume that very few -if any- of the cheap Chinese "X79" motherboards ever had an actual X79 chipset.
They use what ever they can find for cheap, and make it work. X79 is just their catchy marketing term to say "runs LGA2011 CPUs"
 

Neil Jefferies

New Member
Jun 28, 2019
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neilstechdocs.blogspot.com
Very unlikely, the easiest way to get the required functionality is to use the chipset. I can locate 1000+ quantities in surplus shops in HK and China pretty easily for way below the original price so it's the easiest way to go - it's still probably the most expensive component on the board even at 10-20 dollars a pop in bulk (you can even get them on eBay for 39.99!). Otherwise, you end up having to either use a more expensive chip or more different chips - which costs in terms of board real estate, layout complexity and supply chain complexity.
 

hobby386

New Member
Nov 4, 2019
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In fact, I have a Chinese-made X79 motherboard. (Google Translate is great) I used to test memory and compatibility.
Server memory/desktop memory/plus a conversion slot can also test the laptop's memory.
 

itronin

Well-Known Member
Nov 24, 2018
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Thank you @BeTeP.

Asus Hyper M.2 X16 v2 ($57 AMZ) - drawbacks = reports of fully populated card required to use, some nvme slots do not show up on some motherboards.

I just want JBOD carrier functionality so given the title of this thread I think I'll go with the Asus for now and see what happens.
When I purchased the ASUS it ended up being $53 for some reason.

x4x4x4x4 bifurcation works fine in the Jingsha X99.

Maybe a bug in the BIOS. Under the NVME devices menu only the first 4 NVME devices found are displayed. Using the onboard m.2 slot only shows the one in the m.2 slot and only 3 of the 4 samsungs then. However the PCI IIO menu per lane displays all 5 linked up at 4x. Pics showing just the Asus installed with the 4 samsungs.

Need to fire up an OS and see what story that tells now.

all 5 M.2 devices show up in the drive boot menu so that makes me think the nvme device menu only displaying 4 is a limit or a bug.

One other thing I noticed is that using the onboard m.2 slot robs an x4 from the x8 (in x16) slot.
which makes sense ... This motherboard also has qty 2 x1 slots... which I am guessing will also rob from the x8 in x16 slot if you used them. Still enough in the x8 now x4 to run 10Gbe though (I think).

With an m.2 installed you must bifurcate slot 1 to x4x4 in order to get the x8 (phys x16) now x4 to work. windows seems happy as does the MX312A.

IMG_3120.jpg IMG_3123.jpg
 
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e97

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Jun 3, 2015
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When I purchased the ASUS it ended up being $53 for some reason.

x4x4x4x4 bifurcation works fine in the Jingsha X99.

Maybe a bug in the BIOS. Under the NVME devices menu only the first 4 NVME devices found are displayed. Using the onboard m.2 slot only shows the one in the m.2 slot and only 3 of the 4 samsungs then. However the PCI IIO menu per lane displays all 5 linked up at 4x. Pics showing just the Asus installed with the 4 samsungs.

Need to fire up an OS and see what story that tells now.

all 5 M.2 devices show up in the drive boot menu so that makes me think the nvme device menu only displaying 4 is a limit or a bug.

One other thing I noticed is that using the onboard m.2 slot robs an x4 from the x8 (in x16) slot.
which makes sense ... This motherboard also has qty 2 x1 slots... which I am guessing will also rob from the x8 in x16 slot if you used them. Still enough in the x8 now x4 to run 10Gbe though (I think).

With an m.2 installed you must bifurcate slot 1 to x4x4 in order to get the x8 (phys x16) now x4 to work. windows seems happy as does the MX312A.

View attachment 12313 View attachment 12314
Nice! Working on porting coreboot, should resolve BIOS quirks and provide more stability and faster boot times.
 
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FriscoTec

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Nov 21, 2019
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Hi e97 and itronin, I just ordered the Jingsha X99 (using the link to Diego at Alibaba) and wanted to thank you both for all the information you guys have provided. I also ordered the E5-2678v3 and look forward to this project. Any tips are appreciated or links to details about your materials, configurations etc. I was hoping to find some OEM case like Dell Precision or even Alienware but no luck yet.
 

Stephan

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Apr 21, 2017
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Was about to pull the trigger on an Huananzhi X79-16D with two 10-core Xeons. Then the JCC erratum happened and I changed my mind. Getting a Ryzen X3950 as soon as boards with a passively-cooled X570 are available that are not E-ATX.
 

FriscoTec

New Member
Nov 21, 2019
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Has anyone gotten the ALL CORE TURBO trick to work with the Xeon E5-2678v3? I'd of course need a BIOS for the SZMZ X99-8D3 (I did get from Diego so I will request a BIOS from him) also interested in a custom flash logo and haven't played with that in years.
* Okay it works. Just used the tf_tb.rom and V3.efi
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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How're you testing this for 'proper s3' functionality?
1. There should be a setting in bios for S3 sleep
2. Sleep would show up as a choice along with start and shutdown in windows once you install the proper driver for yr graphic card
3. When you choose sleep the computer should enter sleep (s3 means no fan should be running with monitor output off). The computer should come out of sleep and work properly. you should be able to do 10 consecutive manual entry into sleep and awake from sleep without the computer lock up or crash or show a black screen, etc.
 

wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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For the Runing X79z B10 MB, I found a mention on a russian site that the MSATA need to have all four of the jumpers near it set to 1-2 instead of 2-3 for the MSATA to work. I wonder if those jumper will take away another sata port... guess will have to test that out.
 

Jannis Jacobsen

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Mar 19, 2016
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How "secure" are these chinese motherboards?
Are you sure they dont have anything "extra" in the firmware that can log keyboard inputs etc?

I'm a bit sceptical to random hardware from china were I will input passwords, credit card numbers etc.

-jannis
 
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wildpig1234

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Aug 22, 2016
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there was an article by STH dealing with supermicro boards allegedly having backdoors. Any board can have backdoor. There are no board that are not made in asia. But it's highly unlikely that your credit card info is stolen by backdoor in boards. It s a lot more likely from phishing and malware.
 
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