Gigabyte MJ11-EC1 EPYC 3151 Mystery

[jnrnbt.]

The G431 uses an extra board for power and pcie distribution.

Additionally to your link there is also a Delock Adapter from 8654-8i to pcie x16 (x8) but it’s about 250€, so I try to get it to work for less money.

I bought a 8654-8i to 2x 8611 cable (36€)and a 8611 to pcie x16 (x4) board (26€) that should reach me tomorrow.

 

[SadoKitten]

The G431 uses an extra board for power and pcie distribution.

Additionally to your link there is also a Delock Adapter from 8654-8i to pcie x16 (x8) but it’s about 250€, so I try to get it to work for less money.

I bought a 8654-8i to 2x 8611 cable (36€)and a 8611 to pcie x16 (x4) board (26€) that should reach me tomorrow.

Actually, the g431 has 2 boards. One for power distribution and fans, and one for pcie distribution.

 

[jnrnbt.]

Ah yes, you´re right.
Unfortunately i can´t get any detail shots of that PCIe distribution board, on the pretty lowres web photos you can only see the 8654-8i cable underneath and the (i assume) chip is covered by a heatsink.

Meanwhile i got my 64 Gig of RAM running. As i already have a temporary replacement for the broken XeonD i can test the Gigabyte a bit

 

[SadoKitten]

I'll pull ours apart and take photos for everyone

 

[SadoKitten]

The chip is a asmedia, asm2824
B3ng8227a1 2043

ASMedia PCIe product ASM2824, a low latency, low cost and low power 24 lane , maximum 12 downstream ports packet switch. With upstream PCIe Gen3x8 bandwidth, ASM2824 can enable users to build up various high speed IO systems, including server, system storage or communication platforms.

ASM2824-PCIe Gen3 Packet Switching Chips，24 Lane / 12 Port|ASMedia Technology Inc.

PCIe Gen3 Packet Switching Chips, 24 Lane,12 Port PCI Express Switch, Packet Switching Chip

www.asmedia.com.tw

 

[Bijuuka]

Do you happen to know the name of that atx adapter?

I bought the board with RAM and the ATX Adapter from ram-koenig and the adapter has a label around of the cables with "YUNTECH 2051" and "25CRI-25030A-Y4R" written on it. Google doesn't show anything.

 

[Bijuuka]

The G431 uses an extra board for power and pcie distribution.

Additionally to your link there is also a Delock Adapter from 8654-8i to pcie x16 (x8) but it’s about 250€, so I try to get it to work for less money.

I bought a 8654-8i to 2x 8611 cable (36€)and a 8611 to pcie x16 (x4) board (26€) that should reach me tomorrow.

Do you have links for that?
Are you able to use the Oculink 8i as a x8 connector, or is it frozen to 8 times x1 in the BIOS? Planned to use the SlimSAS for 2 more SATA connections.

 

[jnrnbt.]

8654-8i to 2x 8611
SFF-8612 or 8611 to PCIe

As i could not find difference between 8611 and 8612 i hope that will work.

There´s only Enabled or Disabled for the u2 port.


Given the info from SadoKitten (thanks for that) the port should use all available lanes if only one card is present. I don´t think you can use the SFF-8654-8i natively for SATA, but if my test tomorrow works than you can easily equip that port with a RAID / HBA card.

However, the following BIOS screenshot leads me to think you can use SATA and SFF-8654-4i (next to the SATA Ports) simultaneously.
I just don´t have such modern SAS Cables for prove yet.

 

[Bijuuka]

8654-8i to 2x 8611
SFF-8612 or 8611 to PCIe

As i could not find difference between 8611 and 8612 i hope that will work.

There´s only Enabled or Disabled for the u2 port.
View attachment 31778

Given the info from SadoKitten (thanks for that) the port should use all available lanes if only one card is present. I don´t think you can use the SFF-8654-8i natively for SATA, but if my test tomorrow works than you can easily equip that port with a RAID / HBA card.

However, the following BIOS screenshot leads me to think you can use SATA and SFF-8654-4i (next to the SATA Ports) simultaneously.
I just don´t have such modern SAS Cables for prove yet.

View attachment 31779

Thanks for the links. Found the stuff on amazon in my country, though slighty more expensive.If your tests tomorrow work, I'll grab the cable too.

Interesting. I checked the link to the server built on this board on the first page and i realised i had a misconception. I thought you wanted to use the SlimSAS 4i Port for replication.
The table on the gigabyte homepage says: " 2xSlim SAS 8i; 1x SlimSAS 4i" Since the second 8i port isn't soldered on the board we got 24GB/s from the 8i port and 12 GB/s from the 4i(?). Seeing your BIOS config, I wonder how performance is, if you really split the 4i SlimSAS into 4 SATA Ports. I planned on using 4 array + 1 parity + 1 SATA SSD for VMs / docks whatnot. If this board really handles 8 sata AND the 24GB/s 8i port, it's an even better deal than having directly one x16 PCIe port soldered onto it. Best bang for the buck.

So how much booze and soldering paste you reckon does it take to try to get the second 8i port soldered on?

 

[jnrnbt.]

As the BIOS doesn’t mention anything about the u2_1 port I’m afraid that one can’t get it to run.
I don’t know anything about soldering, so I’m afraid I can’t help you with that.

If the board had HW RAID that would be great, but I think even as 8 port SW RAIDE nas box with pcie 10g card it should perform fine with the 4c8t epyc.

As I’m not patient enough for Linux I stopped trying to xpenology it for today, maybe I’ll give it a shot later that week.

 

[SadoKitten]

Should be able to use the SFF-8654-8i natively for SATA. See here: The 50cm SlimSAS 8i cable is compatible with any motherboard that uses the SFF-8644 connector and supports both SAS and SATA devices at speeds of up to 6 Gb/s.

SlimSAS 8i (SFF-8654) Straight to 8X SATA Cable - 50CM

The 50cm SlimSAS 8i cable is compatible with any motherboard that uses the SFF-8644 connector and supports both SAS and SATA devices at speeds of up to 6 Gb/s.

www.microsatacables.com

 

[jnrnbt.]

Hey Folks, it works
My LSI SAS3 card is working fine on pcie 3.0 x4, maybe it’s even possible to order another sf-8611 to pcie and use it as 2 separate x4 slots.
I’ll try some more in the next days, amazon was late today.

And to the SATA natively to u2 port question, that won’t work just because SATA and PCIe share that connection. The u2 port isn’t connected to the SATA controller.

 

[Bijuuka]

Hey Folks, it works
My LSI SAS3 card is working fine on pcie 3.0 x4, maybe it’s even possible to order another sf-8611 to pcie and use it as 2 separate x4 slots.
I’ll try some more in the next days, amazon was late today.

And to the SATA natively to u2 port question, that won’t work just because SATA and PCIe share that connection. The u2 port isn’t connected to the SATA controller.

Great news. Wonder if that thing is able to run a Y Splitter nvme cache board and on the other a 10GbE Adapter.
Is the SAS 8i 3.0 or 4.0? Wondering if it runs in 3.0 compatibility mode since your card is 3.0 or if it is a real 4.0 SAS with 24 GB/s bandwith.

 

[mstoebich]

Hm, it seems that these boards either don't support quad rank or LRDIMMs (or both). I was hoping I could repurpose the 128gb (4x32gb 4R 2133MHz LRDIMM) kit i have sitting on my shelf for a couple months, but the IPMI still shows a 16gb 2400MT DIMM in slot B0, no matter if i have one or four DIMMs installed:


The ipmi also doesn't seem to update it's inventory in general:

 

[jnrnbt.]

Another info for anyboady in search of adapters and cables, that Oculink aka SFF-8654 x8 aka SlimSAS x8 has another Name, "Ultraport". I love standards

@mstoebich
My board was kind of bitchy regarding RAM at first, had 2 16G modules that would not show up even if from the same charge as the other 2 16G Modules, as i switched slots the error moved with the modules, switched them for others and voila, i had my 64 Gig. The "faulty" modules themself are working fine in any other server.
My U2 Port shows the correct LSI Card.

@Bijuuka
On the G431-MM0 product page only PCIe Gen3 is mentioned, as i don´t have any PCIe 4.0 hardware i can´t test that. On the other hand PCIe 3.0 x4 has 4GB/s which is enough for 10gbe and should even be enough for most drives.

I´d give it a shot with another of that SFF-8611(=x4) to PCIe Adapters that i bought, as i have one of the 8611 plugs on my "Oculink x8 to 2x 8611" cable unused. But i don´t need it and i don´t have enough case real estate in my server so that second adapter wouldn´t be of any use for me.

 

[SadoKitten]

Here is the memory supported list

 

[mstoebich]

Interesting, seems like all the qualified RAM is 2666Mhz. I have 2133 and 2400Mhz sticks in my other server and was initially planning on swapping these for 2666 and use the slower ones on these boards. Well, seems like a maintenance windows is needed to get one of each out for further testing...

 

[SadoKitten]

Another info for anyboady in search of adapters and cables, that Oculink aka SFF-8654 x8 aka SlimSAS x8 has another Name, "Ultraport". I love standards

[

Oculink is (SFF-8611), not sff-8654. While it is 8 lanes, it is a completely different connector, and it will be confusing to people if they think it's the same. The (SFF-8654) is a slimline SAS connector with 74 pins. An occulink (sff-8611) is 42 pins.

 

[mstoebich]

Interesting, seems like all the qualified RAM is 2666Mhz. I have 2133 and 2400Mhz sticks in my other server and was initially planning on swapping these for 2666 and use the slower ones on these boards. Well, seems like a maintenance windows is needed to get one of each out for further testing...

I took some time this morning and tested all three kits I had on hand (which finally forced me to do the esxi 8 upgrade on my other host that I've been putting of for months). These three booted in a 1x, 2x and 4x configuration:

• HMA84GR7MFR4N-TF - 2133Mhz, 32GB DR
• M393A4K40BB0-CPB - 2133Mhz, 32GB DR
• M393A4K40BB1-CRC0Q - 2400Mhz, 32GB DR

The only issue I had was when I installed them in the Black slots (first and third from the CPU), this caused the system to not boot.

 

[FrankTL]

This refurbished board catches my interest due to the very affordable price.
Can anyone tell me if the DC_IN1 connector is optional? I.E. can I power the board with only a 12V power supply comnected to P12V_AUX1 - like is possible on many SuperMicro MITX boards?