Inventec B400 motherboard

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truongtx8

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Feb 13, 2019
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Thanks for your reply.
I have one that only work with v1 processor, the BIOS you shared may make the different, I will check it tomorrow.
 

Chris Clein

New Member
Nov 1, 2018
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Does anyone know what the pinout is for the Front Panel connector?

I 3d printed an io shield for the B400 with 2 NICS and the BMC if anyone is interested.
 

Markess

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May 19, 2018
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A few months back, I bought one of the boards that the OP did, same model and seller. I got into the BMC, but never got it to boot. Each attempt gave a "critical hardware failure" message. Since they'd sold a lot of them, I asked the vendor if there were any tricks they knew of to get it to work. They were very helpful, extremely so considering it was only $16 to start with. Never got it to work, but I did appreciate their being so helpful.
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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Does anyone know what the pinout is for the Front Panel connector?

I don't know if your board is identical to mine, but if all else fails, I'm sure the board has screen printing on it that gives you a clue as to what goes where. :)

Here is the pinout for my board:

B400 - FP Connector.png
 

Chris Clein

New Member
Nov 1, 2018
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Thanks, That did the trick. Is it my imagination or is it incredibly slow to boot up? Any tricks to get it to post faster?
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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I can't say I have seen any boot speed issues with my board. I usually have ESXi up and loading VM's in just over a minute from a cold startup. My board does not have IPMI though, so if you are powering it up and waiting on boot, I would imagine it will load up the BMC first, before doing anything else, then continue the BIOS boot process. That's bound to add an extra couple of minutes :)

Try just plugging in the power supply and leaving it alone for a few minutes, then hit the soft power button. If it loads much faster when doing that, then it's most likely the extra time needed to get the BMC chugging that you are witnessing :)
 

Chris Clein

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Nov 1, 2018
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You nailed it! Once I had the power switch wired up I can boot it immediately. The BMC does it's thing and then boots. Do you have the manual for this board? Does your 1245 v2 support ecc?
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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Yes, the E3-1245v2 supports ECC memory, but as with all the E3 series I believe, it only supports UDIMM, so unbuffered ECC. Scarce and a little on the expensive side, or at least it was when I got mine, but things may have changed since then, I haven't searched for any for a long time. If you are looking for RAM and can't find any at a decent price, try looking for the older MAC Pro stuff, that's what I'm using on mine and it's never missed a beat. I did scrounge up a manual for the revision of the B400 that I have, but it doesn't cover any of the other revisions or those boards with IPMI :)
 

Chris Clein

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Nov 1, 2018
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And is there something in the BIOS that suggests that the ECC memory is working correctly? How do you know that it recognizes the ecc memory?
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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You should see it being recognised in the boot screen, you might need to pause the boot a couple of times to see the messages. In ESXi you can use the dmidecode command, if I remember, to get RAM/ Slot info, plus there should be stuff in the logs too, but I forget where. If all else fails, you could run the new version of memtest, that should list the RAM type and if ECC is enabled or not. Beware of older tools, lots of them will only show you the data width, which is 64 bits. You should use something that also gives you the total width, which for ECC is 72 bits :)

Correction: You can use dmidecode up to version 4.x of ESXi, after that, you need to use smbiosDump|less as apparently VMWare removed dmidecode from anything later than version 4.x
 
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Chris Clein

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Nov 1, 2018
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Interesting, I'm running Memtest86 8.1 and it recognizes the ram as Kingston 9965525-024.A00LF which should be unbuffered ECC. But the tests is 64-bit wide and doesn't show anything in the post screen. I wonder if I've missed something to enable it in the bios. I've got a 1245 v2 as well.
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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I don't know if the free version shows it or not, but I believe the commercial version does, maybe get a trial version and try that?
You could also try firing up a Linux live disc, like Ubuntu for example, create a root account and run "dmidecode -t memory" without the quotes, as root, that should give you the ECC information. There is also another method you could try, if you install windoze. Open up an elevated cmd window and type in "wmic MEMORYCHIP get DataWidth,TotalWidth" without the quotes. That should show you if the system recognises that it is running on ECC memory.

That's it for my trick bag, maybe others here have some alternative ideas you could try :)
 

Chris Clein

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Nov 1, 2018
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Here's my DMIDecode:

# dmidecode 3.1
Getting SMBIOS data from sysfs.
SMBIOS 2.7 present.

Handle 0x0022, DMI type 16, 23 bytes
Physical Memory Array
Location: System Board Or Motherboard
Use: System Memory
Error Correction Type: Single-bit ECC
Maximum Capacity: 32 GB
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Number Of Devices: 4

Handle 0x0025, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0022
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Total Width: 128 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: ChannelA-DIMM0
Bank Locator: BANK 0
Type: DDR3
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 1333 MT/s
Manufacturer: Kingston
Serial Number: 31369EA9
Asset Tag: 9876543210
Part Number: 9965525-024.A00LF
Rank: 2
Configured Clock Speed: 1333 MT/s

Handle 0x0027, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0022
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Total Width: Unknown
Data Width: Unknown
Size: No Module Installed
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: ChannelA-DIMM1
Bank Locator: BANK 1
Type: Unknown
Type Detail: None
Speed: Unknown
Manufacturer: [Empty]
Serial Number: [Empty]
Asset Tag: 9876543210
Part Number: [Empty]
Rank: Unknown
Configured Clock Speed: Unknown

Handle 0x0028, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0022
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Total Width: 128 bits
Data Width: 64 bits
Size: 8192 MB
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: ChannelB-DIMM0
Bank Locator: BANK 2
Type: DDR3
Type Detail: Synchronous
Speed: 1333 MT/s
Manufacturer: Kingston
Serial Number: 31369EA9
Asset Tag: 9876543210
Part Number: 9965525-024.A00LF
Rank: 2
Configured Clock Speed: 1333 MT/s

Handle 0x002A, DMI type 17, 34 bytes
Memory Device
Array Handle: 0x0022
Error Information Handle: Not Provided
Total Width: Unknown
Data Width: Unknown
Size: No Module Installed
Form Factor: DIMM
Set: None
Locator: ChannelB-DIMM1
Bank Locator: BANK 3
Type: Unknown
Type Detail: None
Speed: Unknown
Manufacturer: [Empty]
Serial Number: [Empty]
Asset Tag: 9876543210
Part Number: [Empty]
Rank: Unknown
Configured Clock Speed: Unknown
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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My reading of that output, is that you have 16GB of Kingston ECC RAM installed and running as 8GB in two slots (DIMMA0, DIMMB0, Sync Dual Channel). Look at the top, see where it lists Error Correction Type: Single-Bit ECC ? If you didn't have either BIOS support for it, CPU support for it, or ECC Memory fitted, it would say None there. Try the other methods I suggested and see if you can confirm what you now know :)

Here is some output from my ESXi host (just the interesting bits) :

Physical Memory Array: #31
Use: 0x03 (System memory)
Location: 0x03 (Motherboard)
Slots: 4
Max. Size: 32 GB
ECC: 0x05 (Single-bit)

Processor Info: #32
Payload length: 0x2a
Socket: "SOCKET 0"
Socket Type: 0x24 (Socket LGA1155)
Socket Status: Populated
Type: 0x03 (CPU)
Family: 0xb3 (Xeon)
Manufacturer: "Intel(R) Corporation"
Version: "Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1245 V2 @ 3.40GHz"
Asset Tag: "Fill By OEM"
Part Number: "Fill By OEM"
Processor ID: 0xbfebfbff000307b9
Status: 0x01 (Enabled)
Voltage: 10.1 V
External Clock: 100 MHz
Max. Speed: 3800 MHz
Current Speed: 3400 MHz
L1 Cache: #4
L2 Cache: #29
L3 Cache: #30
Core Count: #4
Core Enabled Count: #4
Thread Count: #8

This obviously being repeated for each memory slot:

Memory Device: #34
Location: "ChannelA-DIMM0"
Bank: "BANK 0"
Manufacturer: "Micron"
Serial: "DEADE43E"
Asset Tag: "9876543210"
Part Number: "18KSF1G72AZ-1G4E1"
Memory Array: #31
Form Factor: 0x09 (DIMM)
Type: 0x18 (DDR3)
Type Detail: 0x0080 (Synchronous)
Data Width: 64 bits (+64 ECC bits)
Size: 8 GB
Speed: 1333 MHz

*Edited again, on account of a brain fart :)
 
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Chris Clein

New Member
Nov 1, 2018
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Here's one to add to the toolbox:

From an Admin Command Prompt...

wmic memphysical get memoryerrorcorrection

Value Meaning
0 (0x0) Reserved

1 (0x1) Other

2 (0x2) Unknown

3 (0x3) None

4 (0x4) Parity

5 (0x5) Single-bit ECC

6 (0x6) Multi-bit ECC

7 (0x7) CRC
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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Handy to know, yet another way to skin the same cat! WMI twiddling isn't really my bag, but it does come in really handy sometimes :)
 

Chris Clein

New Member
Nov 1, 2018
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I seem to have run into the same problem as you, Prickly. My VT-X is not active... off to have some BIOS fun.
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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Ahh, yup BIOS modding is fun...not :)

If you get stuck with it, pm me a copy of your original, I'll have a peek and see if I can untangle it for ya. Actually, I would appreciate a copy in any case :)
 

Chris Clein

New Member
Nov 1, 2018
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Actually, it went well. There was a sub menu under Main that I enabled and everything hidden showed up there. It was a blank menu item, I should have named it but I didn't want to push my luck. I almost tried to inject a logo into the bios but I stopped myself.
 

pricklypunter

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Nov 10, 2015
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I hear ya. I am a great believer in being minimally invasive with BIOS mods, because you just never know what unintended consequences might lead to :)