Minisforum MS-01 PCIe Card and RAM Compatibility Thread

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bleomycin

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Nov 22, 2014
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I know this isn't explicitly related to the MS-01 but seeing as this is the only thread on the internet tracking minisforum pcie compatibility issues I can report my BD770i hangs at the initial bios/uefi post screen for 8-10 minutes on every single cold boot & every reboot when an Intel E810-XXVDA2 25Gb NIC is installed.

For anyone wondering about Minisforum support I can report that it is abysmal. No useful response to multiple emails about this issue in over 2 weeks. Thankfully amazon will bail me out of this one, I feel for anyone who orders from them directly.
 
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the-last-englishman

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Aug 20, 2023
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bleomycin said:
I know this isn't explicitly related to the MS-01 but seeing as this is the only thread on the internet tracking minisforum pcie compatibility issues I can report my BD770i hangs at the initial bios/uefi post screen for 8-10 minutes on every single cold boot & every reboot when an Intel E810-XXVDA2 25Gb NIC is installed.

For anyone wondering about Minisforum support I can report that it is abysmal. No useful response to multiple emails about this issue in over 2 weeks. Thankfully amazon will bail me out of this one, I feel for anyone who orders from them directly.
Click to expand...
Firstly, it's unfortunate that you're facing difficulties with the support from Minisforum, I have recently encountered their support also when I asked if 96Gb DDR5 was supported for on my NPB6 and they said no, but I bought it anyway and it works just fine, uptime over 3 months now.

When it comes to mini PCs, especially the more affordable and expandable ones, it's crucial to set realistic expectations for after-sales support. Companies known for their robust customer service infrastructure may be a safer bet for you if you prioritize technical assistance (Cisco, HP, Dell).

Now, regarding the specific issue you're facing with the non-working E810-XXVDA2, it's important to consider the compatibility of the hardware. Mini PCs often have limitations in terms of validated components, especially components intended for datacenters. In this instance, it's worth noting AMD probably never validated this CPU with that card, many bugs and gremlins could be there and nobody ever saw, cant really blame Minisforum for that, its way above their head.

My suggestion would be to check whether the 25GbE network card you've chosen has been validated by Intel for use with that AMD CPU or vice versa. Intel or Amd, being a major player in the hardware industry, may have insights or solutions to make your card work seamlessly with their CPU.

While it's frustrating to face issues with a new purchase, exploring multiple channels for support, including the original component manufacturer like Intel & Amd, might lead to a more satisfactory resolution.

Good luck with finding a resolution and dont forget to share with us :)

PS .. with regards to ordering from them directly, here in Europe we have 2 weeks to send back for a refund no questions asked.
 
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bleomycin

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Nov 22, 2014
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the-last-englishman said:
Firstly, it's unfortunate that you're facing difficulties with the support from Minisforum, I have recently encountered their support also when I asked if 96Gb DDR5 was supported for on my NPB6 and they said no, but I bought it anyway and it works just fine, uptime over 3 months now.

When it comes to mini PCs, especially the more affordable and expandable ones, it's crucial to set realistic expectations for after-sales support. Companies known for their robust customer service infrastructure may be a safer bet for you if you prioritize technical assistance (Cisco, HP, Dell).

Now, regarding the specific issue you're facing with the non-working E810-XXVDA2, it's important to consider the compatibility of the hardware. Mini PCs often have limitations in terms of validated components, especially components intended for datacenters. In this instance, it's worth noting AMD probably never validated this CPU with that card, many bugs and gremlins could be there and nobody ever saw, cant really blame Minisforum for that, its way above their head.

My suggestion would be to check whether the 25GbE network card you've chosen has been validated by Intel for use with that AMD CPU or vice versa. Intel or Amd, being a major player in the hardware industry, may have insights or solutions to make your card work seamlessly with their CPU.

While it's frustrating to face issues with a new purchase, exploring multiple channels for support, including the original component manufacturer like Intel & Amd, might lead to a more satisfactory resolution.

Good luck with finding a resolution and dont forget to share with us :)

PS .. with regards to ordering from them directly, here in Europe we have 2 weeks to send back for a refund no questions asked.
Click to expand...
Excellent response and all valid points! I had come to similar conclusions post purchase after thinking about it a little more myself.

Patrick and STH did an excellent job in their review of the MS-01 bringing attention to people that this type of issue is even possible and I applaud them for it!

I jumped in blindly with excitement on the BD770i after seeing the level1 video as it was in theory the perfect low power high performance platform I was looking for to build a very capable opnsense router.

Unfortunately the other outlets these products were seeded to didn't warn users of these potential pcie issues and even as someone with decades of hardware experience I was bitten by my oversight and failure to even consider this might be an issue due to my own lack of experience with a mobile platform being shoved into a desktop ecosystem.

Clearly I accept some responsibility for this but I do think the manufacturer should do a better job communicating these issues are to be expected on these platforms especially if the end user has essentially 0 recourse for support or a return (if not purchased from amazon) should they get unlucky like me.
 
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spuwho

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Jan 10, 2024
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I saw user @bleomycin issues on another blog and remember him posting about it.

Just a word of warning about trying to use certain adapters that were designed to be used in enterprise servers or absolutely require to maintain a copy of their option ROM in memory to function......these mini PC/workstations from Minis Forum are relatively simplistic in the scope of their UEFI pre-boot environments and if the said adapter doesn't work, it probably means either of the two issues are at work.

I have gone through several cheap used server based adapters that required a unit that could accommodate their option ROM in the the hardware setup. Either the adapter didn't work post boot, or the adapter ROM never appears at all and the PC just hangs.

With these classes of devices where the vendor does not have unlimited resources to test any and all possible options, they should instead do research on their own with regard to how adapters will work. If the one you have doesn't, post as not working and move on.
 
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FingerBlaster

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Feb 27, 2019
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I have no use for wifi on this thing, could I put a google coral in the wifi slot?

Either the single: M.2 Accelerator A+E key | Coral

Or the dual: M.2 Accelerator with Dual Edge TPU | Coral

For the dual it has a caveat.
"* Although the M.2 Specification (section 5.1.2) declares E-key sockets provide two instances of PCIe x1, most manufacturers provide only one. To use both Edge TPUs, be sure your socket connects both instances to the host."
 
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MetalPhreak

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Jan 19, 2024
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FingerBlaster said:
I have no use for wifi on this thing, could I put a google coral in the wifi slot?

Either the single: M.2 Accelerator A+E key | Coral

Or the dual: M.2 Accelerator with Dual Edge TPU | Coral

For the dual it has a caveat.
"* Although the M.2 Specification (section 5.1.2) declares E-key sockets provide two instances of PCIe x1, most manufacturers provide only one. To use both Edge TPUs, be sure your socket connects both instances to the host."
Click to expand...

Looks like A+E key wifi card in there, so the single coral should work. Looks like the slot is E-key. I have no need for wifi so I'll be putting my spare coral card in.

Whether it has 2 lanes or not, will have to check. E-key spec says x2 lanes.
 
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the-last-englishman

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Another point on these boards is that they are not built in house by minis forum,
MetalPhreak said:

Looks like A+E key wifi card in there, so the single coral should work. Looks like the slot is E-key. I have no need for wifi so I'll be putting my spare coral card in.
Click to expand...
@JaxJiang or @Patrick Please do jump back on board on and lets us know how the WiFi lanes are wired, @MetalPhreak has a really good use case with that coral accelerator, makes this device even more better for simulating some network edge based sceanarios.

On a personal note, I would like to see a print out of the IOMMU groups if possible:

iommu.sh

Code: 
#!/usr/bin/env bash

shopt -s nullglob
lastgroup=""
for g in `find /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/* -maxdepth 0 -type d | sort -V`; do
    for d in $g/devices/*; do
        if [ "${g##*/}" != "$lastgroup" ]; then
            echo -en "Group ${g##*/}:\t"
        else
            echo -en "\t\t"
        fi
        lastgroup=${g##*/}
        lspci -nms ${d##*/} | awk -F'"' '{printf "[%s:%s]", $4, $6}'
        if [[ -e "$d"/reset ]]; then echo -en " [R] "; else echo -en "     "; fi

        lspci -mms ${d##*/} | awk -F'"' '{printf "%s %-40s %s\n", $1, $2, $6}'
        for u in ${d}/usb*/; do
            bus=$(cat "${u}/busnum")
            lsusb -s $bus: | \
                awk '{gsub(/:/,"",$4); printf "%s|%s %s %s %s|", $6, $1, $2, $3, $4; for(i=7;i<=NF;i++){printf "%s ", $i}; printf "\n"}' | \
                awk -F'|' '{printf "USB:\t\t[%s]\t\t %-40s %s\n", $1, $2, $3}'
        done
    done
done
 
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amk316

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Jan 21, 2024
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hello (firs post :))
after the ms-01 review i am very interested in buying one as ESXi home server but i need sata ports as i have lots of 3.5' hdds.
I was wandering is it passable to add NVME M.2 to SATA Adapter to the pc and run 3 3.5" hdd.
and i am worried about the power source can i draw power directly form the pc or do i need an external power to run the hdds.
i don't want the QNAP TL-D400S solution.
i don't want to use the pcie slot for now.
appreciate any advice
 
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Joss

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Jan 21, 2024
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Two questions – my first post… glad to be here.

I'm looking at this from the perspective of building an all-M.2 Unraid home server, using the PCIe x8 slot (3.0 or 4.0?) for some additional M.2 slots. Afaik the speed of the ZFS pool (RAIDz1) would be limited by the slowest SSD, which would be PCIe 3.0 x2 (third underside M.2 slot). Earlier in this thread, someone mentioned the Ableconn PEXM2-130 PCIe 3.0 x8 M.2 carrier card. On that card you would get two M.2 slots for the full four lanes of PCIe 3.0 each. But since a RAID would be limited to x2 per SSD anyway (see above), you could as well go for a quad carrier, so my question is if there is an x8 quad M.2 PEX card? One that would fit? That would only yield PCIe 3.0 x2 per SSD, but it would still be enough, and you'd have 7 M.2 SSDs, with a (theoretical) RAIDz1 read speed way beyond what the dual SFP+ could handle. With 4TB M.2 SSDs (some of them single-sided) you would then have up to 28 TB of raw storage, which is frankly nuts in such a small form factor.

EDIT: there seems to be one x8 sold at AliExpress under "Quad M.2 NVMe SSD PCIe x8 x16 Adapter with PEX 8747", but I can't find a working link to it… but it seems to be lower height, unlike the usual quad carrier cards, which obviously wouldn't fit in the MS-01.

Another idea I had when looking at this thing, was to repurpose the M.2 A+E key slot (WiFi). There are adapters from A+E to M key M.2, and if you use an A+E extender going into the M key adapter, you might have enough space to put an additional storage M.2, i.e. where part of the U.2 would normally sit. It would only be x1, but as a standalone unassigned drive it would be OK, I guess. But does anyone know if there are any A+E extenders and M key adapters that would work with the MS-01?
 
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F

flobert

Member
Sep 3, 2019
40
13
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amk316 said:
hello (firs post :))
after the ms-01 review i am very interested in buying one as ESXi home server but i need sata ports as i have lots of 3.5' hdds.
I was wandering is it passable to add NVME M.2 to SATA Adapter to the pc and run 3 3.5" hdd.
and i am worried about the power source can i draw power directly form the pc or do i need an external power to run the hdds.
i don't want the QNAP TL-D400S solution.
i don't want to use the pcie slot for now.
appreciate any advice
Click to expand...
Perhaps something like this?

D6-320

6-bay USB3.2 Gen2 10Gbps External Hard Disk Enclosure(Hard Drive is not included)
www.terra-master.com www.terra-master.com

SMART and all other stuff works like normal.
 
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etorix

Member
Sep 28, 2021
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FingerBlaster said:
That's pcie 3.0 though, you probably want pcie 4.0
Click to expand...
Yeah! Even more heat in this very limited space in a small system that is already thermally challenged. Great idea! Burn, baby, burn!!!

Seriously, people who want a NAS, be it with HDDs or with SSDs, should look at a properly sized system with the proper I/O (and proper cooling!) rather than trying to cram even more hardware in a system which is designed to be SMALL.
The cheapest PCIe 4.0 switch card I've found (Broadcom P411W-32P) is more expensive than a MS-01. One could get a refurbished 1st/2nd gen. Xeon Scalable or EPYC system for that money.
 
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spuwho

Member
Jan 10, 2024
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FingerBlaster said:
That's pcie 3.0 though, you probably want pcie 4.0
Click to expand...
What about this one, or is it too long.

www.ebay.com

New Pcie 4.0 X16 to M.2 M-key NVMEx4SSD RAID Expansion Card Adapter 4 x 32Gbps | eBay

PCI-E4.0 RAID 0 mode, read rate up to 14000+MB/S. 1 X Expansion Card Adapter. LED indicator light. It adopts high-end PCB circuit board, surface gold plating process, with good conductivity, strong wear resistance, oxidation resistance and high level of fire protection.
www.ebay.com
 
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FingerBlaster

Member
Feb 27, 2019
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etorix said:
Yeah! Even more heat in this very limited space in a small system that is already thermally challenged. Great idea! Burn, baby, burn!!!

Seriously, people who want a NAS, be it with HDDs or with SSDs, should look at a properly sized system with the proper I/O (and proper cooling!) rather than trying to cram even more hardware in a system which is designed to be SMALL.
The cheapest PCIe 4.0 switch card I've found (Broadcom P411W-32P) is more expensive than a MS-01. One could get a refurbished 1st/2nd gen. Xeon Scalable or EPYC system for that money.
Click to expand...
some of us are looking at these things from the perspective of a xeon scalable or epyc system will eat over 200watts at 100% idle. So there's a bit of a compromise in trying to make these things do stuff. Sure it may be more ideal to get say an asustor flash nas, but homelabbing is sometimes about putting a square peg in a round hole. Sometimes "because you can", and sometimes because there just isn't the right product out there in this niche market.
 
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FingerBlaster

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Feb 27, 2019
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I just found a card but it's 200mm long, any idea what the max length is? case is only 196mm long, so obviously less than that :)
 
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