Motherboard/CPU Advice for Simple File Server

[Markess]

That same board and CPU, actually. My issue was the lack of a 6 pin PCI-E power connector to enable the PCI-E slots. I couldn’t get any add-in cards to work.

Interesting. I've had no issues with PCIe cards working without the extra power connectors. The 6 Pin connector isn't supposed to be to power the slots. They will work up to 75w per slot (for devices that register themselves as "High Power" devices) without a cable. The 6 pin is for if you need more power than that (i.e. your cards have a 6 or 8 pin power connector, like a GPU or "hefty" HBA, etc.).

If your cards don't have 8 or 6 pin power connectors on them, they should work. Maybe you have a bad slot, or you've got slot bifurcation (or another setting) set in BIOS in a way that's giving you issues?

 

[lastradapomegranate]

Interesting. I've had no issues with PCIe cards working without the extra power connectors. The 6 Pin connector isn't supposed to be to power the slots. They will work up to 75w per slot (for devices that register themselves as "High Power" devices). The 6 pin is for if you need more power than that (i.e. your cards have a 6 or 8 pin power connector, like a GPU or "hefty" HBA, etc.).

If your cards don't have 8 or 6 pin power connectors on them, they should work. Maybe you have a bad slot, or you've got slot bifurcation (or another setting) set in BIOS in a way that's giving you issues?

The 6 pin on the motherboard is for high power PCI-E devices? As in you’d connect a power cable from the mobo to the card?
Hmm. Maybe the HBA I got was just faulty then… I thought the response from Gigabyte support meant the aux power was needed for the PCI slots to work at all.

 

[Markess]

Gigabyte's documentation on this board in particular is AWFUL (just a foldout) and the response you get from them when you ask for clarifications is just as likely to be wrong as right. We tested 50+ of these boards over a couple months and had very little help from them in getting them in really good working order. In the end, we wound up teaching THEM how some things really worked.

What HBA are you using? I can tell you from experience that some older ones won't work on this board without the SMS Bus "tape modification".

 

[BlueFox]

A few exceptions aside, if you have 6 pin PCIe power connectors on the motherboard, that's to supply additional power to the motherboard, not to run a cable from it to a GPU. If you have many high power devices (which can draw 75W from the slot), plus a demanding GPU, it's possible to exceed what 24 pin + 8 pin connector can supply.

 

[lastradapomegranate]

Gigabyte's documentation on this board in particular is AWFUL (just a foldout) and the response you get from them when you ask for clarifications is just as likely to be wrong as right. We tested 50+ of these boards over a couple months and had very little help from them in getting them in really good working order. In the end, we wound up teaching THEM how some things really worked.

What HBA are you using? I can tell you from experience that some older ones won't work on this board without the SMS Bus "tape modification".

It was an Inspur 9300-8i.

A few exceptions aside, if you have 6 pin PCIe power connectors on the motherboard, that's to supply additional power to the motherboard, not to run a cable from it to a GPU. If you have many high power devices (which can draw 75W from the slot), plus a demanding GPU, it's possible to exceed what 24 pin + 8 pin connector can supply.

Hmm. Could have just been a bad HBA. Maybe I shouldn’t have returned it based on Gigabyte’s response then…

 

[Markess]

A few exceptions aside, if you have 6 pin PCIe power connectors on the motherboard, that's to supply additional power to the motherboard, not to run a cable from it to a GPU. If you have many high power devices (which can draw 75W from the slot), plus a demanding GPU, it's possible to exceed what 24 pin + 8 pin connector can supply.

When I started testing our batch, I hooked up a single 24 + 8 pin on the test bench and had no issue. We asked about the second 8 pin and the 6 pin connectors though, just to know for sure, and Gigabyte told us they weren't strictly necessary for reasons you mention.

The 6 Pin connector is labeled "2x3 Pin 12V power connector (For CPU & DDR 12V input)" in the QRG, which made me think its for usage as you mention above. BUT someone at Gigabyte said the same thing that @lastradapomegranate mentioned above...that you can power devices FROM it. So, I'm not sure?

I do know that everything I tested with worked fine without anything on that connector (NVMe controller, SAS 9300-8i, low end Quadro P620, etc.). The one more power hungry GPU I tested with it, I used a PCIe cable from the PSU.

 

[Markess]

Maybe I shouldn’t have returned it based on Gigabyte’s response then…

Probably better off. The support was super spotty. At one point, they put up a BIOS update to fix an issue and it made everything unstable. They wound up pulling it down. Lots of little things that could get worked out, but not everyone wants to fiddle with their hardware.

The Xeon D you mention a few posts back is a nice board. Not super cheap, but definitely nice.

Cheers!

 

[Bert]

It was more of a future proofing thing, plus I found a good deal on the chassis. I don’t need lots of high bandwidth IO, it’s just got storing media. Right now I only have two disks, but I was planning to just buy more as-needed.

How much power consumption are we talking? I could see about selling it and buying an A backplane if that will be considerable power savings, however I’m not overly concerned with getting it as low as possible as long as it’s better than 100W, not inclusive of disks

Use SM chasis for any other purpose such as backup server. Get a regular desktop case with small power supply. Attach sata drives to an itx or micro atx board with low power small core count cpu. You are done.

If you need to access remotely then have a Supermicro motherboard with Ipmi but that's extra 15watt.


Ditch 10g or all the other fancy things. Also ditch the idea of future proofing. Have a projected requirements on media space for next a few years. Just keep on updating over time.

 

[lastradapomegranate]

Use SM chasis for any other purpose such as backup server. Get a regular desktop case with small power supply. Attach sata drives to an itx or micro atx board with low power small core count cpu. You are done.

If you need to access remotely then have a Supermicro motherboard with Ipmi but that's extra 15watt.


Ditch 10g or all the other fancy things. Also ditch the idea of future proofing. Have a projected requirements on media space for next a few years. Just keep on updating over time.

I can still stick a low power ATX board/CPU in the case. 10 GbE isn’t exactly fancy in 2024… the chassis allows me to just keep adding hard drives as needed and takes standard internals so I can make it as high or low powered as I want.

 

[RolloZ170]

The 6 Pin connector isn't supposed to be to power the slots. They will work up to 75w per slot (for devices that register themselves as "High Power" devices) without a cable

not correct: only PEG slots can draw 75 watts. the 24pin has only 2x 12V cables.
I wouldn't want to pull more than ~6-7A from each, so 14A x 12v = 168w
if the PCIe slot +12V line is not shorted with the CPU power connector you need extra #12V power for the slots.

 

[Markess]

not correct: only PEG slots can draw 75 watts. the 24pin has only 2x 12V cables.
I wouldn't want to pull more than ~6-7A from each, so 14A x 12v = 168w
if the PCIe slot +12V line is not shorted with the CPU power connector you need extra #12V power for the slots.

Yes, you are correct. My mistake. Just to make sure I'm thinking correctly in this case though (even if my assertions on slot specifications is incorrect), and not that it matters to OP any more, since they returned the board:

OP had the ATX 24 Pin and an 8 Pin 12v connector attached. So six total 12v conductors on a 920w PSU. With only the CPU and a single HBA installed (LSI 9300-8i @ ~19.04w worst case power draw per specs) there shouldn't have been any power delivery issues in this particular case?

I recently tested 50 of these boards with similar setups and would hate to have downchecked any because of a faulty assumption on powering them. In my case I had cards in all three of the board's PCIe slots (two slots x16 electrically and one x8 electrically), and for most of them they passed fine. So, I assumed the ones with electrical faults were something more than insufficient power to the PCIe slots.

 

[RolloZ170]

OP had the ATX 24 Pin and an 8 Pin 12v connector attached. So six total 12v conductors on a 920w PSU

not realy. if we do electrical correct (24pin OCP valid design) the 8pin EPS do not supply the PCIe Slots.
if the 8pin and 24pin's +12Vare shorted(should not - but some vendor do), it is a different scenario.
edit: expecting the 8pin and 24pin 12V are shorted together:
if some don't apply the 8pin EPS all +12 Power must go over 2x cables, with a single Rail PSU without extra 24pin OCP, the cable's get up in Fire.

 

[lastradapomegranate]

Yes, you are correct. My mistake. Just to make sure I'm thinking correctly in this case though (even if my assertions on slot specifications is incorrect), and not that it matters to OP any more, since they returned the board:

OP had the ATX 24 Pin and an 8 Pin 12v connector attached. So six total 12v conductors on a 920w PSU. With only the CPU and a single HBA installed (LSI 9300-8i @ ~19.04w worst case power draw per specs) there shouldn't have been any power delivery issues in this particular case?

I recently tested 50 of these boards with similar setups and would hate to have downchecked any because of a faulty assumption on powering them. In my case I had cards in all three of the board's PCIe slots (two slots x16 electrically and one x8 electrically), and for most of them they passed fine. So, I assumed the ones with electrical faults were something more than insufficient power to the PCIe slots.

Now I'm wondering if you're who I bought it from in the first place, since there only seems to be one source of these on eBay right now lol

 

[Markess]

Now I'm wondering if you're who I bought it from in the first place, since there only seems to be one source of these on eBay right now lol

Not me! I spend a lot there (too much TBH), but haven’t ever sold anything

 

[zachj]

Have you done the math on payback period for a (at most) ~70W reduction in power consumption?

you’ll spend a pretty penny on new gear…5 cents per kWh where I live means efficiency upgrades don’t pay for themselves.

im all for conservation and green energy but especially if you’re buying new gear (not used) you need to think also about the embodied carbon and waste water and toxic runoff for whatever you’re buying (as well as the lifecycle of whatever you’re discarding, which likely will be burned to recover the metals)

 

[lastradapomegranate]

Have you done the math on payback period for a (at most) ~70W reduction in power consumption?

you’ll spend a pretty penny on new gear…5 cents per kWh where I live means efficiency upgrades don’t pay for themselves.

im all for conservation and green energy but especially if you’re buying new gear (not used) you need to think also about the embodied carbon and waste water and toxic runoff for whatever you’re buying (as well as the lifecycle of whatever you’re discarding, which likely will be burned to recover the metals)

It's about 14 c/kWh for me so the math is slightly better, but I am not looking to replace the R430, it'll still be my sometimes-on hypervisor testbed.
Don't worry, I'm not trying to throw hundreds of dollars to save a few watts, I already know that's a silly thing to do, I just want to get as reasonably-low as possible with my new server.

 

[nexox]

5 cents per kWh where I live means efficiency upgrades don’t pay for themselves.

That sounds magical - my $25 swap from the 920SQ PSU to the 501P will pay for itself in only 7 months, assuming PG&E doesn't drop another 20% rate increase before then.

 

[lastradapomegranate]

Not me! I spend a lot there (too much TBH), but haven’t ever sold anything

Out of curiosity, which 8-pin did you have connected along with the 24-pin where everything worked?

 

[Markess]

Out of curiosity, which 8-pin did you have connected along with the 24-pin where everything worked?

The one marked #1, an the same side of the board as the 24 pin connector.