Potential Deal: 2 x Dual 2011 nodes @$199, Quanta Openrack

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

rampage666

Member
Nov 18, 2016
33
0
6
40
hi, could anyone can provide some photos of the power connectors on the motherboard, the psu and the cable? would like to get a solution for standard atx psu
 

StammesOpfer

Active Member
Mar 15, 2016
383
136
43
hi, could anyone can provide some photos of the power connectors on the motherboard, the psu and the cable? would like to get a solution for standard atx psu
People have linked the connector required and also shown how to direct wire an ATX psu. I know it is 22 pages but there is a lot of great info in those pages.
 

e97

Active Member
Jun 3, 2015
323
193
43
Im running mine on 208v at home. is there a specific reason at a datacenter matters?
Yes, if there are any safety concerns raised by the provider or quirks regarding power/connectivity/maintenance/administration.

Yup @dba did. From page 8 post 153. He provided a lot of great research and info early on when everyone was trying to figure out if these were useable or not.
Thanks, I'll go back and look into those posts.
 

voxadam

Member
Apr 21, 2016
107
14
18
Portland, Oregon
I got some pictures for you but no way to upload on the forum, either they are too big, or as my latest post has been deleted my account is in a mess. if you can ping me through private mail I can send them to you, or explain me how to upload a 2.4 MB picture inside the forum no issue. There are the place for the header, and we will be testing to add them. The key issue is BIOS support after.
What about Imgur, Google Drive, Dropbox or whatnot?
 

voxadam

Member
Apr 21, 2016
107
14
18
Portland, Oregon
Firstly, is there any chance someone can grab a high res shot of the area that's supposed to have MiniSAS connectors? I know the Quanta boards aren't fitted with them, but I'm curious if it's just the headers that are missing.
I'm curious about these connections as well. According to the OCP docs (§4.5 and §10.2) PCIe port3a/IOU1 and 3port3b/IOU1 of the CPU should be routed to the miniSAS connectors. These PCIe connections are/were designed to allow for multiple systems to be connected together using PCIe NTB (non-transparent bridging).

Even if the only part missing from these boards are the miniSAS connectors there are a few more potential issues to overcome. First, the system firmware must support NTB. I'm guessing that even if the shipped firmware doesn't support NTB it may be possible to enable support via a mod, though, that's wild speculation. The other issue is that from my understanding of things until the E5-2600v3 series there are some fairly serious hardware bugs related to interrupts and NTB.

Anyway, even forgetting the possibility of NTB having access to two additional x4 PCIe ports is intriguing.

--adam
 

vejmarie

New Member
Dec 9, 2016
4
0
1
49
What about Imgur, Google Drive, Dropbox or whatnot?
I sent them through email finally. I will try to push them on our website as you could access to them. I do not really know how to setup a public google drive, but I will try to do that tonight.
 

Taverner

New Member
Nov 21, 2016
13
11
3
29
I'm curious about these connections as well. According to the OCP docs (§4.5 and §10.2) PCIe port3a/IOU1 and 3port3b/IOU1 of the CPU should be routed to the miniSAS connectors----

---Anyway, even forgetting the possibility of NTB having access to two additional x4 PCIe ports is intriguing.

--adam
So the purpose and usage of the external PCIE links is over my head, but I've been looking into what's not attached on the boards. The specification includes 5x MiniSAS headers - 2x Right angle external (presumably 8088 connectors) and 3x vertical 8087 connectors.

People have been discussing potential BIOS compatibility between the Quanta F03a/b/c - I'm not sure what the outcome of that was, but It appears that the F03A has the internal SAS ports installed. I'd be guessing it's just a matter of adding the connector, and perhaps one or two passive components.
 

Janiashvili

Member
Dec 16, 2016
53
8
8
29
Hello everybody!

I found these units on eBay and Googling sent me here! They seem to be.. Well quite good on paper.

I've read its power supply works for 220v and that's good for me, but it had some issues as well..

So I'm 3D artist and just newcomer for freelancing, so I'm on very low budget, and that dual node seems to be perfect for me...

I have read some people say it doesn't work with Win 8+, others say it works with both new GPUs and newer Win OSes (Win 10)..

So can anybody help me deciding to buy it and what should I do if I decide so.

I'm thinking to set double workstation out of it, or is it possible to use both of them as one 4p unit? o_O

Cheers everybody!
 

smithse79

Active Member
Sep 17, 2014
205
39
28
44
The Quanta version can be made to work with recent versions of Windows. My understanding is that the Wywynn version would need a BIOS update that they either won't release, or never made. As for GPU, they work fine if your GPU doesn't require external power (most quadro, etc.. don't require extra power). If it does require power, you'll have to find a different way to power the system and, IMO, you lose a lot of the advantages of this type of system. Also, note that the PCIE slot is PCIEV2 not PCIEV3. Cards should still work, but they won't be quite as fast.

All that said, I have a Quanta setup with one node running Centos 6 and the other running Windows Server 2012R2. They both run flawlessly and both have older GPUs that have no issues. For power I bought one of the 120V to 220V transformers mentioned earlier in this thread for ~$50 and it's been working great.

I think that these are a great deal in the grand scheme, maybe not quite as great as they once were with the day of super cheap E5-2670 (I'm running 4 in my setup), but still good.
 
  • Like
Reactions: rampage666

voxadam

Member
Apr 21, 2016
107
14
18
Portland, Oregon
One thing to keep in mind about GPUs is the limited clearance, a full length card isn't going to fit. It should be possible to install a larger card using something like a flexible PCIe extension, external PCIe bay, just know you'll be much more on your own when it comes to such solutions.

It's unfortunate that E5-2670 have increased in price so dramatically. Personally, I'm thinking about going with slightly slower E5-2660 CPUs. While they're clocked at 2.2 GHz instead of 2.6 GHz their TDP is a bit lower at 95 W instead of 115 W and they can be had for less than $60 OBO on eBay.
 

Janiashvili

Member
Dec 16, 2016
53
8
8
29
Thanks guys,
I'm on old world's standard, we are having 220v so that's not a problem.
Though for video card (650 GTX) - it has 6 pin PCIe power, though on NVidias' website only 175 w is its requirement (I know you guys know what it means :p, PCIe slot should be providing that much), however isn't it possible to use second power supply (desktop PSU)?


Guys I have very little understanding of servers, so don't mind if I ask something strange


And what about external ports, it got only two USB ports which I'll have to use for a keyboard and a mouse? ()

And about price - yeah, I just begun freelancing from a space my university provided, and my budget expands very slowly, want to buy the working computer to build shiny portfolio. So to say truth at the moment I'm still awaiting payment from two clients
So, if budget continues growing this slow (I really hope not) even 2670s may experience price drop

Anyway, E5-2660s suit well since new AMD products release old HW prices may drop quite a lot, so that means soon tile will come for the v2s
 

billchurch

New Member
Dec 15, 2016
6
0
1
55
I have one of these Quanta Windmill boxes (2 node) and it's working great so far. 2 x E5-2660 w/ SR0KK stepping (supports both VT-x and VT-d).

However I was wondering if anyone has gotten VT-x or VT-d to enable and successfully boot. When I enable VT-d in the BIOS, system seems to hang at boot. I don't even get the boot menu (after post).

Otherwise system is running great, but need the VT-x action.
 

server_lol

New Member
Jan 10, 2016
13
1
1
34
I am not experienced with power supplies, so please help :)

If I buy the breakout board adapter and the HP PSU, how would I plug the Quanta power plug (C14?) into the breakout board?

In the event that not everyone is comfortable with hacking power supplies, or simply would prefer a premade solution I found that there are adapters available for the HP Common Slot power supplies. It seems that the PSUs are quite popular with *Coin miners and someone decided to fill a void and market a fairly turnkey solution.

Original source:
GIGAMPZ Power supplies for Bitcoin & Ethereum mining, Industrial grade, Energy Efficient, unbeatable value.

Much cheaper eBay option:
Breakout Board Adapter for HP 1200 Watt DPS-1200FB Power Supply Bitcoin - US$26.98 eBay

EDIT: Oops, forgot to mention something.

I also found another adapter that was designed to power up to eight PCIe GPUs which I thougth may be of interest to someone.

Breakout Board Adapter for HP 1200w DPS-1200FB Power Supply GPU - US$29.00 eBay



DISCLAIMER: I have no association with either of these products, their sellers, or manufacturers nor have I used any of the products mentioned. I simply discovered them while doing some personal research and thought others might find the information useful.
 

server_lol

New Member
Jan 10, 2016
13
1
1
34

craigdabbs

New Member
Jan 9, 2017
24
0
1
42
Hello everyone,

new member here and signed up after reading this thread, lots of good info to digest.

I have been looking to upgrade my home server to something more powerful and have been looking into dual xeons.
The purpose for my server is serving media via emby, with the new HVEC codec becoming more popular my current server is having to transcode it. My current setup uses Arch Linux so i hope it would run ok on these.

This seems the cheapest way of getting a dual xeon setup working, i have a couple of questions if someone could help that would be great.

1. I live in the UK (240v standard )so is it possible to just install a plug on the power cord and plug in
2. Internal power cables for disk drives, i could not see any in the pictures
3. Is it possible to only power up one node at a time as i would not need the second for a while
4. I see a rj45 port on the mainboard, is this for network or remote management (dnt want to waste a pcie slot for a nic)
5. Only 2 sata ports, they mention a mini sas connector but i assume the hardware is not physically connected and unusable?
5. I have a duel satellite tuner and pcie raid card. Would these run ok together on the dual riser card. After removing video card.
6. Im tempted with the QUANTA windmill as it has the updated bios for the newer v2 cpus.

Hope someone sheds some light on these questions.

thanks for your time
 

StammesOpfer

Active Member
Mar 15, 2016
383
136
43
My experience is with the quanta windmill
1) UK 240v will work fine.
2) Each side has one power and sata cable. If you need a second the power cable will be difficult to find and there isn't really a place to put more than 2 drives total (1 for each half).
3) Yes each half can be powered up independently. Small red button on the board is the power button. When power is applied they return to last state (turned on when power removed they will power on. Turned off when power was removed they will not power on).
4) RJ45 can be used as standard NIC
5) No one that I have seen has SAS working.
5 again) On the one that has the riser it should work as long as the power draw isn't excessively high.
6) If you want to run Windows or an OS the requires the newer features then get the Quanta. Are v2 CPUs worth the cost? (I got the cheap $55 2670v1) If not it shouldn't matter.