Supermicro Motherboard Random Questions

[WhosTheBosch]

I'm currently looking into building a small home server for the first time - info here.

X10SRM-F

- Is there a reason this board would only support PCIE 2 for the M.2 lanes? In the manual it says "One (1) M.2 M-key Mini PCI Express 2.0 x4 Connector" it seems like that's pretty old technology to put in with an M.2 slot?

- This board states that it supports "Status monitor for speed control", "Low noise fan speed control" and "Pulse Width Modulated (PWM) fan connectors" so I was going to get some Noctua PWM case fans. However, there's a reviewer on Newegg who said the following which has me concerned as this server will be in my entertainment unit so I need it to be as silent as possible. It should support 4 pin PWM fans right?

"Cons: Supermicro missed to boat when it comes to fan control with this motherboard. Basically, there is no control. Supermicro support says OEM fans are not supported because fan low speed is too low and will cause low fan sensor read errors. The sensor read error will cause all fans to cycle from slow to fast to slow again; over and over. There is no way to control this unless you set the fans to full speed. I am stuck with all my fans (4) spinning a 1500 RPM.

It is my opinion fan speed should be governed by thermal output. My current configuration has 9, that's right, 9 thermal sensors monitoring temperature out of a total of 11 sensors. And all sensors are reporting temperatures below 30 C. So I have a very cool running machine.

I am still investigating other fan speed control options; however, it should not be this difficult and Supermicro should fix this in firmware update."​

Since I was wondering about those two items and couldn't find another 2011 board with M.2 I looked at the 1151 boards and found these two:

X11SSH-LN4F and X11SSi-LN4F

- For the M.2 is there a reason that the micro ATX mobo only supports PCIE 3 x2 while the ATX supports the full x4? Do they take up too much physical room the board doesn't have?

- Would either of these boards have the same fan speed issues as the board above?

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So if you had a choice between a E5 with an M.2 slot with PCIE 2 x4 or a E3 with an M.2 slot with PCIE 3 x4 lanes what would you pick? (Unless you know of another 2011-3 mobo with an M.2 slot)

 

[cheezehead]

Not sure what fans the guy was using, there might be some sort of low RPM limit. If there was such an issue, you could always picking an external fan control unit and regulate it manually. You can always contact SuperMicro support and ask if there is any sort of low RPM threshold with the board.

 

[Netwerkz101]

I wouldn't focus too much on the M.2 slot because you can always get a PCIe x4 adapter card and use in a PCIe x4+ slot.
E3 vs E5 - does the 64GB RAM limit of the X11SSH concern you at all?

My lab consist of X10SRi-F (E5) systems because I didn't want 32/64GB RAM limits on those.
I got an X11SSH-LN4F (E3) to see if it was going to be viable for my new worstation using GPU passthrough - similar to you i guess.

On the X11SSH-LN4F, I had not noticed any fan issues.
I only had a stock Intel fan and it never registered low nor fluctuated up and down constantly.

Because of your post, I added 3 more PWM fans to see if I noticed anything odd.
Nope ... they all are running steady with minor flux of ~100RPM.

 

[StevenDTX]

The Newegg reviewer clearly doent know how to google. The fan thresholds are very easily set.

 

[WhosTheBosch]

I wouldn't focus too much on the M.2 slot because you can always get a PCIe x4 adapter card and use in a PCIe x4+ slot.

Good point, that totally slipped my mind.

E3 vs E5 - does the 64GB RAM limit of the X11SSH concern you at all? My lab consist of X10SRi-F (E5) systems because I didn't want 32/64GB RAM limits on those.

Not at this time. I'm starting at 32GB and will upgrade to 64GB I would imagine in 3-4 years likely. I don't for see myself needing more than 64GB at this time.

E3 vs E5 - does the 64GB RAM limit of the X11SSH concern you at all?

I got an X11SSH-LN4F (E3) to see if it was going to be viable for my new worstation using GPU passthrough - similar to you i guess.

How is that working? What hypervisor are you using?

On the X11SSH-LN4F, I had not noticed any fan issues.
I only had a stock Intel fan and it never registered low nor fluctuated up and down constantly.

Because of your post, I added 3 more PWM fans to see if I noticed anything odd.
Nope ... they all are running steady with minor flux of ~100RPM.

Thanks, I appreciate testing that!

If I'm thinking that I wouldn't need more than 64GB or RAM would an E3 suit my situation better for around 5-8 low activity VMs as well as one for my pfSense setup?

 

[WhosTheBosch]

The Newegg reviewer clearly doent know how to google. The fan thresholds are very easily set.

Thanks for letting me know! This is my first Supermicro board and wasn't aware they could be. I'll read the manual to see what I can find.

 

[Netwerkz101]

XenServer 7 passing through integrated graphics from the
Xeon E3-175v5 (intel hd graphics p530)

Works without a hitch or any special configuration.
Can't get it working with low end nvidia cards (expected this)
Plan to purchase/test an amd radeon card.

I can run Unigine's Heaven Benchmark at lowest settings windowed at 1366x768.
This is over over a 4g phone connection to a Windows 10 VM.
It is visually amazing and fluid to me (15-20FPS).

As far as pfsense goes, i dont have the experience with it or it's performance demands.

My lab used to run ~30 low activity VMs (full Citrix Stack) on an i7-2600 - cpu performance issues then.

My choice for running an E3 cpu/ mobo combo was two fold:
VDI workloads - wanted higher clock speeds for virtual desktop OS's.
Also a permanent VM using GPU passthrough.

So my needs above were met with the E3 Setup.

I choose E5-2600 combos to run all other VM loads and >64GB RAM limit.