Supermicro X10SLH-LN6T limiting CPU functionality

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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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Hi all, I just picked up a X10SLH-LN6T and installed an E3-1270v3 in there. After much trial and tribulation, I finally got the thing booting up properly however I'm running into an issue that it seems like others have had, but I haven't found any obvious answer to. The problems are two-fold:

1) I can't get PCI passthrough to work, as the error I'm getting is that the CPU doesn't support the functionality, even though VT-d is enabled in the BIOS.
2) The CPU is being limited to 1 core/2 threads, and not the 4 cores/8 threads that should be enabled.

I'm guessing both of these things are related, and it's probably due to a jumper but I can't for the life of me figure out what needs to be done to rectify this. Can anyone help a lost soul out?

Thanks in advance.
 
CyklonDX

CyklonDX

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Nov 8, 2022
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Offspring said:
After much trial and tribulation
Click to expand...
oh boy...

Offspring said:
2) The CPU is being limited to 1 core/2 threads, and not the 4 cores/8 threads that should be enabled.
Click to expand...
Check cpu socket for bent pins
Check cpu physical damage - missing resistors
Run system without mobo battery - unplug system, ensure its running on default settings.
Check the cpu in bios, it should tell you all the info like feature sets it supports, and cores.

There are no jumpers for this relation
 
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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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CyklonDX said:
oh boy...
Click to expand...
The motherboard was constantly rebooting and never getting past the UEFI screen if I was lucky. I had to move two of the jumpers to try and get the thing to properly boot, and after that it seems the company that sold me the system both changed the default IPMI username/password and they also set the IPMI IP to a static one of 172.x.x.x/255.255.0.0 which I wasn't able to see or access until I had fixed the jumper issue for the motherboard.
 
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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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CyklonDX said:
oh boy...


Check cpu socket for bent pins
Check cpu physical damage - missing resistors
Run system without mobo battery - unplug system, ensure its running on default settings.
Check the cpu in bios, it should tell you all the info like feature sets it supports, and cores.

There are no jumpers for this relation
Click to expand...
I'm now looking for a screwdriver (again) to remove the heatsink, because in the BIOS it says there's just 1 CPU core so there's either bent pin(s) or missing resistors. Thanks for the suggestions.
 
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ericloewe

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Apr 24, 2017
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Offspring said:
1) I can't get PCI passthrough to work, as the error I'm getting is that the CPU doesn't support the functionality, even though VT-d is enabled in the BIOS.
Click to expand...
My experience is that mass-market Supermicro X10SL* boards do not have the firmware bits (or do not have them enabled) to fully support VT-d and related functionality, even though the hardware is compatible. I would not be surprised to see the custom models inherit this limitation.
 
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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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ericloewe said:
My experience is that mass-market Supermicro X10SL* boards do not have the firmware bits (or do not have them enabled) to fully support VT-d and related functionality, even though the hardware is compatible. I would not be surprised to see the custom models inherit this limitation.
Click to expand...
The board says that's enabled, so I don't know why that part isn't working. It seems, according to this post, the BIOS needs to be flashed again as the exact same board and behavior, but different CPU, is doing the exact same thing: [SOLVED] Quad Core Only Showing Single Core After Supermicro BIOS Upgrade
 
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ericloewe

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Apr 24, 2017
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It's not the exact same board, but is from the broader family. The "try flashing the system firmware again" trick pops up a bit on Supermicro X10s for a variety of issues, Supermicro support even told me once to move around some jumpers once to more fully flash the ME.
 
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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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ericloewe said:
It's not the exact same board, but is from the broader family. The "try flashing the system firmware again" trick pops up a bit on Supermicro X10s for a variety of issues, Supermicro support even told me once to move around some jumpers once to more fully flash the ME.
Click to expand...
I'm kind of stuck, because I have the BIOS that was located on these forums, but the flashing utility that the SuperMicro website offers is for the IPMI tool, and not the BIOS. I can't find the board on their website, either, so I can't try to download the proper package. Does anyone here happen to have the correct utility I can use to try and flash the board?
 
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ericloewe

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Apr 24, 2017
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Surely it's just the standard AMI tool that ships with every other board's firmware images?
 
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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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I even tried the IPMI firmware update tool, but every firmware I've tried says that it's not compatible with the board.
 
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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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That's what i mean, I tried the IPMI option and it erroed out saying the firmware package was not compatible.
 
CyklonDX

CyklonDX

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Nov 8, 2022
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Are you sure you got your motherboard name correctly? (from bios, and bmc - include all info thats being shown in bmc including serial)
(This mobo, likely been sold only as part of some system - and likely correct firmware is present under that system)

whats the current version you are on?
first upgrade bmc firmware, then bios.
 
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Offspring

New Member
Feb 7, 2021
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CyklonDX said:
Are you sure you got your motherboard name correctly? (from bios, and bmc - include all info thats being shown in bmc including serial)
(This mobo, likely been sold only as part of some system - and likely correct firmware is present under that system)

whats the current version you are on?
first upgrade bmc firmware, then bios.
Click to expand...
3.2s.

No, I didn't try that one though I'm about to.
 
CyklonDX

CyklonDX

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Nov 8, 2022
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Offspring

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Feb 7, 2021
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I posted, though I doubt I'm going to get much if any luck out of this, unfortunately, because the board is from SoftLayer/IBM, and they work with NetApp who is notorious at locking things down if you're not in their ecosystem.
 
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