Supermicro X9SCM/X9SCL LGA-1155 Xeon Motherboard Series

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Mr. F

Active Member
Sep 5, 2011
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Can anyone tell me if the Supermicro X9SCM-F board uses EFI?

My usage of this board is contingent upon EFI support, and I can't find any solid facts related to EFI support on it.
 

Mr. F

Active Member
Sep 5, 2011
172
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Perhaps I'm missing something blatantly obvious, but after just having received my X9SCM-F I'm at a loss to determine which fan header I should connect my Xeon heatsink/fan assembly to.

The labels and the manual simply refer to them as FAN1-FAN4 and FANA. 5 total. Two are about the same distance from the 1155 socket, in opposite directions.

Does it not matter which header I connect the CPU fan to? Perhaps I'll need to tell it which header I used in the BIOS settings? No preference for which header the CPU fan connects to is mentioned in the manual, so perhaps none should be assumed? A common configuration for this board would use a passive 1U heatsink, so maybe they decided to generalize the labels so as not to imply that one header is for a CPU fan only?

I won't have all of my components until Friday, so hopefully someone can settle this one for me by then!
 

Mr. F

Active Member
Sep 5, 2011
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Owners of the X9SCM-F: What kind of beeps does your board make when booting up?

Mine is making some strange beeps, but nothing that matches up with the error patterns in the manual.

I can find no discernable errors in the POST output, and the board functions fine on the whole, but this kind of has me spooked.

I have an E3-1230, M1015 HBA and (3) 4GB RAM sticks from the QVL for this board (the 4th is on backorder).

Any ideas? What sounds does your board make?
 

Mr. F

Active Member
Sep 5, 2011
172
30
28
Owners of the X9SCM-F: What kind of beeps does your board make when booting up?

Mine is making some strange beeps, but nothing that matches up with the error patterns in the manual.

I can find no discernable errors in the POST output, and the board functions fine on the whole, but this kind of has me spooked.

I have an E3-1230, M1015 HBA and (3) 4GB RAM sticks from the QVL for this board (the 4th is on backorder).

Any ideas? What sounds does your board make?
I should add that I have done my due diligence and tested without add-in cards, BIOS update, eliminating RAM modules one-by-one, etc.

The multiple beeps it makes are almost musical... and it's almost impossible for me to count them because some of them run together.
 

matt_garman

Active Member
Feb 7, 2011
212
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Owners of the X9SCM-F: What kind of beeps does your board make when booting up?

Mine is making some strange beeps, but nothing that matches up with the error patterns in the manual.

I can find no discernable errors in the POST output, and the board functions fine on the whole, but this kind of has me spooked.

I have an E3-1230, M1015 HBA and (3) 4GB RAM sticks from the QVL for this board (the 4th is on backorder).

Any ideas? What sounds does your board make?
I don't have the X9SCM-F, but my X8SIL-F has similar inexplicable beeps at startup. I've posted about this here, and several other forums, never found a solution. I've stripped it down to the bare minimum (RAM, CPU, power supply), and tried different everything except CPU. The system has been 100% stable since day 1, so I've just chalked it up to the "personality" of the board. Note that when I originally had the problem, I contacted Supermicro tech support, and they wanted me to send the whole system for diagnosis. I didn't want to pay for all the shipping and be without my system that long, so they sent me a replacement. The replacement has the same behavior. It could be the CPU, as that's the only thing unchanged across all the experimentation, but if the CPU was bad, I think I'd see a lot of other wacky issues.

See also: Crucial forums post, HardForum post, Intel forum post.
 

Mr. F

Active Member
Sep 5, 2011
172
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I don't have the X9SCM-F, but my X8SIL-F has similar inexplicable beeps at startup. I've posted about this here, and several other forums, never found a solution. I've stripped it down to the bare minimum (RAM, CPU, power supply), and tried different everything except CPU. The system has been 100% stable since day 1, so I've just chalked it up to the "personality" of the board. Note that when I originally had the problem, I contacted Supermicro tech support, and they wanted me to send the whole system for diagnosis. I didn't want to pay for all the shipping and be without my system that long, so they sent me a replacement. The replacement has the same behavior. It could be the CPU, as that's the only thing unchanged across all the experimentation, but if the CPU was bad, I think I'd see a lot of other wacky issues.

See also: Crucial forums post, HardForum post, Intel forum post.
Wow, that's strange. I'm glad to see I'm not crazy, though. I too have tried reducing the system to the minimum components, with the same results every time. I've also run an extended test of the RAM modules I'm using, so I'm reasonably confident that I don't have any bad modules.

I also haven't experienced any stability issues, though I've only had the system up for one day. I'm just feeling a bit iffy about trusting the board since it displays this bizarre behavior with no explanation.

The only thing I haven't done is try a new CPU or power supply. I am highly doubtful that the CPU is the problem. I can certainly see a power fluctuation being the culprit for the noise issues, though I don't have another PSU to test with; the PSU is brand new and it does work perfectly in all of the other systems I have.

How was your interaction with Supermicro support? When I read their support site it seems to suggest they don't want end users interacting with them, but I think I'll feel better if I switch the board out with a new one. Were you able to get an advance replacement? Did they make you pay shipping?
 
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xnoodle

Active Member
Jan 4, 2011
258
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I can't get my system to mount a ISO from the web interface (Virtual Media / CD-ROM Image)

I've tried using \\hostname or \\hostip for the Share host field. I've tried shares from a 2008R2 and a Windows7 machine. hostnames for each are both their Windows machine names and I have DNS entries for them as well.

I've tried \path\filename.iso , \path\filename, path\filename.iso, path\filename for the path to image.

I've tried leaving the username/password blank, using just Guest (I have guest access enabled), Domain\username and password, username and password.

/frustrated. Any tips? :|
 

matt_garman

Active Member
Feb 7, 2011
212
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How was your interaction with Supermicro support? When I read their support site it seems to suggest they don't want end users interacting with them, but I think I'll feel better if I switch the board out with a new one. Were you able to get an advance replacement? Did they make you pay shipping?
It's been so long I honestly don't remember. I'm fairly sure they did an advance replacement (charge my credit card for a new one, then credit me when they received the old one). I can't remember how the shipping costs worked out.

Overall, the interaction was decent. I've emailed them several times, and they've always been pretty responsive and polite. Even before purchasing their stuff, I've emailed them with tech questions that were answered to my satisfaction.

I was a little discouraged that they weren't able to diagnose the beeping from my description, or even provide me with a list of additional beep codes. But on the other hand, the system has been working just fine for a long time (over a year now I think), so I can't complain (too much :) ).
 

hga

New Member
Sep 20, 2011
6
0
0
Sounds made by the X9SCM

Thanks to accidentally letting a cable block the spinning of my CPU fan I've discovered that letting your CPU get too hot results in an undocumented continuous high-low pattern, somewhat like how European police sirens are commonly portrayed in movies etc. Otherwise, except for maybe a few odd beeps while booting, none of mine have made any undocumented sounds.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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Just as a note, hga - I've seen that exact same thing happen using the stock Intel HSF (darn pushpins.)

Matt - I am pretty bad at replicating beeping sounds over the phone myself. I did have to call support on a board and I'm sure the people on the other end of the phone were laughing at my interpretation of the sounds. I would imagine that is a hard one to do from the other end.

Mr. F - When I advance RMA'd the X8SIL-F last year they charged my card and needed an internal approval (took a few hours) but it was a fairly painless process.
 
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PigLover

Moderator
Jan 26, 2011
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I've done some playing with other SuperMicro motherboards (X8 series - X8SIA-f and X8DAH+-f). Likely they are the same on the X9 series.

As near as I can tell, SuperMicro's BIOS beeps:

- once for each CPU detected about the time you see the SuperMicro splash screen (the X8SIA obviously only beeps once, the X8DAH beeps once for each CPU)
- Once for each USB device enumerated (I get two beeps with a USB keyboard and mouse inserted, three if I also have a USB stick, etc)
- Once right before it starts booting

To see the beeps associated with the USB devices, hit "delete" to enter setup and you can see it beep as it identifies each USB device.

There are other error beep sequences that nobody seems to be able to decode...
 

syndrome

New Member
Sep 18, 2011
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Any issues using the LSI 9260-4i with this board? Any better suggestions in that general price range (give or take a hundred) with BBU that are ESXi/Xen friendly?
 

groove

Member
Sep 21, 2011
90
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Hi,

Noobie here. I recently started building a nas using the X9SCM. For the most part it's working out very nicely. I have run into one issue though. The board does not recognize my LSI 3442 E-R controller. I have flashed the controller with the latest firmware and Bios (IT). But no matter what I do, the board just does not initialize the controller during POST. And neither is the controller is detected by the OS.

Has anyone run into any similar compatibility issues with PCIe 1.0 controllers and this board? Any pointers with bios updates I need to apply to the controllers? I have also flashed the board with bios version 1.1c.

Open to any ideas that someone might have regarding this issue......
 
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groove

Member
Sep 21, 2011
90
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It could be. But I don't know enough about the option ram setting to tweak it. Any pointers on what setting I can change to see it will help?