Tested: DL580G8 (Gen8) and G9 (Gen9) *Lack of* Compatibility

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MichalPL

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Feb 10, 2019
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Nice! I'm tempted to buy a Gen9 SPI board and some v4 Xeons and install them into my Gen8. Seems like it's still not clear what works and what doesn't work though... Some people said that for them it had compatibility issues. Wonder if it's the specific model of CPU that does it.
Processors was 8894v4.

I will do the same probably with old G8 (it will be simpler having working G9 and ddr4 cassettes), still newest gold xeons versions are not much faster.

Problem is: 8895v2 from G8 are "quite fast" (3.6GHz) in single core comparing to 8894v4 (3.4GHz), but in multicore it is ~+75%. Also one small and silent single socket TR5000 looks good too - will se the future twice fast Xeons are coming with pcie 5.0 ;)
 
Apr 27, 2022
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Sooooo... I decided that 50% speed on these G8 fans is a *bit* much (55db-ish), so I decided to build a manual fan controller.

I purchased this one from Amazon (4-pin PWM with a manual knob):


I stripped it of it's 6 & 4 pin connectors and the 3 electrolytic capacitors (the big green ones) to make it as short as possible leaving only the circuitry for the PWM controller IC in place.

I then cut all 4 green wires in the G8's fan wire harness (PWM control wires for the fans), soldered them together into a single wire, and soldered that wire to the PWM output pin of one of the 4-pin connectors on the fan controller.

I then tapped into the G8's fan harness again for 12v power/ground and soldered those wires to the same 4-pin connector (from above) on the stripped fan controller (I didn't need to solder to the 6-pin connector because this fan controller shares a common 12v power plane and ground plane across the 4/6-pin connectors).

Finally, I wrapped the fan controller with electrical tape *and* heatshrink, tucked the wrapped fan controller into the space behind the top drives and mounted the knob to the bracket behind the fans (fan in front of the knob still slides in with about 2mm of clearance to spare).

Result:
  • G8 fans still use 12v power/ground feeds directly from the server (not from the fan controller)
  • G8 fans still report their fan speed to the G8 motherboard (not visible in iLO due to G9 BIOS cross-flash, but *is* visible in applications that can read motherboard sensors)
  • Fan controller taps into the above 12v power/ground feeds to power itself (in this case *just* the PWM IC), and then feeds it's PWM output signal directly to the G8's 4 fans
Upside:
  • I have full (manual) control of the G8's fans in a hidden (but easily accessible) way.
Downside:
  • Due to choosing to use a manual fan controller, the fans still don't ramp up with load (this could be easily resolved with a temperature-based fan controller with a probe, but I prefer finer control).
Based on my average server load (4x E7-8891 v4, 256GB DDR3, 4x GTX 1080 GPUs, 10x 2.5" 7200RPM SAS HDDs and 4x 1TB NVMe SSDs running 12 virtual machines 24/7) I can run these fans at less than 20% of their full speed and still keep the server cool (CPUs around 50C in a concrete room with no A/C with average ambient temperature of 70-80F).
 

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seanneko

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Feb 1, 2022
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I will do the same probably with old G8 (it will be simpler having working G9 and ddr4 cassettes), still newest gold xeons versions are not much faster.
The suspense was killing me so I decided to buy a Gen9 SPI board and some v4 Xeons to try it out for myself.

A Gen8 chassis with a Gen9 SPI board running BIOS U17 v2.72 works out of the box with E7-8867v4 and DDR3 RAM. I didn't need to do anything at all other than install the parts and connect everything up. Fan speeds work correctly, iLO works correctly, everything works like in a Gen9 except for the fact that it's running DDR3 memory.

If anyone has a newer BIOS (2.72 is the latest one they give you for free) I'd love to get a copy of it.

Untitled1.pngUntitled2.pngUntitled3.png
 
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MichalPL

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Feb 10, 2019
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The suspense was killing me so I decided to buy a Gen9 SPI board and some v4 Xeons to try it out for myself.
Wow :) sorry to not respond shortly - also converted few weeks ago old G8 with 4x 8895v2 to G9 by replacing SPI board to Gen9 board and 4x 8894 v4 CPU keeping old DDR3 1866MHz memory (doing test on DDR4 2133MHz too on G8). I will find performance results today, I should have it.

Yes - fully confirming that everything works correctly on G8 with SPI board from G9 on DDR3 and 4.

but meanwhile I found a new "toy" ;)
because I bought 12 CPUs 8894v4 and planning to use them in G9, G8 and another G8 - but realized I don't need so many servers (mostly because of back then incoming much faster Ryzen 7950X and 13900kf - that can replace them somehow and beaning silent and efficient and small).

I found Lenovo X3950 X6 with 8x 8890v3 and 256 GB DDD4 memory for 1700EUR net in Germany to buy.

so bought it and...
I leave just one G8+ (G8 with SPI from G9 and DDR3) alive, and use two other to give parts (DDR4 mem and CPUs) to the Lenovo X3950 X6.
so:
I replaced 8890v3 to 8894v4
I add memory to populate each CPU board by 8 32GB DDR4 2133MHz rank4 memory (2TB in total).

and wow!

Lenovo is amazing comparing to G8/G9 (yes G8/G9 is almost "for free" now) - speed of the 8x 8894v4 is more than 2x TR 5995X (multicore), much faster than any dual Epyc (~15% slower in single core). it's 6.5x faster than 13900K after overclocking (in single core 13900K is 2x faster of course - but doing almost 6GHz instead of 3.4GHz of 8894v4).

and it is really quiet.

X3950 X6 (8x 8894v4):
1666450763785.png

G8 (4x 8894v4) on DDR4:

1666451217432.png

G8 (4x 8894v4) on DDR3:

1666451346983.png
 
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MichalPL

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Feb 10, 2019
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btw. G8+ 4x8894v4 on DDR3 NVMe SW raid (12x 970 Evo 1TB PCIe 3.0) speed (QPI 9.6GT/s links are not bad ;) ):

1666471168394.png
 

MichalPL

Active Member
Feb 10, 2019
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hello
I would love to know how your computer does it with 2133MHz of RAM, mine is always only 1600MHz.
CPU 4x 8894v4
short answer: 1600MHz

If remember correctly (now using Lenovo 8x 8894v4 - and thinking about TR7000 single CPU, overclocked ;) ):

G8 (DDR3) with v2 CPU's: was always max of 1600MHz (and 1866MHz in the mode that you have not 8 channels(4 SMI channels) but 4).
G9 (DDR4) with v4 CPU's: was always max of 1866MHz (and 2133MHz in the mode that you have not 8 channels(4 SMI2 channels) but 4).
G8+ means G8 base with updated SMI board and possibility to run v3 and v4 chips, but still on the DDR3 RAM cassettes (they have memory chips - "Jordan Creek" for DDR3 and "Jordan Creek 2" for DDR4) have same memory performance like G8 - so 1600MHz max (and 1866MHz when using halt of the channels - it's of course a bit slower than 8ch per CPU @ 1600MHz)