Which consumer motherboards can the IBM M5014 be paired with?

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VR Bitman

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As the title says, I have the popular M5014 RAID controller. I want to pair it with a low cost motherboard to create a storage server. Cost is a priority.
Initially I planned to use the ASRock Q1900M, which at the price of around 60€ offers a pretty good value with the integrated Intel Celeron J9100 quadcore CPU.
Unfortunately, all PCI-E slots are x1 electrical, and I fear that the M5014, which requires a x8 slot, will downright refuse to work with such a motherboard.

Due to cost being a priority, I cannot risk selecting a random consumer motherboard only to find out that it does not work with the controller.

What consumer motherboards do people pair it with?
I need to know which products have been tested and are known to work, and then select the cheapest solution.

Thanks.
 

Chuckleb

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Mar 5, 2013
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You can use a x8 card in a x1 slot, albeit short. I have some x8 m1015 cards in x4 slots and one in a x1 slot.

Back to original question, I have used many evga boards with SAS adapters so they are fine (but expensive).
 

Alfa147x

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Feb 7, 2014
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I have had good luck with ASrock boards, Z77 series, keep far away from the Gigabyte boards, I never got an HBA to work in one.
That's odd. I've never had an issue with any of my Qlogic cards and I only buy Gigabyte boards for my desktops. Currently I have the GA-Z77X-UP5 TH and the Z68X-UD3H-B3
 

MatrixMJK

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I have had problems with several LSI HBA's and RAID controllers on desktop/consumer motherboards. The most common one I ran into was all the Gigabyte boards I had would not work with 9200 based cards like the IBM1015. I guess it is an SMBus conflict with the Intel chipset. Cutting the traces or covering a couple of pins on the PCIe card can make it work, but that may be more hack than people will want to do.

This article covers some of it (even tho the title is for the PERC5i):
PERC 5/i RAID Card: Tips and Benchmarks
 
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Chuckleb

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now that you mention it, I have seen that problem on a couple of motherboards. Oddly though, it also happened on a Tyan motherboard which was a workstation class board. I don't think that this is a problem that is primarily a gaming or consumer motherboard specific.
 
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VR Bitman

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Thank you everyone, your feedback is much appreciated.
I have had good luck with ASrock boards, Z77 series, keep far away from the Gigabyte boards, I never got an HBA to work in one.
This in particular is exactly what I hoped to hear.
I have had problems with several LSI HBA's and RAID controllers on desktop/consumer motherboards. The most common one I ran into was all the Gigabyte boards I had would not work with 9200 based cards like the IBM1015. I guess it is an SMBus conflict with the Intel chipset. Cutting the traces or covering a couple of pins on the PCIe card can make it work, but that may be more hack than people will want to do.

This article covers some of it (even tho the title is for the PERC5i):
PERC 5/i RAID Card: Tips and Benchmarks
I think I will go ahead and order the ASRock Q1900M, and in case of bad luck I will try this modification.
That's a very informative thread. I remember coming across it a few years back, but then totally forgot about it.
I don't think that this is a problem that is primarily a gaming or consumer motherboard specific.
I was starting to think the same thing..
Yet, someone on OCN (the above-mentioned thread) was posting this:
Namtaro said:
I got myself a Dell Perc 6/i since it's performance was good enough for me and I hear the M5014 has quite a few more compatibility problems with consumer boards. Just remember that the Perc 5/i and 6/i can't take harddrives larger then 2TB. The M5014 can however. You're just taking a larger gamble to see if the card will accept your motherboard.
 
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MatrixMJK

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Just another note to this.... the Gigabyte and MSI boards I had problems with were x58 and Z77 series boards. Never had a problem with SuperMicro boards and these cards, but of course they are different chipsets. I have tried the cards that failed before in a Gigabyte Z97 board and they work great FYI
 

sboesch

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I am using Tyan S5510 and Supermicro X9SCM-F-O system boards with the m1015 cards. Both are super stable with esxi and omnios, I got the Tyan board last year for $129 at Microcenter.
 

VR Bitman

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I am using Tyan S5510 and Supermicro X9SCM-F-O system boards with the m1015 cards. Both are super stable with esxi and omnios, I got the Tyan board last year for $129 at Microcenter.
Interesting... what CPU are you using and what kind of performance numbers are you seeing?
 

sboesch

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I am using Xeon 1230 and 1230v2 CPU's.

Storage is using a Xeon 1230 w/ 16GB RAM on the Tyan board.
Here is the pool info:

Here are the bonnie results:
 
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Rowan @ Jetboy

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ASRock H97M Pro4 here, which retails for £60-65 in the UK. mATX, four DDR3 slots for up to 32GB, x16 PCI Express slot. I've had two M5014s running on this board (one in the x16, one in the x4), and the only problem's been accessing the WebBIOSs. This is only a problem if the attached drives are yet to be configured. If you have another PC to do this on, then no problem. I've also flashed a M5014 on this board with no issues. I'm using a 35W Core i5-4590T processor, but that's at the low end of what the board supports.
 

VR Bitman

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Thanks for reporting Rowan. If I'll run into fatal issues with Bay Trail my first choice is the H97 platform for sure.
 

VR Bitman

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It seems I'm having some very bad luck with this product. It produces no video signal no matter the output (D-sub, DVI, HDMI).
I tested the board with multiple monitors, cables and PSUs; even with a PCI-E video card. No signal.
I then opened an RMA request with the seller and even received another brand new motherboard, but the problem persists.

At this point I'm not sure there are any more tests I can perform, so I contacted the seller again and asked them to check if there is a batch of faulty products.
Hopefully next week I will know what's happening.
 
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VR Bitman

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Oh...the poor seller got a RMA request because of incompatible motherboard...
And what would this motherboard be incompatible with? Any standard video cable?
Unless I'm missing something, these boards are DOA.

For the record, I've tested it on my workbench "as is". For my first tests I hadn't even connected a mouse or keyboard, as absurd as it is to think that standard HID devices could be a problem. I then did a few more tests with a stick of RAM and a keyboard, again with no success. Finally, just to be sure, I installed a PCIE-based GPU, but again I was getting no video signal.
I have yet to attempt to install the RAID controller.
 
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VR Bitman

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I've contacted the seller again and we seem to agree that there is a good chance of a faulty batch. They are graciously looking into the matter and will let me know soon.
If and when I will get a fully functional Q1900M motherboard I will report back with details on whether the M5014 is compatible or not.