X9-DRi-LN4F+ questions

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

nkw

Active Member
Aug 28, 2017
136
48
28
I purchased some SC826 servers from the ebay with the intention to ditch the motherboards they came with and install a couple of recently acquired X11SPH-nCTPF boards. One of the servers showed up with an E5-2690 in a X9-DRi-LN4F+, so I thought I might put it to use.

In researching I came across a couple of issues/questions:

1) These boards are marked X9-DRi-LN4F+, Rev. 1.00. Despite Supermicro's website saying these support E5-2600v2 processors with Bios version 3.0 or above, some googling suggests these (Rev 1.00 boards) do not support v2 processors. I don't have any E5-2600v2 series around to test with. Other pages suggest they can support v2 processors with some components "reworked". Does anyone know how I can tell or what "reworking" is involved?

2) The Bios identifies this board as a "Supermicro X9DR7/E-(J)LN4F" and presents various options referencing a LSI 2308 that clearly doesn't exist on the board. Is this normal behavior for this board or has someone installed the wrong Bios/firmware?

Thanks for the help!
 

am4593

Active Member
Feb 20, 2017
150
35
28
44
These X9DRI boards are very similar to the X9DR3 boards, share board design and because of that the bios stated mis-identification while annoying isnt a sign of mismatched flash. I have an x9dri, its bios states its a x9dr3. I also have a x9dri-ln4f and its bios says that it is both a "x9dri-ln4f and/or x9dr7". I flashed the bios's on both myself. They identified that way before I flashed and after the flash with newer firmware. Again its annoying but its just the way supermicro identified these back then.

You need at least X9dri-ln4f revision 1.2 or newer to use V2 cpus. Anything before that will not accept V2 even though the website says it should.

I flashed a revision 1.10 with firmware 3.2 and it still did not accept v2 cpus.

I've also had problems running proxmox ve 5.0 on this X9dri-ln4f. I get a bunch of ACPI issues on boot and the predictable naming change of Debian 9 (used by proxmox 5.0) seems to always rename my ports. I dont think proxmox 5.0 likes the intel i350-AM4 so i had no choice but to go back to proxmox 4.4
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: nkw

am4593

Active Member
Feb 20, 2017
150
35
28
44
Supermicro documentation also often produces 1 common manual or quick start guide for 2 different boards that are similar but not the same, one often missing an extra storage controller or more or less Ethernet ports
 

nkw

Active Member
Aug 28, 2017
136
48
28
You need at least X9dri-ln4f revision 1.2 or newer to use V2 cpus. Anything before that will not accept V2 even though the website says it should.

I flashed a revision 1.10 with firmware 3.2 and it still did not accept v2 cpus.
Thanks. That is is exactly what I was wanting to know.

I've also had problems running proxmox ve 5.0 on this X9dri-ln4f. I get a bunch of ACPI issues on boot and the persistant naming change of Debian 9 (used by proxmox 5.0) seems to always rename my ports. I dont think proxmox 5.0 likes the intel i350-AM4 so i had no choice but to go back to proxmox 4.4
Ruh oh. That is exactly what I was planing on doing with this -- stick it in a Proxmox 5.0 cluster, although I wasn't planning on using the onboard ethernet. I'll watch out for that. Thanks for the heads-up.
 

am4593

Active Member
Feb 20, 2017
150
35
28
44
might be able to use an offboard nic for management and get it to consistently identify as an interface but i dont want to do that.
 

funkywizard

mmm.... bandwidth.
Jan 15, 2017
848
402
63
USA
ioflood.com
Are you sure there's no LSI 2308? Would seem strange for the bios to list the configuration for it, but it not be there. We have a number of boards that do have the LSI 2308, has worked pretty well.

As to proxmox, there are some bugs in the intel driver, which ordinarily can only be upgraded by upgrading the proxmox kernel. I'm not sure about 5.x proxmox, this came up for a customer on an older version. Specifically, the bug presents under some NVF features like using vlans and gre tunnels and stuff like that. Pretty sure my customer started having crashes when they started using those features, but could never get a straight answer on that from them. So if you're having problems, using those types of features, and can get by without using them, that's one avenue to explore.

Alternately an additional nic is an option, though I agree with you that's not a lot of fun. For what it's worth, I've heard that some forms of power management (aspm, c states) on 5600 chipsets (L5639 / L5520, etc) cause problems with some virtualization OS's (xenserver and esxi being most frequently reports, but may relate to others). I know this is not that chipset, but, it's possible it has similar bugs. It wouldn't hurt to try tweaking some of those options (starting by turning them off altogether) to see if it helps with the types of problems mentioned here. Do keep in mind ASPM and C states can noticeably reduce power use, so if you don't notice any difference in stability or behavior, definitely leave those options turned on.
 

am4593

Active Member
Feb 20, 2017
150
35
28
44
Checkout the supermicro website, you will see a ton of X9 boards which are all very similar but which have extra features that others dont have. You'll see the board constructions are virtually identical except for missing components. Also supermicro has a tendency to create 1 manual for multiple different boards which are similar, but not the same. I have 3 different of these boards and they all do not identify in the bios as being the exact model number that they are. So if you have one of these boards that actually has the LSI 2308 then its really a X9DR7-LN4F or a
X9DR7-LN4F-JBOD even if the bios identifies it as a X9DRi-F or a X9DR3-F


X9DA7
X9DR7-TF+
X9DRE-TF+
X9DR3-F
X9DRi-F
X9DR3-LN4F+
X9DRi-LN4F+
X9DR7-LN4F
X9DR7-LN4F-JBOD

I did try changing some of the power settings in the bios to fix this acpi error but it didnt help. the bios power options are rather limited. even tried disabling acpi.