New server hardware!

[Overloke]

Hey all,

 

This is mostly just a neat little "I'm doing some muckin' about!" post. For the last few years, my '''home server''' has been a little mITX case, running a consumer-grade Gigabyte H370 WiFi, an Intel Pentium Gold G5400, and 16GB of 2400MHz DDR4 RAM. It's primarily a file and media server, and after having a look at a few other options, went with Windows Home Server 2019 - mostly because I'm most comfortable with the Windows environment, and partly because I didn't really do anything with it that would require a Linux distribution.

 

However, after poking around on AliExpress recently, I decided to roll the dice and ordered an old Xeon E5-2670v3 (12c/24t, 2.3GHz base and 3.10GHz boost) CPU, and an Huananzhi X99-QD4 motherboard. To my absolute surprise, not did they both actually arrived, but they arrived within about 8 days of ordering. I had to pilfer a bunch of hardware to work to get it up and running, since I didn't want to bring down my old server and cut everything over wholesale, but after an hour and a half of futzing around with a power supply (it worked in the work PC, it worked when using the paperclip test, but it did not work when connected to the motherboard), I got it all up and running and working. Luckily, I also had an old Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo kicking around, which supported LGA2011-3 mounting, so I don't need to worry about it overheating. 

 

This weekend, I'm picking up a case for it - since during testing it was just a bare motherboard, on a box, on my desk - and 16GB more of dedodated wams.

 

I still don't know what I'm going to do with it exactly. Now that I have the (slower) cores and RAM capacity to play around with, I decided to look into virtualisation. At the moment, I have an Ubuntu VM running on it, that has Docker and is running a vanilla Minecraft server. I'm sure I'll come up with other stuff as well. I mostly bought it on a whim because I enjoy tinkering, and because stuff from AliExpress is WAY cheaper than brand new gear.

 

Oh, I suppose I do have a question, actually: the PSU I'm using for it only has a 4-pin EPS connector, but the board has a 4+4 slot. I know you can get away with running a 4-pin in a 4+4, but does anyone know of any potential long-term detrimental effects? I'm eventually going to swap the PSUs from my old and new server anyway, but I'm just interested.

[mariushm]

imho, you kinda went backwards. 

 

ITX boards are usually quite well made, as they have to be made with more layers to route all the traces around, and the components in the VRM are higher quality to fit in tighter space. So the board should be way better than that chinese motherboard with a barebones bios and features that may or may not work. 

 

That 2670v3 has about as much processing power as a i7 9700 that your ITX motherboard should support, and which should consume less power. 

 

A single 4 pin is rated for around 190 watts, and the CPU if you don't run it at 100% shouldn't go over 150 watts.  Techspot made a system with a dual cpu motherboard and tested with one and two cpus, and got 189w in superpi with one cpu , 343w with two .. so 154w difference (but keep in mind you'd have to substract the power consumption on ram for the 2nd cpu and the vrm efficiency losses for 2nd cpu etc) : https://www.techspot.com/review/1155-affordable-dual-xeon-pc/page2.html

 

It should be fine, but I'd check from time to time that connector and make sure it doesn't have signs of burning. it would be a good idea to fix it and use a 8 pin cable (but don't use 2x molex -> pci-e 8 pin as such adapters would only be good for around 100-120 watts)

[Overloke]

I was looking for something with more cores, but less clocks anyway. I don't do anything stressful on it, and it's mostly for me mucking about.

 

An i7-9700, on eBay (since I can't get it first-hand anymore, and I don't like buying second-hand tech on principle anyway) is around $435 AUD (from my literally 12-second look), and gives me 8 cores, with no hyperthreading. The Xeon and motherboard combined cost me around $150 AUD, incl. shipping. I'm not worried about power consumption, compared to running an air conditioner in the Queensland summer, it's a drop in the ocean. I did initially look at upgrading the CPU I had, or even swapping it out for an AMD mITX build, but both of them were way more expensive, and came with less cores (although, obviously, at higher frequencies). 

 

Thanks for the heads-up regarding the EPS connectors though. I'll probably swap the PSUs between my ITX and X99 servers, so that my X99 one can have the 4+4 pin. It'll probably need it if I bother doing the BIOS mod that lets me run it at all core turbo!

[jaslion]

Just an fyi that ali express board is known for breakinf after a year as it does NOT use a x99 chipset but a modified c602 and that or the vrms act up after an extended period of use. Its why they are cheap. Cheaply built with recycled components from old disposed servers.

 

1 hour ago, Overloke said:

It'll probably need it if I bother doing the BIOS mod that lets me run it at all core turbo!

It wont at least its not supposed to. Id also NOT do that on a board like that. The qd4 is a known problem board. Huananzhi does actually have the least bad recycled board their x99 tf as it actually properly made. But the qd4 is absolutly not a well made board and is known for early fails.

 

Do not use it for critical tasks or data storage.

[Bersella AI]

I doubt that power rail to EPS (only 4 pins) could suffice full-load power consumption with the processor... So replace that PSU IMMEDIATELY.

Also, motherboards branded under Huananzhi have been considered "just usable" also in China, and nothing over that is expected or guaranteed. I would rather pick up a used TRUE OEM server (Dell, Lenovo, etc.) for way better reliability.

[Overloke]

8 hours ago, Bersella AI said:

I doubt that power rail to EPS (only 4 pins) could suffice full-load power consumption with the processor... So replace that PSU IMMEDIATELY.

Also, motherboards branded under Huananzhi have been considered "just usable" also in China, and nothing over that is expected or guaranteed. I would rather pick up a used TRUE OEM server (Dell, Lenovo, etc.) for way better reliability.

I have swapped out the PSU for one with the full 4+4. Not that the CPU ever hits full power consumption anyway, so it wasn't a huge scare for me. Regarding the brand, I guess we see how we go. I took a look at a number of AliExpress reviews for a bunch of different boards, and the Huananzhi looked good enough for what I wanted it to do, If it dies a year from now, it dies a year from now, and then I look into what I can get then. I just wanted something quick and easy. I also didn't want to pay, like $400 for a board that'll only get lightly used anyway.

 

On 11/3/2022 at 6:33 PM, jaslion said:

It wont at least its not supposed to. Id also NOT do that on a board like that. The qd4 is a known problem board. Huananzhi does actually have the least bad recycled board their x99 tf as it actually properly made. But the qd4 is absolutly not a well made board and is known for early fails.

 

Do not use it for critical tasks or data storage.

There are BIOS mods for it, so it definitely supports it. Whether it's a good idea or not is another thing. I'm mostly using just to muck about with virtualisation and things like that. My original plan was to cut it over to my main storage server, but if it starts having problems, I'm happy to leave it on my old ITX machine.

 

That being said, a motherboard biting the dust shouldn't cause too much damage in the way of data loss, and I have everything backed up in a few locations anyway.