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Messages - LambdaFox

1
You can upgrade to USB 3.1!

I bought a new ZTC ASMedia ASM1142 USB 3.1 pci-e card. I put it in slot 7.  When I booted up, I saw those old familiar memory errors from my H310 install. Covering pins 5 & 6 on the USB 3.1 card made the errors vanish.

I was then able to install the drivers in Windows 7 Pro 64-bit using the included mini CD.

Device Manager shows the driver to be version 1.16.23.0. 

I will post back if I notice any bugs.

Quote from: LambdaFox on December 05, 2016, 11:47:23 am
Update:  The DELL PERC H310 Can Be Hacked Into the Z800!  :)

Quote from: malefic on December 04, 2016, 04:51:49 am
HP P410 works fine, i used it on my build with the 512MB and battery backed cache, also used a HP P400 and the standard LSI controller...all worked with my SAS 15K HDD's....


While waiting for my new P410, I installed Windows on my hard drive RAID using the on-board controller.  That was slow slow slow.  Noticably slower than the H310 had been.  Did I mention it was SLOW???

This made me leary about using the P410 since it drops SATA down to SATA2.  So, I did a little more digging on the H310.

I found this discussion about the H310 preventing machines from booting.  Covering pins B5 and B6 with electrical tape solved my problem.



Some people in several discussions I saw were trying to change the firmware to LSI or other versions.  I am using the standard latest firmware and drivers from Dell.

The errors regarding the bad memory are now gone.  When I installed Windows 7 in spite of the errors, I noticed that the Intel controller did not show up in Device Manager.  I originally thought this was probably because I had all the SATA ports and the option ROM for the controller disabled in the BIOS.  This turns out not to be correct.  With this hack the Intel Controller now shows in Device Manager, where I have Windows disable it after boot.

I will report any glitches I find, but so far it looks good!
2
Update:  The DELL PERC H310 Can Be Hacked Into the Z800!  :)

Quote from: malefic on December 04, 2016, 04:51:49 am
HP P410 works fine, i used it on my build with the 512MB and battery backed cache, also used a HP P400 and the standard LSI controller...all worked with my SAS 15K HDD's....


While waiting for my new P410, I installed Windows on my hard drive RAID using the on-board controller.  That was slow slow slow.  Noticably slower than the H310 had been.  Did I mention it was SLOW???

This made me leary about using the P410 since it drops SATA down to SATA2.  So, I did a little more digging on the H310.

I found this discussion about the H310 preventing machines from booting.  Covering pins B5 and B6 with electrical tape solved my problem.



Some people in several discussions I saw were trying to change the firmware to LSI or other versions.  I am using the standard latest firmware and drivers from Dell.

The errors regarding the bad memory are now gone.  When I installed Windows 7 in spite of the errors, I noticed that the Intel controller did not show up in Device Manager.  I originally thought this was probably because I had all the SATA ports and the option ROM for the controller disabled in the BIOS.  This turns out not to be correct.  With this hack the Intel Controller now shows in Device Manager, where I have Windows disable it after boot.

I will report any glitches I find, but so far it looks good!

3
Chips Overheating

I have seen many people mention the chips getting really hot.  You should consider replacing the thermal compound on them.

I have gotten three boards in the process of my build.  All three, after unscrewing the four screws on the chips' heat-sink took almost zero force to remove the heat-sink from the chips.  This was because the thermal compound was completely desiccated.



I used 90% rubbing alcohol to clean both chips and the back of the heat-sink.  Then I used the same thermal compound I bought for my cpu's to tint the back of the heat-sink.  I then applied a thin coat to each chip.  Finally, I screwed the heatsink back in place.

4
A Little Clarity on Socket LGA-1366 Cooling

Technical specs for the socket list two different backplate part numbers.  The document shows an image of 1939739-1 Desktop Backplate:



They are not so kind as to show one of the 1981467-1 Server Backplates.  This is a picture I took of the parts separated:



I took a lot of time trying to find a cooling solution designed to fit the 1981467-1 Server Backplate.  I did not find any.  The notes here in Andy's forum about modding for heat sinks / fans are, really only necessary if you keep the Server Backplates in your build.

I bought two Desktop Backplates.  I was then able to install 2 ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 into my system.
5
Guard Your Sockets

This is my first motherboard with a gazillion microscopic pins on the board instead of the CPU.  At age 53, "microscopic" is not an overstatement, LOL... I am on my third motherboard with this build, raising my cost a lot.  I hope this cautionary note will help someone avoid my naive mistakes!  All three of the motherboards I purchased arrived with zero protective caps on the sockets, like the socket on the left in this picture:



I dropped my heatsink on the socket for CPU0, and bent pins in it:



I tried, but failed to get it to post with only 1 CPU in the second socket.

You can buy the Socket LGA-1366 caps very cheap.  I bought 2 before I started fiddling with motherboard #2...

I replaced the backs on both of my sockets.  When I did, I worked on only one at a time.  I let the clamp keep the protector on one.  I was VERY carefull to keep the other in place with my hand whenever I moved the motherboard.
6
Hoping the HP Smart Array P410 RAID Controller will work.

It will use the same cables I bought for the H310.  I was able to buy one with 512 MB write back cache on ebay for $16 US.

I googled before buying and found one server supplier that offers it as a "premium" upgrade for the low low price of $550 US, LOL...

I will post back to report success and/or glitches with the P410 when I get it...



7
Following up on my Dell PERC h310 ...

I had disabled the on-board SAS controller using the Security menu in the BIOS.

I re-enabled it, checked do not download option ROM on it, then rebooted and disabled it again.

I then disalbed download option ROM on the h310.

Then I powered down, waited 30 seconds and powered back up.

The bad behavior is the same.

I wiped my SATA drives and did a fresh install of Windows 7 using the on-board SATA controller.

8
Quote from: Andy Brown on November 16, 2016, 01:51:53 pm
I'm assuming that you've disabled the onboard SAS controller and it made no difference. If you don't need to boot from this card, can you try going into the BIOS 'Advanced' menu and select the PCIe slot containing your card. There will be an option 'Download option ROM'. Try disabling it.

I also assume that the Dell card has its own BIOS that you can get into during bootup. Look for anything in there related to how it interacts with the computer BIOS during the boot phase that you can change. This option ROM setup will not be visible if you've disabled 'download option ROM' as my first suggestion.


Hey, Andy.  My OS is on sata hard drives running RAID0.  I have had them connected to the h310, but I will try moving them over to the Intel controller on the motherboard and try the tweaks you suggest.  It will be a couple of days before I can set aside a big chunk of time.  Thank you for the ideas, I will report back early next week!
9

WARNING / CAUTION:  Dell PERC H310 Will Probably Not Work With HP Z800

I am hacking together my system as Andy did. I do not see a way to search within this thread for h310.  I did search the forum and it came back with nothing; so, sorry if this is a duplicate post...

I am wanting to run 3 large SAS disks in RAID 5.  The on-board SAS controller does not support RAID 5; so, I bought a Dell PERC H310 raid controller.

Running Memtest 4 from a usb dvd drive, my 12 sticks of ecc memory pass with flying colors.

When I install the H310, though, I get a series of boot errors from the BIOS about Slots 1 & 2 on both CPUs:

207--Incompatible DIMMs detected
203--Memory module failed self-test and failing rank was disabled
204--Memory module failed and user rank was disabled

Slots 1 & 2 on both CPUs

The power of google shows me that I am not the first to have this problem.  This German thread documents the same problem.

I can report that this problem occurs on my Rev 3 board.
I can report that upgrading the firmware on the Dell PERC H310 to 20.13.0-0007 does not fix this problem.
I can also report that upgrading the BIOS on the Z800 to 3.6 does not fix the problem.

MemTest 4 reports that the RAM is only running at 533.  I let it run for several passes with no errors.  The German thread noted that the original error changes to an invalid memory configuration detected if you remove the 4 dimms noted.  MemTest shows exactly the same info with or without them.  To clarify, any DIMMs in those slots are not counted in your total RAM. 

Now, the weirdest thing:

If I remove all of the DIMMs in the white slots (2,4,6) on each processor, I get exactly the same series of errors, including the squawks about DIMM2 on each CPU that are now empty.