Supermicro X7SPA L/H/HF ATOM serverboards (Level 1 Tested)


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Hmm, then I am out of my wisdom here...

I'd try to test my java install with some other apps.

Here on my side I am running a linux x64 OS with additional x32 layers...and not even Sun/Oracle JVM but IBM's J9 implementation of a JVM.

And it works like a charm.

So ..I don't think that IPMIViewer is to blame...might be a general problem with your JAVA installation.

 

I e-mailed Supermicro direct and they finally responded and gave me the latest IPMI firmware that's not even available on their site (v1.39) and that allows me to log onto the board and successfully have it automatically download and run the Console Redirection Java applet on my Mac!  I'm assuming it's cross-platform so it may solve similar issues on the Windows side (which I couldn't get to work for XP and Windows 7 either, but someday I will try it again with this FW)!

 

I've now got my virtual KVM going under OS X to the X7SPA board and LUVIN it!

 

Thanks for offering the time and effort in troubleshooting this with me!

 

EDIT: FYI, I also got my AOC-SASLP-MV8 card and other than the "normal-sized" backplane not able to fully seat down (tho the board is fully implanted into the PCIe slot), the mobo booted up and recognized the card immediately and UnRAID saw it and its attached drives too.  Truly plug-n-play, which was my hope! :)  It does take a bit longer to fully boot to UnRAID, but now I can expand up to 14 drives if and when the need arises!

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I got mine tonight and was able to get suspend to RAM and wol working, but I'm having the "no-video-after-resume" issue, so I guess I'll have to give s2ram a try.

EDIT: So far, it looks like s2ram -f -p -s is doing the trick.

 

Also, for IPMI: I've gotten it working and was able to connect fine through the applet...but is there a way to access it quickly enough in order to be able to press 'delete' to get into the BIOS setup?  I haven't been able to get that...only been able to access it further along in the boot process.

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Also, for IPMI: I've gotten it working and was able to connect fine through the applet...but is there a way to access it quickly enough in order to be able to press 'delete' to get into the BIOS setup?  I haven't been able to get that...only been able to access it further along in the boot process.

 

On mine, I start up the applet first, do what I have to do, then even though the screen is blank. I keep pressing delete until I see the bios come up and start counting memory.  it might be harder if you have quickboot enabled.

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On mine, I start up the applet first, do what I have to do, then even though the screen is blank. I keep pressing delete until I see the bios come up and start counting memory.  it might be harder if you have quickboot enabled.

Agreed.  I disabled quickboot on mine so that I have more time to catch the BIOS.  The video for POST won't show up until after it's already booting if you leave quickboot enabled.

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On mine, I start up the applet first, do what I have to do, then even though the screen is blank. I keep pressing delete until I see the bios come up and start counting memory.  it might be harder if you have quickboot enabled.

Agreed.  I disabled quickboot on mine so that I have more time to catch the BIOS.  The video for POST won't show up until after it's already booting if you leave quickboot enabled.

 

Good to know...I'll disable quick boot and give it a try.

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Glad to hear that you are up&running.

 

BTW: Did you also upgrade the BIOS to 1.0c?

 

 

Nope.  Now that I have my hardware configuration settled for the moment (until I have to add another hard drive), it's not necessary for me to go into BIOS.  And without a changelog specifying what's different about 1.0c, I don't have any other urgent need to update  :)

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Hi Folks,

 

although slightly off-topic, I'd like to share some infos

on how-to install WinXP with AHCI drivers over IPMI on this MoBo,

since I had some hassle on doing that last night.

 

- WinXP does not come with AHCI drivers for the ICH9R controller

- If you do not have (or would not want to go through the procedure creating one)

 a WinXP install CD/ISO with slipstreamed drivers, you will need to use

 the F6 "aka driver diskette" method during install.

- the Supermicro CD that comes with the board does not have the proper

 drivers easily accessible.

 There is a floppy IMG of some Raid drivers but this did not work for me.

 So..how and where to get a floppy IMG for the drivers (if you do not have a single floppy drive at hand)

 

In brief,  I ended up doing the following:

  - you'll need the Intel® Matrix RAID and AHCI Driver for Windows

       -- EDIT: This driver will allow for AHCI but NOT a RAID config. Read below on how to enable the ICH9R (RAID) driver from the supermicro CD --

  - download and extract the zip (for WinXP-32bit you'll need the "32bit" folder inside)

  - download a tool to create a floppy image from a set of files, like BFI, here; unzip it; run it from a command-line (Warning: Windoze tool :D )to get familiar with the syntax for use

  - run bfi against the 32bit folder from the intel driver suite, like "bfi -v -t=144 -f=AHCI-ICH9R.IMG 32bit"; that will produce a IMG file with the drivers inside

  - start the iKVM console via IPMI, select keyboard layout if needed and add the AHCI.IMG as virtual floppy

  - insert the XP install CD - either in a real drive or as virtual CD via iKVM console as well

  - boot the X7SPA-HF machine and enter BIOS; enable AHCI mode for your SATA contollers; make sure you boot from CD (real or virtual); save and reboot

  - when XP install prompts, use the F6 method (note: F6 is a hotkey inside the iKVM console...use the virtual keyboard instead)

  - when XP install prompt for the new driver disk, hit "S" and you will be presented with the drivers from the virtual floppy IMG; select the ICH9 driver set

  - continue install (when done, install display and LAN drivers from supermicro CD)

 

...hope this helps,

 

best regards

      Ford

 

EDIT: fixed broken link to Floppy-IMG build tool ...

EDIT: The driver from above will allow for AHCI install, but not for RAID config.

        For RAID, you will need another version which is for the "Intel® ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller".

        The F6 driver set can be found here

        but it did not work during F6 install method for me.

        Here's the solution:

        - install on first HDD with driver "simple" AHCI driver from above

        - install the Intel drivers from the supermicro-CD into your windows machine

        - open Device-Manager and select a Driver Update for the controller; here select "manual, have disk" and have windows search the C:\Windows\system32\DRVSTORE\ich9core_4 directory

        - this will install the driver from the supermicro CD and assign it to the controller

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just got my X7SPA-HF and have few questions.

 

when boot up. there are two green LED on the board. one stay solid, and the other one is blinking slowly, (this one is below a big chip and behind the second net connector.) does that mean something is wrong?

besides the led. everything else seem to be working.

first tried with nothing hook up to the board except power and network cable.

then hook up a harddrive and installed RH.

also tried upgrade the BIOS to the latest.

the green LED is still blinking.

 

thank you in advance for any answers.

 

ziguan

 

 

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just got my X7SPA-HF and have few questions.

 

when boot up. there are two green LED on the board. one stay solid, and the other one is blinking slowly, (this one is below a big chip and behind the second net connector.) does that mean something is wrong?

besides the led. everything else seem to be working.

first tried with nothing hook up to the board except power and network cable.

then hook up a harddrive and installed RH.

also tried upgrade the BIOS to the latest.

the green LED is still blinking.

 

thank you in advance for any answers.

 

ziguan

 

 

 

The manual that comes with the board probably explains what the LEDs are for and what they mean.

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just got my X7SPA-HF and have few questions.

 

when boot up. there are two green LED on the board. one stay solid, and the other one is blinking slowly, (this one is below a big chip and behind the second net connector.) does that mean something is wrong?

besides the led. everything else seem to be working.

first tried with nothing hook up to the board except power and network cable.

then hook up a harddrive and installed RH.

also tried upgrade the BIOS to the latest.

the green LED is still blinking.

 

thank you in advance for any answers.

 

ziguan

 

 

 

The manual that comes with the board probably explains what the LEDs are for and what they mean.

 

read but found nothing about those LEDs. does that happen on your boards?

 

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just got my X7SPA-HF and have few questions.

 

when boot up. there are two green LED on the board. one stay solid, and the other one is blinking slowly, (this one is below a big chip and behind the second net connector.) does that mean something is wrong?

besides the led. everything else seem to be working.

first tried with nothing hook up to the board except power and network cable.

then hook up a harddrive and installed RH.

also tried upgrade the BIOS to the latest.

the green LED is still blinking.

 

thank you in advance for any answers.

 

ziguan

 

 

 

The manual that comes with the board probably explains what the LEDs are for and what they mean.

 

read but found nothing about those LEDs. does that happen on your boards?

 

One is usually to show power is applied, the other may be a FAN speed alert...    /only you can see physically where they are and look in your manual.
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The light that is solid on is the CPU status light, which will blink slowly if the CPU is in suspend mode (as described in Section 1-4 on page 1-19 of the manual).  If there is another blinking light, it is most likely the IPMI heartbeat checking for LAN based commands.  Your LEDs are functioning fine.

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thank you all for the reponese.

FYI, here is the answer from supermicro support:

 

Ziguan,

      There are 2 LED onboard. One is power LED which is on solid. It mean the power supply is supplying power to the motherboard. The other LED which blinking is refer to IPMI chipset. That mean the chipset is on and working.

Technical Support

ES

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi,

 

I'm currently in the process of pulling together a unraid box with the same Supermicro board and was just wondering how you could tell it was the memory causing issues? I've got the same board and its not POSTing or showing anything on the screen. I've heard all the stories about how this board is quite finicky about memory and just wondered what I should be looking for?

 

I've been using 2 x 512mb 667mhz or 2 x 256mb 667mhz sticks for testing without any success, and based on all the posts regarding memory issues I highly suspect this to be the issue. Just don't wont to spend money on memory if its not the problem.

 

chrs

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Guest wolfdv

Those are basically the same symptoms I had (I originally thought the board was faulty), but turns out it was memory.

 

Find a local shop that will let you test some kingston ram, and see if thats the problem.

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Hi,

 

I'm currently in the process of pulling together a unraid box with the same Supermicro board and was just wondering how you could tell it was the memory causing issues? I've got the same board and its not POSTing or showing anything on the screen. I've heard all the stories about how this board is quite finicky about memory and just wondered what I should be looking for?

 

I've been using 2 x 512mb 667mhz or 2 x 256mb 667mhz sticks for testing without any success, and based on all the posts regarding memory issues I highly suspect this to be the issue. Just don't wont to spend money on memory if its not the problem.

 

chrs

 

I went with RAM that I read from another post that worked for another user, so I got the same and everything worked perfectly (hardware wise, IPMI was a different story...) out of the box.  I used a pair of 2GB G.Skill Model F2-5300CL4S-2GBSQ which are 200-Pin DDR2 SO-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) Laptop Memory.

 

FYI: I got them (and the board) from NewEgg, which were $50 each.  For UnRAID alone, 4GB might be a little overkill, but the price differential for smaller sticks wasn't an issue for me and I'd rather be safe for future expansion than be stuck later having to upgrade.

 

Also, not sure if you are familiar with the IPMI feature, but wow, having the ability to remote in from ANYWHERE and actually POWER ON the computer from a completely cold, powered off state, just blew me away!  I had to check on something and in a few minutes, was able to fire up the machine, do my business and shut 'er down.  From a thousand miles away.  Awesome.

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Thanks for the heads up ended up going with a stick of Kingston ValueRAM KVR667D2S5/2G will grab another one shortly. Didn't want to drop money on two stick to only find out it wouldn't work. There was another user earlier in this thread who mentioned having success with the Kingston sticks. This motherboard sure is picky about memory!

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  • 4 weeks later...

 

EDIT: FYI, I also got my AOC-SASLP-MV8 card and other than the "normal-sized" backplane not able to fully seat down (tho the board is fully implanted into the PCIe slot), the mobo booted up and recognized the card immediately and UnRAID saw it and its attached drives too.  Truly plug-n-play, which was my hope! :)  It does take a bit longer to fully boot to UnRAID, but now I can expand up to 14 drives if and when the need arises!

 

Hi Auggie,

 

I'm about to build a similar system to yours.  I have the X7SPA-HF, and I'm considering getting the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 as well.  I'm a bit confused about how this add on card works...  Are the ports on the card SAS or SATA, it seems some secondary board is necessary for SATA?  Did you have to install any driver for this to work w/ unRAID?  Did you add this card in later, or have it installed from the beginning.  Any other useful info?

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I'm about to build a similar system to yours.  I have the X7SPA-HF, and I'm considering getting the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 as well.  I'm a bit confused about how this add on card works...  Are the ports on the card SAS or SATA, it seems some secondary board is necessary for SATA?  Did you have to install any driver for this to work w/ unRAID?  Did you add this card in later, or have it installed from the beginning.  Any other useful info?

 

You need breakout cables for that card.  See this thread.

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... and I'm considering getting the Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8 as well.  I'm a bit confused about how this add on card works...  Are the ports on the card SAS or SATA, it seems some secondary board is necessary for SATA?  Did you have to install any driver for this to work w/ unRAID?  Did you add this card in later, or have it installed from the beginning.  Any other useful info?

 

I just installed this exact configuration at my boss's house, and it's as straight forward as it can be with regards to unRAID.  It's truly plug and play assuming you're using the latest stable unRAID version.  As far as the connectors go, Raj pointed to exactly the right spot for the breakout cables.  The cables run about $15 to $20 depending on brand.  I found that due to the peculiar PCIe slot position, I had to unscrew the mounting bracket on the card and flip it to the other side to get a better alignment with the case slot.  Otherwise, it's an easy way to get to 14 drives.

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