AMD Socket AM2 MoBos: Asus M2NPV-VM and Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4


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Hi all--

 

Total newb here, but I'm psyched about unRAID, it sounds like just the right approach! 

 

For my new server, I was hoping to find a board with these features...

* socket AM2 for AMD Athlon 64 processor

* 6 SATA ports

* support for ECC RAM (seems like a good feature for a file server)

 

This boils down to boards with the Nvidia nForce 570 SLI chip, reportedly Linux-friendly, so I got one, a Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4.  But no joy booting unRAID!  Everything works fine if I substitute an Asus M2NPV-VM motherboard (nForce 430 / GeForce 6150), but this contender only offers 4 SATA ports.

 

I've been using an Nvidia 8600GT video card to set this up.  Once I got it going, hoped to run with no video card at all.  (This is a newer card that might not have great Linux support; not sure if that's an issue.)  Just two Seagate 500GB "7200.10" SATA-II HDDs to start with.

 

The Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 board...

* boots from USB

* boots Ubuntu Linux "Gutsy Gibbon" from CD

* won't boot unRAID; hangs early, while bzimage/bzroot are outputting "..."

* won't boot unRAID, even with the video card removed

 

Thumbs up for the Asus M2NPV-VM board...

* boots unRAID easily

* finds LAN

* formatted disk1

* completed initial parity sync with great throughput

* shows array status "green"

 

Does anyone know of a board that has the features above and works with unRAID?

 

Any suggestions on troubleshooting the unRAID boot process to figure out why it's hanging? 

 

Thanks!

 

--Alex

 

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Definitely my cue to jump in here!  I started unRAID with a BioStar AM2 nForce4 board, cheap and fast but nothing but trouble.  I strongly recommend avoiding nForce4 motherboards, and you can search the Web for numerous posters and long threads about the never-fixed problems with data corruption, IDE detection, bootup problems, and compatibility issues with some Maxtor and other drives.  nForce2 and nForce3 boards are also reported to have some of the same issues.  But nVidia (rather than issue fixes for the nForce4 chipsets) finally fixed the problems in the nForce5 series of boards, and the 570 and 590 boards are very good, stable, fast, and well-featured.  The only difference between the 570 and 590 boards are that the 590 boards include full support for dual PCIe X16 support for SLI cards, and if there is a more useless feature for an unRAID server, I can't think what it could be.  These boards natively support 6 SATA300 ports, dual onboard gigabit (Marvell 88E1116), BIOS protection (might be Epox feature), AM2 socket, DDR2 800 memory, 10 USB ports, and other features for desktop use (like 8 channel HD audio).

 

  My hardware:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+(65W) 2.4GHz dual core  (note: low power 65 watt version)  $126 then

EPOX MF570 SLI  AM2 NVIDIA nForce570 ATX AMD Motherboard (8 SATA II)  $99

Antec True Power Trio ATX12V 650W Power Supply  about $80?

A-DATA 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)    $69

SYBA PCI-E X1 2 port SATA II Controller Card    $29 then

PNY 1 gig flash drive  (sold in packs every where, but slow)  $10

MSI GeForce 7100GS 512MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 fanless - often kept in static bag on floor in computer case!  $37

7 hard drives:  (currently)

2 Seagate 500GB 7200.10 SATA II

2 Samsung 500GB SATA II

1 Seagate 320GB 7200.10 SATA II

1 Seagate 250GB 7200.9 SATA150

1 Samsung 250GB SATA II

  with all drives spun down and video card installed, consumes 90 watts; 78 watts without video card

 

I selected Epox after much research.  They may be going out of business, but their stuff seems to be above average and I got a sellout price.  You can possibly find them on Ebay at good prices, but they seem to have been snatched up every where else.  The Epox adds 2 additional SATA ports, providing 8, using a JMB363 chipset.  I had wanted to suggest 570 and 590 boards to other posters looking for 8 SATA ports, but the poster seemed only interested in Core 2 boards.  I've been an Intel person myself, but these AM2 boards have impressed me, and the midrange AMD CPU's (like the 65 watt 4600+ I selected) are cheaper, about as fast, and low power.

 

Any suggestions on troubleshooting the unRAID boot process to figure out why it's hanging?

When I first tried to boot unRAID 4.1, it failed, but after some research, I found an instruction to add a noapic parameter to the boot that solved the problem for me.  (Note that this is noapic, not the nolapic that has helped others.)  I hope that this will help fix your boot problems, but yours do not sound the same as mine.  My Epox MF570 booted unRAID part of the way through the hardware detection and setup phase, and then quit with errors.  The Linux kernel included in the unRAID 4.2 betas no longer needs the noapic parameter, but 4.1 and probably 4.0 versions do.  Add noapic to the append line of syslinux.cfg on the flash drive of a pre 4.2 unRAID system (append initrd=bzroot rootdelay=10 noapic).

 

I have never needed the nolapic parameter, and have copied 80 gigs at a time to my unRAID server, using 4.2 beta4.

 

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  • 1 year later...

Late follow-up here, but I ended up getting a different Socket AM2 board, the Asus M2N-E, which has been just great.  6 SATA ports.

 

This board was running fine on unRAID 4.2.1, but would not boot after I upgraded to 4.4.2 (by copying over bzimage and bzroot).  Got a bit nervous! Then I saw this post http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=3238.0 about using a newer syslinux to make the flash drive bootable.  That did the trick! 

 

Did the trick in the end, that is.  Even with all the pieces in place, I got repeated "boot disk errors"... disabled "quick boot" in BIOS... saw a message "press F8 for boot options"...  had to explicitly re-select the USB flash drive I had been booting from all along.  Now unRAID is back in effect!

 

 

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