Asus M4A78LT-M 760G Build update, preclear times, etc.

Hi Guys,

Been running my new server for 3 months now using either UnRAID 5b6 or 5b9.

It's been connected to a Mac Pro via Gigabit LAN (Airport Extreme).

It's been used as a Media server, Time-Machine and general backup device.

I now felt it was time to get it onto the compatibility list!

Build is as follows:

Case: Coolermaster Elite 335 Case: £27

Motherboard: Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3: £45

CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 Dual Core 250 3.00GHz (Socket AM3): £30

CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev 2 : £16

Memory: Memory pulled from a Mac Pro, PC3-8500, 1066Mhz & ECC: Free

GPU: Onboard

PSU: BeQuiet Pure Power L7 530W Power Supply: £43

USB Drive: SanDisk 2gb Cruzer Micro U3: £5

Disks: WD20EARS x3, WD10EARS, HD154UI, 7K1000.B (Cache): ~£350 (Collected over the last two years!)

Total for 6.5TB storage, inc parity & cache drives: ~£580

The CPU is running at stock and all the timings have been set as per the manufacturers recommendations.

Also the ECC mode is set at "Super" which is under Northbridge -> Memory Configuration -> ECC Configuration.

Note: It is possible to set this motherboard to boot from the USB stick from cold without configuration, i.e. headless.

I will post my BIOS setup at a later date. However just be sure that it DOES work.

I will also get the BIOS version.

Hardware Compatibility

For the mods (easier to add to the tables in the hardware compatibility page on the wiki):

Note: Do NOT confuse this with the "Asus M4A78LT-M LE", which is the WORSE version, and has a few listed issues.

Model: Asus M4A78LT-M

Date Added: July 2011

Tested Level: Technically 2, however I don't have the logs to prove this because I moved house, however regular parity checks have come up with no errors over the period of 3 months.

SATA: 6

eSATA: 0

No. of GB NIC: 1

LAN: Realtek® 8112L Gigabit LAN

CPU Socket: AMD AM3

Northbridge: AMD® 760G (780L)

Southbridge: SB710

Onboard Video: Yes (DVI & VGA)

Form Factor: mATX

Links & Notes: S3 Sleep, Wake-on-Lan, boot from USB all works fine.

Disk Preclear times

Samsung HD154UI 1.5TB:

Hitachi 7K1000.B 1TB:

2x Western Digital Green 2TB WD20EARS:

Western Digital Green 1TB WD10EARS:

If anyone can think of any information that I may have missed then please post and I will find it.

I hope this is useful for people!

Cheers

CR

Thanks for doing this testing!  Will you please post your latest syslog?  Ideally it should include a parity sync and parity check for Level 1, but even if it doesn't, post it anyway.

You are welcome to add this to the wiki yourself.  I would like to do it for you, but the wiki isn't letting me log in again...

I've just rebooted the server and am running an array check and correct.

I will post the syslog in the Morning!

Here we go.

Full parity check and correct with no errors reported.

So thats gives it level 1 status, no?

syslog-2011-07-20.txt

I see the parity check start, but I don't see it end.  Is the syslog cut off perhaps?

Nope - system went to sleep (just before 9am) and I woke it up again at (9:45am).

System would only go to sleep if all disks are idle, so the parity check was completed and the disks spun down after 15 mins.

Jul 20 08:30:55 Tower kernel: md: sync done. time=29591sec

Jul 20 08:30:55 Tower kernel: md: recovery thread sync completion status: 0

29591 = 8.2 hours which is the correct amount of time for a parity sync to complete, then 15 mins later the HDs spin down and a minute later the system goes to sleep!

You are right, it was there all along, I just missed it the first time.  Level 1 confirmed!  Feel free to add this motherboard to the wiki (I would do it for you, but I've been unable to log in to the wiki for several weeks now...something glitchy is going on).

Always great to see more people contributing to the wiki!  Unfortunately, something went wrong with your addition of the ASUS board info, (all of the US prices on the entire page were removed!) and I had to roll it back.  I copied your info and re-added it, and you may wish to confirm it is correct now.

If you check the history for the Hardware Compatibility page, you will see what happened.  I suspect that you are either using a really unusual browser, or you have a special addon, perhaps providing macro substitution within text editing boxes?  The fact that only terms that begin with a dollar sign were removed sounds to me like some sort of parameter substitution tool.

Rajahal, I could not find anything wrong with the way that the wiki is behaving, or your wiki user name.  Perhaps a PM to Tom?

Always great to see more people contributing to the wiki!  Unfortunately, something went wrong with your addition of the ASUS board info, (all of the US prices on the entire page were removed!) and I had to roll it back.  I copied your info and re-added it, and you may wish to confirm it is correct now.

 

If you check the history for the Hardware Compatibility page, you will see what happened.  I suspect that you are either using a really unusual browser, or you have a special addon, perhaps providing macro substitution within text editing boxes?  The fact that only terms that begin with a dollar sign were removed sounds to me like some sort of parameter substitution tool.

 

Rajahal, I could not find anything wrong with the way that the wiki is behaving, or your wiki user name.  Perhaps a PM to Tom?

Yup, I have "SCC" in Safari which converts everything to £, so that might have done something?

Either way - thanks. I hadn't noticed that it had buggered something!

Edit: All seems correct!