GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard


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I spotted this in a Newegg newsletter, at a very good price, $99.99 (free shipping) after MIR and promo code from newsletter.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128358

 

It's a P45/ICH10R board, with 8 SATA ports, very fast busses, PCI Express 2.0, and lots of fast slots.  Reviews are very good.  Absolutely no issues reported (so far) for Linux, with one reporting it booted Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex out of the box with no problems.  A user has reported unRAID success with a similar board, here.  Could this, or a cheaper version, be a candidate for the next standard unRAID board that we recommend?

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  • 4 weeks later...
  • 1 month later...

I'll vouch for this board.  I bought one of these to replace a board I damaged in my main workstation.  Works great.  I even have mixed mode DDR2 ram (OCZ 2x2GB + Crucial Ballistix 2x1GB) overclocked to 1066 & 24/7 stable; I wouldn't even think to get that RAM stable on my Asus board (P5K Deluxe) or my last board (an Abit IP35 Pro) at that speed.

 

I'm not using it for unRAID, but I did set up a USB key to boot unRAID Basic on it.  Booted off the key (FAT32) just fine once set in the BIOS; recognized all the devices on both SATA controllers (both are configured for AHCI).  Obviously I can't go all the way and set up a full array since these are NTFS disks in use, but that would be enough for me to be confident enough to buy it for an unRAID server.

 

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I'm not using it for unRAID, but I did set up a USB key to boot unRAID Basic on it.  Booted off the key (FAT32) just fine once set in the BIOS; recognized all the devices on both SATA controllers (both are configured for AHCI).  Obviously I can't go all the way and set up a full array since these are NTFS disks in use, but that would be enough for me to be confident enough to buy it for an unRAID server.

 

If you install the  unMENU add-on on that USB key you can do a whole lot more to test that motherboard.

One user of unmenu evaluated his existing motherboard by using the disk management screen in unmenu to mount and then share his existing NTFS drives on the LAN.  By default, the drives are mounted as read-only, so your data on the NTFS formatted drives is safe. 

 

Here is a link to a screen shot this user took while evaluating his existing motherboard: http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=UnMENU_screen_shots#Evaluate_Hardware

 

Here is a link to the unMENU add-on

 

Joe L.

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I've added this board to the Hardware Compatibility page, perhaps prematurely, but with a 'not fully tested' note.  I do appreciate someone vouching for a board, as probably compatible, as it may help an adventurous user in trying it out.  But it is best to wait for a full test with a complete unRAID system, and successful parity checks, before giving it a complete green light.

 

I do like Brian's idea about some level of certification testing, although it probably needs to be simplified, and I'm not sure how it would be implemented, if ever.

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Joe L: Thanks for the info.  I am running unMENU on my actual unRAID box... if I get a chance to try your experiment on the Gigabyte mobo I'll report back.  Just a bit backlogged with computer hobbying right now; as it is this particular box is also a Win 7 machine which means it is doing other types of testing and sucking down my time in other ways. ;)  Also, I have to get around to flashing the firmware in the unRAID box (4 Seagate drives)...

 

I forgot to mention it, but I'm sure the networking on the board worked fine too as I did browse to it from another workstation.  The only thing I couldn't do is run a true unRAID parity check.

 

In the vein of certification testing, I think it'd be neat if there was a "verify hardware" version of unRAID out there... one that simply boots from the USB key, runs some tests, and generates a report.

 

It won't be any time soon, but I'd definitely consider replacing my Asus P5K Deluxe mobo in the unRAID server with this board, if I could get a really good price (e.g. less than $100, as was rumored around Black Friday 2008)... likely when I approach my current SATA port count (10: 6 on the mobo and 2 x 2 Sil3132 PCI-E 1x cards).  This is because I could literally get to 14 internal SATA ports without even touching the PCI-E 4x ports with this board since it has the 8 onboard plus 3 PCI-E 1x ports, making a mobo replacement about as cost effective as buying an add-in card (excluding my personal time of doing the mobo swap, of course  ;) ).

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Any more updates on this motherboard?  It got a good review on Anandtech.com  Here is the link to the review:

 

http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=3508

 

another very interested in any reports about using this board for an unraid server

 

Looks like a nice motherboard.

 

Good things ...

- Should support 2 1430SA or even 2 PCI-e x8 SATA cards

- Lots of PCI-e x1 slots (3)

 

Questions / concerns ..

- Compatibility unknown / unproven

----- In general, Linux support for the latest and greatest chipsets lags Windows support

----- Gigabyte motherboards are not always good USB booters - I've had a problem with one personally

- No on board video

- HPA - Gigabyte boards seem to have HPA issues that have caused problems for some users

 

This board is MORE expensive that the Supermicro C2SEE.  If this is for unRAID use, why would you pay a premium for something that may not be fully compatible as compared to a relative sure thing?

 

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This board is MORE expensive that the Supermicro C2SEE.  If this is for unRAID use, why would you pay a premium for something that may not be fully compatible as compared to a relative sure thing?

 

I was lured by the extra 2 sata ports and was thinking in terms of future expansion and/or use with a 20 drive case like the Norco RPC-4020.  Also I currently have 4 pata drives I'd prefer to keep using for the moment, so I'd have to buy a card to run those.  Not expensive I know but that combined with the extra $ of the ddr3 ram was kind of putting me off the C2SEE I guess.  I would need a card for the extra 2 pata drives with the UD3P too but I'd get one of the Rosewill Rosewill RC-216 that can do 2 pata and 2 sata for $25.

 

But no question it's not worth risking without some assurance it will actually function well, particularly in that maxed out or near maxed out capacity, hence my inquiry.

 

C'mon, somebody else do all the testing and risk taking for me will ya!

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  • 4 weeks later...

C'mon, somebody else do all the testing and risk taking for me will ya!

 

Ha ha... all right, well I picked up (another) one of these at Fry's for ~$115AR. 

 

My primary motivation for switching is because I have been encountering spurious "Exception Emask" errors with the Asus P5K Deluxe mobo, which are not fatal but are annoying and apparently not so uncommon w/Linux.  Additionally, I can replace an aging 6+ year old GA-8KNXP mobo in a Windows server machine I have using the Asus.

 

For the record:

1. This is the 1.1 version of the mobo.  I am using the same mobo on my Windows workstation.

2. In the BIOS, I set all ports to AHCI, including the onboard JMicron controller.

3. I installed a E5400 CPU on the Gigabyte board.  This setup screams "overclock me" but I'll resist.  ;)

4. Even though I only have 5 total drives (3 data, 1 parity, 1 cache) I have two SYBA PCI-E 1x SD-SA2PEX-2IR on the first two PCI-E slots giving me a total of 12 SATA ports.

5. I have a LSI SAS3081E-R waiting in the wings per this thread I can use on one of the PCI-E 8x slots.  I have tested the LSI board on my Windows workstation to verify the PCI-E 8x slots don't barf on non-video cards and it works.  Combined this would boost me to 20 drives; theoretically 30 max with zero PCI cards.

 

Installation was easy... installed, stuck the SATA cables where ever I felt like... well, actually, I put the cache on one of the syba cards and the parity on the JMicron controller for testing.  Booted up, got the drive assignments where they should be and ran a parity check.

 

It's only been up two days, but so far so good.  Haven't seen any "Exception Emask" errors and parity check speed is where I expect it (~70MB/sec for the whole array).

 

Edit: Quick followup... I saw 3 "Exception Emask" errors on the new mobo this morning.  After changing mobos, cables, controller positions, etc, over the past couple of months, I guess I'll just have to believe it's the (Seagate 1.0TB/1.5TB SD1B firmware) drives.

 

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I have been running this 24/7 with 4 drives (5 including parity) since installing about a week ago.  It seems fine and has passed parity (syslog attached - Mar 9). 

 

I do continue to see Exception emask errors (second syslog - Mar 15).  Since I encountered these with my prior mobo and have tried to change cables, put the drives on the internal Sil cards, etc., I believe these are related to the Seagate drives I am using, not the mobo.  I've never seen an error with the WD drive that I'm using as the cache drive, for example, but I don't have any other spare drives to test at this point.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I'm running the following:

 

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P

Intel Quad-Core Q6600 2.4GHz CPU

2 Norco SS500

4 x WD750GB

4 x WD500GB

4GB RAM

Rosewill  PCIe 4xSATA CARD

Cooler Master 590 CASE

Corsair 650W power supply

An OLD ATI video card

Kingston DataTraveler 2GB USB

 

And it has been stable for the two weeks I've had it online and I get no pauses or jitter effect when watching a DVD streamed across my network to my XBMC PC. Yes, a new install but so far no problems. Temps stay below 40 degrees C even with all disks spun up and working. Seeing pretty consistent 7,900 MB/sec xor speeds.

 

So far very happy.

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  • 1 month later...

Can you throw a basic PCI video card in this MoBo so as to not tie up any of the PCI-E slots?

 

Yes, I have done so... I have a cheap Rage XL PCI card as my video.  I have an LSI SAS3081E-R board in one of the PCI-E slots and everything is working as expected.

 

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  • 2 months later...
  • 2 months later...

For anyone looking at buying this board, please be aware that neither of the two PCI-E 16X slots support 1X expansion cards. 4X and 8X may work, but definitely not 1X. Other than that, the board is working extremely well for me.

 

Adrian, are you sure?  I thought that x1 would work in x1, x4, x8, x16, x4 would work in x4, x8, x16, etc...

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For anyone looking at buying this board, please be aware that neither of the two PCI-E 16X slots support 1X expansion cards. 4X and 8X may work, but definitely not 1X. Other than that, the board is working extremely well for me.

 

Adrian, are you sure?  I thought that x1 would work in x1, x4, x8, x16, x4 would work in x4, x8, x16, etc...

I wonder if it has something to do with the rev of PCIe.

 

I.E. on Gigabyte's website it says -> 2 PCI-E 2.0 x16 graphic interface with CrossFireX support for ultimate graphics performance

 

http://www.gigabyte.us/Products/Motherboard/Products_Overview.aspx?ProductID=2914

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