Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Impressive. I only wish I had the time to put together such a great build. I was thinking about putting one of my 'Kabini' mini-ITX boards (2.05 GHz 4-core CPU) on a pizza box and plugging in my Radeon 7770 passive cooled video, for Folding@Home (then rig up some 120mm fans), but your rig looks much more well-rounded.

(Mine would be CPU-poor and GPU-rich).

It looks like you're gonna have a fantastic rig there.

You're still running F@H? I ditched that 6+ years ago. Never got the linux version to run stably, and with all my workstations using fan curves, anything that creates extra heat (read: noise) without a good reason is banned. More power to ya...

This is nothing... a rehash more or less of a prior build. I have a faster rig already anyway:

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=64744

This is likely going to be my wife's new system to replace her venerable dual opteron SLI monster (which will probably replace the dual-irwindale basement rig I'm posting from, although both systems are cool and run well )

[Hondaman]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

You're still running F@H?

No, I ditched Folding@Home years ago also (got 850,000 points or units or whatever, gave it up). Thought about getting one going again recently, just for fun.

Last time, the CPU client (version 7) really heated up the VRMs, but with my 6770 video's passive fins, the version 7 GPU client didn't heat it up that much. I'll use the GPU client again, this time on my 7770 passive (AFAIK the fastest fully-passive video card ever made). I could also grab another cache-less SSD. For a "set it and forget it" system in my basement, hard drive throughput is not very important.

EDIT: (Of course, getting wifi to work under Linux can be a nightmare!)

ANOTHER EDIT: I just discovered the small "donut" spare tire has rotted inside the trunk (boot, rear end) of my 2002 Saturn. I really need to move quickly to replace it with a 14 or 15-inch proper tire before spending time on "leisure pursuits" like computers. I already replaced the "donut" tire on the 2001 Saturn when it rotted years ago, so that car is okay.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Now all I need are some SAS drives... As I don't think the one spare 147GB one I have leftover from V6 will cut it . Not seeing any deals on eBay... best offered on a lot of 6 but I doubt it will take. Some items I can strike bargains on (or snipe). HDDs don't seem to be one of them

Well, the seller accepted my lowball offer... Got six 146GB 15K drives on order (some are fujitsu, some are seagate). I have a 7th as a spare... so I need at least 1 more to fill the array. Hmm... may have to do more hunting...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Well, I've been working on it... and it's been a battle:

I've had a few SAS drives die on me. One from the first batch of 6, and 2 from the third batch of 3. I ordered a 2nd batch of 2 which were fine, and my one spare also works.

I also have a dead SAS cable... bay #3 is intermittently dead... though I had another bad HDD, nope, it's the cable or backplane. The cables are way too long, so I'm going there first.

I did get a GPU for it... the monster Zotac 970 from the original V5. I tried to SLI V6, which failed, but part of that was moving the card to here.

I did SLIC the bios (like the first one)... no brick. Whew.

I have pics but it's a mess and it's late. It's running, albeit with the RAID 10 in a degraded state. I'll get it figured out.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Another day, another setback. SAS cables came in yesterday, and I set it up tonight... and now I see no drives. The aren't even getting a spinup command...

I'm pretty sure I ordered the correct cables...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-5FT-SAS-t...72.m2749.l2649


Odd that both are dead... it's not the missing sidebands as the old cables didn't have them either and yet most of my drives showed up there.

Faulty batch of cables?

[Per Hansson]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

That eBay AD is ass-backwards.
In the connection example picture he shows a reverse SAS cable.
But in the text it's a forward SAS cable.
So if it's not working probably it's the wrong type of cable...

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/1106...rd-or-reverse/

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

That eBay AD is ass-backwards.
In the connection example picture he shows a reverse SAS cable.
But in the text it's a forward SAS cable.
So if it's not working probably it's the wrong type of cable...

https://forums.unraid.net/topic/1106...rd-or-reverse/

I was going to suggest that. Anytime you go from a miniSAS plug on a controller to SATA plugs either on cage or directly to HDD's, you want a 'forward' cable. If you go from a miniSAS plug on a cage/backplane to SATA connectors on a motherboard/controller, you want reverse.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

I was going to suggest that. Anytime you go from a miniSAS plug on a controller to SATA plugs either on cage or directly to HDD's, you want a 'forward' cable. If you go from a miniSAS plug on a cage/backplane to SATA connectors on a motherboard/controller, you want reverse.

It said forward... for connecting 4 drives to 1 controller. I guess "mislabeled" counts as faulty... Anyway.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Fresh cables came in... they look like the same thing. And also do not work.

Link:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Internal-Mi...72.m2749.l2649

I wonder if my backplane is FUBAR. I did find a jumper sitting in the bottom of the case... Ideas?

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Does it support SAS? There are some versions that don't.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Does it support SAS? There are some versions that don't.

The backplane? Yeah, I'm pretty sure... if not, the SAS cutout wouldn't be there, right? Oh wait... it did work with the first round of cables... so unless a jumper fell off, then I got bad cables twice. F*ck me...

Edit- as per one of my pics above, it's an SAS743TQ. So yes. Will see about getting a manual for it. Edit2- found and attached

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

No bueno. Seems I got shit cables twice in a row. Bullshit. Try try again... this time get cables with sidebands? Dunno if it's actually needed or not.

[Topcat]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

tried connecting them directly to the drive (will need adapters), bypassing the backplane? Two rounds of bad ones.....I don't think I've ever seen a bad SATA/SAS cable that wasn't physically damaged (cut, crimped, pinched).

[Per Hansson]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Well they don't need to be bad, it might just be the wrong type of cables?
They do after all look identical to the first cables you bought...

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Well they don't need to be bad, it might just be the wrong type of cables?
They do after all look identical to the first cables you bought...

Not as advertised... the second ad was clear as what they were supposed to be... But that's what I'm thinking. "Bad" as in "not as ordered".

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Ordered a third set of cables... and finally, she works!

Yup, 4 faulty cables. May be the wrong direction... but I literally have no way to test. Not that it matters.

I guess the cheap blue SAS cables on ebay are universally garbage

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

Umm ok, 10 would be better you know. I suppose you do have your other machines for backup.

I think the motherboard would reject that like a human rejects the heart of a baboon.

This was from the original V5 thread... sure diff meant RAID 10 (which I ultimatly did use several revisions later)... but regarding Topcat's comment then on Windows 10, we're about to find out!

My wife is just now getting to using it... and as preventative future proofing, I'm putting it on Windows 10 (since she is gaming with it).

Direct install didn't want to see my RAID array... I'm trying upgrading the windows 7 install now to see if that works around the array detection issue (I remember the windows 7 install being fluky as well, ****ing adaptec).

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

So far it's been a fail thanks to the RAID array not showing up. It seems to see the card (I was able to obtain drivers signed for 10) but not the array as a valid drive. Odd???

The upgrade crashed in a spectacular fashion... weird.

I'll try reinstalling 7 enough to try the upgrade again. I have the genuine ticket backed up so hopefully I can work through it. If not, SM made LSI based UIO cards but they're $100 a pop on ebay, no BBU.

[ratdude747]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

7 saw the array... must be a windows 10 issue.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

Re: Ratdude's Main Rig V5.6

what flavour of win10 is it? it must be win10 pro or some enterprise version or such to get win10 to work with raid arrays. the home versions of win7 and 10 dont have the feature to work with raid arrays or such.