Help with motherboard choice?

Hi there,

Apologies for cross-posting...

I am building a 2U Rack server and was hoping to use a spare Asus PC-DL
Deluxe motherboard, a pair of 533MHz 3.06GHZ Xeons, 4GB RAM and XP Pro that
I just happen to have lying around here...;^)

That would have been too easy...the case I am using has 6 SATA II Hotswap
drive caddies and the Asus has no way of connecting to these having only 4
SATA slots. In addition most of the RAID cards that will support 6 drives
are either PCI-X or PCI-E cards and the Asus only has PCI slots...

The Asus motherboard is also getting a bit long in the tooth now and I would
also like onboard graphics.

The Asus fails on all counts so I am left looking for an alternative.

I have no wish nor desire to overclock preferring stability & reliability to
wringing its neck to squeeze the last ounce of speed from the thing...

The successful candidate must have the following;

1. Onboard Gigabit LAN
2. Onboard graphics - nothing special needed here.
3. Minimum of 6 SATA II slots preferred
4. If not then a PCI-X / PCI-E slot for RAID card
5. At least one PCI slot for CCTV capture card

I have taken a look at the websites of the manufacturers of the newsgroups I
have posted to but there are so many boards listed than the more I look the
more confused I get - it must be an age thing!

I was wondering if any of you kind, knowledgeable souls out there could
suggest a board (or boards) that might meet my requirements?

--
Thanks & regards,
-=pp=-

Pheasant Plucker® wrote:
Hi there,

Apologies for cross-posting...

I am building a 2U Rack server and was hoping to use a spare Asus PC-DL
Deluxe motherboard, a pair of 533MHz 3.06GHZ Xeons, 4GB RAM and XP Pro that
I just happen to have lying around here...;^)

That would have been too easy...the case I am using has 6 SATA II Hotswap
drive caddies and the Asus has no way of connecting to these having only 4
SATA slots. In addition most of the RAID cards that will support 6 drives
are either PCI-X or PCI-E cards and the Asus only has PCI slots...

The Asus motherboard is also getting a bit long in the tooth now and I would
also like onboard graphics.

The Asus fails on all counts so I am left looking for an alternative.

I have no wish nor desire to overclock preferring stability & reliability to
wringing its neck to squeeze the last ounce of speed from the thing...

The successful candidate must have the following;

1. Onboard Gigabit LAN
2. Onboard graphics - nothing special needed here.
3. Minimum of 6 SATA II slots preferred
4. If not then a PCI-X / PCI-E slot for RAID card
5. At least one PCI slot for CCTV capture card

I have taken a look at the websites of the manufacturers of the newsgroups I
have posted to but there are so many boards listed than the more I look the
more confused I get - it must be an age thing!

I was wondering if any of you kind, knowledgeable souls out there could
suggest a board (or boards) that might meet my requirements?


(Abit snipped, since Uabit isn't in the motherboard business anymore.)

If you were serious about building a server, you could easily confine your
search to the Tyan.com site. Perhaps you mean "home server" versus "corporate" ?
Corporate servers include features that make them easier to maintain,
like being able to reboot them remotely or the like.

"M3N WS"
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?mo...&l3 =708&l4=0

Now, why did I select that one, and that approach ?

I assumed first of all, you wanted ECC memory protection. AMD processors have
ECC or Chipkill support built-in. Which means I don't have to check chipset
specs to verify it is there. If you use unbuffered ECC modules, then if the
modules make errors, you have some detection capability. I might not use
Chipkill mode, since a UDIMM would use x8 chips, rather than the x4 chips
of an RDIMM. Chipkill works best if a x4 chip dies, as a pair of memory modules
has enough redundancy to work around the "missing" chip. If a x8 chip dies, the
server is (relatively) dead. So Chipkill mode is a big win, on designs with
registered RAM and x4 chips. On a desktop like the M3N WS, it might make less
sense. You can still use SECDED, for protection from "cosmic rays".

The WS means Workstation, and on Asus, that typically means a PCI-X bridge
chip and a single slot, might be available on the board. That allows the
usage of some older RAID cards you might have.

The board also has PCI Express. Since you're not using a video card,
another RAID could go there.

Built-in graphics (in the Northbridge), are Nvidia Geforce 8200. Good enough.
Included connectors are VGA (15 pin analog) and HDMI. Use an HDMI to DVI
passive adapter dongle, if using a DVI monitor.

Since the support of the PCI-X slot on some of these Asus boards isn't that
good, you may want to read vip.asus.com before you buy. In addition, low
volume boards (WS boards may sell fewer than overclocker enthusiast
boards), means fewer BIOS releases will be provided. Some customers
get quite upset about that.)

There are only 8 postings here since Oct.2008, so the board isn't that
popular.

http://vip.asus.com/forum/topic.aspx...Language=en-us

I wouldn't touch the onboard SATA ports for building a RAID, since
a real RAID card can have more features making it easier to maintain
an array.

On the Intel side, the problem with desktops, is the level of support
for ECC. X38 and X48 chipsets are possible candidates, but the
industry support for ECC on them is shabby, leaving the customer
guessing as to whether it is really there. With AMD, you get features
like "scrubbing", so you can scan and correct errors in the memory
in the background, better avoiding latent faults. With the X38 and X48,
it is unclear whether Intel is really serious about ECC.

See the Workstation section at the bottom of this page, for more WS boards.
http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=3&l2=-1

Anything with "server" in the name, will have paid more attention to
ECC or memory protection. And a site like the Tyan one would be
a good place to start looking in that case.

HTH,
Paul

I didn't see any AMD compatible boards - looks like Supermicro makes Intel
cpu only boards?

"DER" wrote in message
...
I've never built a 2U Chassis system, but I do have a home server running
Server 2003. I've used Supermicro boards for a number of years now, and
feel they are about the best on the market. Go to www.supermicro.com and
look around you could spend hours looking at just their server boards.
...but then any board "can" be used as a server platform. Supermicro has
a
lot of "lower end" boards many with built in graphics. For a server all
you
need is a 2D desktop for management. You can go to
http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/ to buy Supermicro products, or use
Newegg.com...they have a lot of SM stuff. It's just that Acmemicro has
EVERYTHING that SM makes. You can still get a few P4 server boards
there...I know, I have one.

try foxconn a79a-s w/790fx /750SB or the gx with onboard grafix AMD3800

http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?Pagecode=1|MBAM&Item_code=MBAM_ FXCO_A7_AS

or

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...d_no=1740#menu

or

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/produc...D=en-us0000401

MSI board has 8 SATA

POKEYMAN


"Zootal" wrote in message
...
I didn't see any AMD compatible boards - looks like Supermicro makes Intel
cpu only boards?

"DER" wrote in message
...
I've never built a 2U Chassis system, but I do have a home server
running
Server 2003. I've used Supermicro boards for a number of years now, and
feel they are about the best on the market. Go to www.supermicro.com
and
look around you could spend hours looking at just their server boards.
...but then any board "can" be used as a server platform. Supermicro
has
a
lot of "lower end" boards many with built in graphics. For a server all
you
need is a 2D desktop for management. You can go to
http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/ to buy Supermicro products, or use
Newegg.com...they have a lot of SM stuff. It's just that Acmemicro has
EVERYTHING that SM makes. You can still get a few P4 server boards
there...I know, I have one.

I'm actually running an A79A-S right now. When my last Asus board croaked
several months ago, I went out and bought the FoxConn board. I used to boast
that I've never lost an Asus board. My CUSL2 lasted for over ten years. Now,
every Asus board I've bought in the last year or two have all died, while my
PCChips and FoxConn boards are still running.

What burns me is that I spent about $250 each on my M3A32-MVPs, and they
have all gone bad. They come with a 3 year warranty and so I could probably
get it fixed/replaced by Asus, but honestly I don't trust the board.

Any Gigabyte board users out there? How are those boards holding up these
days?

"pokey man" wrote in message
...
try foxconn a79a-s w/790fx /750SB or the gx with onboard grafix AMD3800

http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?Pagecode=1|MBAM&Item_code=MBAM_ FXCO_A7_AS

or

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...d_no=1740#menu

or

http://www.foxconnchannel.com/produc...D=en-us0000401

MSI board has 8 SATA

POKEYMAN


"Zootal" wrote in message
...
I didn't see any AMD compatible boards - looks like Supermicro makes
Intel
cpu only boards?

"DER" wrote in message
...
I've never built a 2U Chassis system, but I do have a home server
running
Server 2003. I've used Supermicro boards for a number of years now,
and
feel they are about the best on the market. Go to www.supermicro.com
and
look around you could spend hours looking at just their server boards.
...but then any board "can" be used as a server platform. Supermicro
has
a
lot of "lower end" boards many with built in graphics. For a server
all
you
need is a 2D desktop for management. You can go to
http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/ to buy Supermicro products, or use
Newegg.com...they have a lot of SM stuff. It's just that Acmemicro has
EVERYTHING that SM makes. You can still get a few P4 server boards
there...I know, I have one.

wow i agree, i am now eyeing an MSI board with 8 sata (6 from SB750 and 2
from Jmicron chip) and 1 esata and the 2 rj45 jacks spdif etc... will be
looking at reviews soon will let ya know if i buy.

Pokeyman

"Zootal" wrote in message
...
I'm actually running an A79A-S right now. When my last Asus board croaked
several months ago, I went out and bought the FoxConn board. I used to
boast
that I've never lost an Asus board. My CUSL2 lasted for over ten years.
Now,
every Asus board I've bought in the last year or two have all died, while
my
PCChips and FoxConn boards are still running.

What burns me is that I spent about $250 each on my M3A32-MVPs, and they
have all gone bad. They come with a 3 year warranty and so I could
probably
get it fixed/replaced by Asus, but honestly I don't trust the board.

Any Gigabyte board users out there? How are those boards holding up these
days?

"pokey man" wrote in message
...
try foxconn a79a-s w/790fx /750SB or the gx with onboard grafix AMD3800


http://www.atacom.com/program/print_html_new.cgi?Pagecode=1|MBAM&Item_code=MBAM_ FXCO_A7_AS

or


http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...d_no=1740#menu

or


http://www.foxconnchannel.com/produc...D=en-us0000401

MSI board has 8 SATA

POKEYMAN


"Zootal" wrote in message
...
I didn't see any AMD compatible boards - looks like Supermicro makes
Intel
cpu only boards?

"DER" wrote in message
...
I've never built a 2U Chassis system, but I do have a home server
running
Server 2003. I've used Supermicro boards for a number of years now,
and
feel they are about the best on the market. Go to www.supermicro.com
and
look around you could spend hours looking at just their server
boards.
...but then any board "can" be used as a server platform. Supermicro
has
a
lot of "lower end" boards many with built in graphics. For a server
all
you
need is a 2D desktop for management. You can go to
http://www.acmemicro.com/estore/ to buy Supermicro products, or use
Newegg.com...they have a lot of SM stuff. It's just that Acmemicro
has
EVERYTHING that SM makes. You can still get a few P4 server boards
there...I know, I have one.