Question EPYCD8-2T questions

[Markfw]

Does the Mini-SAS HD Connector (SATA_0_3 ) port work with a regular SATA HD ? Physically they hook up.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Yes. On that board, the SATA Lanes are provisioned directly off the EPYC CPU. There is no SAS Signaling on those ports. SATA only.

 

[Markfw]

Yes. On that board, the SATA Lanes are provisioned directly off the EPYC CPU. There is no SAS Signaling on those ports. SATA only.

OK, for a layman... will a normal SATA 2 TB hard drive work ? Will it boot from it ? It sees it in the boot menu.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

OK, for a layman... will a normal SATA 2 TB hard drive work ? Will it boot from it ? It sees it in the boot menu.

Yep! EPYC's SATA Ports are the same underpinnings as Ryzen's SATA Ports. If your OS can boot on Ryzen, it should boot on EPYC. For Windows 10 and similar OS's (Server 2016 and higher), the built in Microsoft SATA Driver is the recommended and works out of the box. If you're using something older like Windows 7 or Server 2012, you may need the AMD chipset driver loaded before Windows will see the disk.

 

[Markfw]

Yep! EPYC's SATA Ports are the same underpinnings as Ryzen's SATA Ports. If your OS can boot on Ryzen, it should boot on EPYC. For Windows 10 and similar OS's (Server 2016 and higher), the built in Microsoft SATA Driver is the recommended and works out of the box. If you're using something older like Windows 7 or Server 2012, you may need the AMD chipset driver loaded before Windows will see the disk.

I am trying to install Linux mint 19.2, I have it one my dual 7601 system on a supermicro board. But this board, I have 7551 ES chips, and when I get started on the install it just reboots a little while later.. At one point it says "unknown chipset". Any ideas ?

Do I need an older bios ? So it this board, a 2080TI video card and a 500 gig maxtor regular SATA hard drive.

Well, and 128 gig ECC remix, the same memory as on my dual 7601's.

Like I said it will post, and boot, but somewhere running the OS to install, it reboots, windows 10 or linux.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

Well that doesn't sound great at all. The fact that it does this on Windows 10 or Linux definitely indicates some hardware instability, and using ES chips is always going to be suspect.

It would be a total pain in the arse, but you could validate this my removing one of your 7601's and putting it in your troubled board. If that installs successfully it pretty much solidifies that the ES chips are having issues in that board, whether by virtue of the board itself, or by the CPUs having errata show itself similarly.

 

[Markfw]

Here is the last screen before it reboots

 

[Markfw]

Well that doesn't sound great at all. The fact that it does this on Windows 10 or Linux definitely indicates some hardware instability, and using ES chips is always going to be suspect.

It would be a total pain in the arse, but you could validate this my removing one of your 7601's and putting it in your troubled board. If that installs successfully it pretty much solidifies that the ES chips are having issues in that board, whether by virtue of the board itself, or by the CPUs having errata show itself similarly.

The sellers of the ES chips have specifically said that the other supermicro board would NOT work, and have said that this one will. But they did not say what bios version for this board. The other one had to have the original bios, and maybe that my problem. See the above screenshot.

BTW, I had to email supermicro support to get that one working. I have to change bios defaults to some wierd settings. No idea on this, if you don't know then I have to email the chip seller and ASRock Rack.

 

[thecoolnessrune]

I'm afraid I don't have a clue I would also lean at this point that this may be some sort of BIOS interaction issue with your ES chips.

 

[Markfw]

I have now emailed asrock rack support and no reply yet. I tries using the NMVE so I could rule out the fact that I was using a sata drive on a sas data port, and tried win10 ( it booted a previous install for about 30 seconds, then rebooted), mint 19.2 (would not make it through the beginning of the load of the OS) and nothing has worked. I tried server 2012 and it would not even get into the install routine. That OS and this motherboard/chip are supposed to work.

 

[zir_blazer]

The fact that it gets to POST and attempt to boot is rather positive, at least it is not DOA.

For Engineering Samples chances are that you require old Firmware versions with old Microcode updates, since support for ES Processors usually gets removed from production Firmware versions. The problem is that at times it is hard to downgrade the Firmware.


Some Ports like the SAS one you have, and OCuLink, are merely a physical interface wtih a bunch of connectors and wires. The carrying signals can be easily repurposed. You will see that some SAS Ports and OCuLink supports 4 PCIe Lanes, 4x SATA Ports via a breakout cable, or both, because the Pins are internally muxed on the Controller (On EPYC you have it on the Processor) and can be repurposed for either mode (Similar to Flex IO in Intel Chipsets) without any other physical change on the Motherboard.

 

[Markfw]

The fact that it gets to POST and attempt to boot is rather positive, at least it is not DOA.

For Engineering Samples chances are that you require old Firmware versions with old Microcode updates, since support for ES Processors usually gets removed from production Firmware versions. The problem is that at times it is hard to downgrade the Firmware.


Some Ports like the SAS one you have, and OCuLink, are merely a physical interface wtih a bunch of connectors and wires. The carrying signals can be easily repurposed. You will see that some SAS Ports and OCuLink supports 4 PCIe Lanes, 4x SATA Ports via a breakout cable, or both, because the Pins are internally muxed on the Controller (On EPYC you have it on the Processor) and can be repurposed for either mode (Similar to Flex IO in Intel Chipsets) without any other physical change on the Motherboard.

I tried with an NVME drive, since I suspected problems not being regular SATA. Still reboots during the install phase.