New Build on a budget

Having been prompted to keep readers abreast of the new build device, it seemed appropriate to move away from the high temperature thread and start a new build here on hardware.
Not being computer savy the need for extensive investigation is paramount which also takes time and mistakes are inevitable, there is also the budget situation as why not just buy a box of tricks that would do the job without any concerns, but where is the challenge in that?
This board popped up on Ebay (UK) for £40


Looked to be the beast required for the job, having 32GB of ECC ram (had no idea what that was until @hoverdam suggested it, so had to discover ECC), then the chip that appeared to be the power house required, turned out to have no graphics capability @hoverdam suggests “a Xeon like E3-1285L v4” there is one available on Ebay (UK) £115 which puts the £40 m-board in a more expensive category.
@Rakista suggests “A Cheap-O NV 1030 4 GB would be enough for 1-2 4k streams without heating up your box” so the search for a video card is now on as the Supermicro board only has one PCIe 3 slot that has a 16 lane socket but only 8 lanes functioning [8(16)] creating a limited choice, along with a reputable 500W psu. Once again the need for deeper investigation required as some are cheaper than others, have smaller footprints and are quieter but not necessarily more durable, it’s a bit of a minefield to say the least.
An old Toshiba Satelite laptop, whilst running win7 operated well and ran my ProEngineer 2000i2 cad package, having become interested in Linux systems I installed Linux mint and the cad package ran under “wine” which enabled a start on the case design, however the application (annoyingly) no longer functions, Ventoy (multiple os installer) won’t function due to error not running in correct directory or something I don’t understand, so reloaded with Win7.
Found a Radion R7 450 4GB GDDR5 PVIe 3 X16 and a Corsair RM550 on Ebay at at reasonable prices (with some cables missing) and set up the mb with graphics card, psu, keyboard and monitor to discover a POST, unfortunately no fans spun up on any device, no beep and no BIOS screen.
Thinking I needed a replacement board, thus Intel® Server Board S1200V3RP - Xeon® Processor E3-1220 v3 - 16GB DDR3 ECC RAM became available for a ridiculously low price,

Purchased, delivered and set up with a successful POST, the 16 GB RAM swapped for the 32GB from the Supermicro and all is well except :

  1. The PSU fan didn’t spin up, is this normal untill a sufficient load from the system?
  2. The graphics card did not provide an output to the monitor but the fan did run, is this normal until drivers are loaded from an os?
    Apologies if this is a bit long winded, but ideas would be gratefully received.
    (Could have returned the Supermicro but the accessories it provided were potentially worth far more than the refund, less return postage)
    Now I have a set of hardware it’s back to the design and build of the case.

@Mike-B, that looks like a nice HW base.

Usually, the better PSU’s have the fan almost as “backup”. The good ones usually don’t get that hot enough for the fan to run, unless they run under really heavy load. I have a small (yet almost oversized) Corsair Gold PSU, and I don’t think I’ve ever noticed the fan come on (at least not when I was awake and in the room :slight_smile: ).
On graphics cards, I usually have seen the fans run as soon as they’re plugged in and under power and then the PWM signal will ramp the fans up to higher speeds when under load…

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FUN building stuff isn’t it? :sunglasses:

First thing I always do is boot up a system and update the BIOS. Different techniques for each. I’ve never had a board NOT boot to a basic BIOS screen that wasn’t faulty from the start.

Of course, jumpers in correct positions using a cheapo Nvidia GT610 card seems to always work with Linux stuff to start.

I have had problems with Linux booting AMD cards…

I also use Supermicro MBs ( X9 Series) with E3 CPU’s and ECC Mem with graphics built in because I use the X16 PCIE slot for something else.

Depending on the exact PSU, most modern ones won’t spin up the fan unless there is some kind of load on them to raise temps; My setups are all like that.

Good luck with your build!!

Send pics when done and don’t forget your Rockstor Case Badge!!!

:sunglasses:

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Thanks @Tex1954
Got the case badge safely stashed away for the final touch :flushed:

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Thanks @Hooverdan for the encouraging comment and intel.

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Thought i would add my question from a 7 year old thread as I’m uncertain it will be read by others that did not initially respond (7 yrs ago)

Cool Beans on badge!

:sunglasses:

If it is the same motherboard Part Number… should be no problem…

:sunglasses:

Hi Tex1954.
Unfortunately it is a totally different mb.
I am having a troublesome time with the change over as the board performs a POST showing it recognizes the hard drives, ram etc then moves to a selection screen


A set of scripts run through till this screen

After a period of time this next sequence starts and repeats.

Can provide a video via another coms system as I cannot seem to discover how to upload a video.
Thanks to all for their help.

@Mike-B Hello again.

OK so almost there then. This looks like there is a difference between the bios settings (boot mode) of the old and new system. Grub seems unable to find the boot disk: hence you being put into an emergency mode.

The key here is /dev/disk/by-uuid/BD81-CF06 does not exist message.

indicating that the bios is mapping (naming) part of the boot dive differently. This can happen when boot modes change. And that uuid is short, indicating a FAT partition what was not mapped/recognised.

Can you tell us something more about the system, i.e. are you booting from a USB device. Has the connection to the boot drive change interface type when you switched motherboards.

These types of failures are often sorted by alighning boot settings with what was used in the prior motherboard. If this is not possible then a re-install is often the easiest way. But be sure to have all data drives physically disconnected if you do go the reinstall route: to avoid the possibility of accidentally choosing a prior data drive as the new system drive. Then once the new install has completed and rebooted all OK, shutdown, reattach data drives, boot up and import the old pool. Need all setting up again then though; if no config save was taken:

https://rockstor.com/docs/interface/system/config_backup.html

So more info on the physical changes between the boot drive connections and the bios boot settings may help folks transition your system here. But keep in mind this all relates to the boot drive, your data drives should all be unaffected. Assuming you didn’t create any shares on your ‘ROOT’ pool for data.

Hope that helps

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