Hardware upgrade

[Prelude07]

Thinking about upgrading my hardware, the main reason is i'm getting some stuttering during plex play back. See sig for rig details. I just basically used an old gaming rig and tossed in some WD reds and called it a day. Im sure my CPU is not the problem from looking at the reports tab, cpu% never goes above 10% when streaming media. Im sure the network is not the problem. I have gigabit set up around the house, and never uses more then about 8 - 10 M while streaming. The only thing I can think of is my ram. Its about 100% usage all the time. Now my current motherboard only supports 8GB of ram, SO my question is this... Would my current cpu work with this motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131942 and this ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148770
From my understanding the motherboard and cpu support ecc memory but this ram is not on asus QVL.

 

[anodos]

Thinking about upgrading my hardware, the main reason is i'm getting some stuttering during plex play back. See sig for rig details. I just basically used an old gaming rig and tossed in some WD reds and called it a day. Im sure my CPU is not the problem from looking at the reports tab, cpu% never goes above 10% when streaming media. Im sure the network is not the problem. I have gigabit set up around the house, and never uses more then about 8 - 10 M while streaming. The only thing I can think of is my ram. Its about 100% usage all the time. Now my current motherboard only supports 8GB of ram, SO my question is this... Would my current cpu work with this motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131942 and this ram http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148770
From my understanding the motherboard and cpu support ecc memory but this ram is not on asus QVL.

Do you ever see speeds above 11-12 mbytes/sec? It might be that you have some bad cabling or some other network problem. You're already spending $160 on hardware. If it were me I'd spend a bit more and get a well-supported motherboard / CPU combination. For example, right now you can get an i3-equipped TS140 from amazon for $250.

 

[Prelude07]

yes, when moving large files i get read and writes above 100M.

 

[Sakuru]

I see that motherboard has a Realtek NIC. Try a PCIe Intel NIC. You can usually get them for around $20-30.

 

[anodos]

FYI, in FreeNAS your RAM usage will almost always be around 100% because ZFS uses RAM for ARC.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

Go with an Intel Pentium, i3 or Xeon E3 on a Supermicro board if you want a good FreeNAS system. Though if you want to use AMD then use an Intel Ethernet card as those work best with FreeNAS.

 

[religiouslyconfused]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...06178&cm_re=intel_i210-_-33-106-178-_-Product

Here is an inexpensive Intel network card if you want to continue your AMD setup. You can get one for even less, but this one is made by Intel and uses a compatible chipset.

 

[Prelude07]

Thanks for the input guys, but there is nothing wrong with the network, or my nic. I get get over 100Mb/s when moving large files to/from the server. So I'm saturating the link. The question is weather the above cpu/mobo/ram combo would be compatible.

 

[anodos]

Thanks for the input guys, but there is nothing wrong with the network, or my nic. I get get over 100Mb/s when moving large files to/from the server. So I'm saturating the link. The question is weather the above cpu/mobo/ram combo would be compatible.

If you feel comfortable with it, post a debug file 'system' -> 'advanced' -> 'save debug'. I'm not really convinced your problem is related to insufficient RAM, and wouldn't want you to buy hardware you don't need.

 

[Mirfster]

This looks to be ASUS' QVL: http://support.asus.com.cn/QVL.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=M5A78L-M LE&os=

CPU Support: http://support.asus.com.cn/cpusuppo...4&m=M5A78L-M LE&os=&hashedid=KmrmDNxbGfeZaqqs

*** Note: My search ended up with "M5A78L-M LE", yours may differ so take that into consideration

Per the Specs, this MB has a "Realtek®, 1 x Gigabit LAN Controller(s)". Not really recommended, but if you are happy with it...

 

[gpsguy]

The Asus xxx USByy mobo is what joeschmuck is using for his FreeNAS server. IIRC earlier versions of FreeNAS worked okay with the onboard Realtek NIC, but he had to upgrade to an Intel for FN 9.3.

For others on the thread, please don't attack me with the AMD vs Intel, desktop vs server, prove that ECC is really working on the AMD, or that FreeNAS xx won't run on AMD CPU.

I just wanted to provide another data point.


Sent from my phone

 

[icsy7867]

I know this is a couple weeks old, but I thought I would throw some suggestions out there...

Since you are getting 100MB/s I would not assume that its your setup. Plex actually buffers the video, so as long as the buffer is full you should not be having any problems.

Is the video choppy, does it skip frames or does it completely stop and give you the loading wheel?

• Are you accessing plex internally or externally?
• What sort of device(s) are you accessing plex on? Does the issue happen on all of them?
• Does it happen if you access PLEX via web browser? http://plexipaddress:32400/web/index.html
• If you go into your server settings while in a web browser, make sure to hit "Show Advanced" you can also place with the values here a little (Although the defaults always work great for me!). I would recommend looking at the "Transcoder" section and increasing the throttle buffer, and possibly changing the background transcoding x264 preset.
• If you manually lowers the resolution do you still have the same problem?
• Can you ping your plex server/Jail? On windows I would use:
  ping plexipaddress -n 40
  This should send 40 ICMP packets to the plex server. Do they all get replies? Or is there packet loss?

I am currently running an:
Asus M5A78L-M Mobo
AMD FX 8120

These were some older hardware I had in a gaming rig. Although in the future I will definitely be going dual/quad core intel with server grade components. Probably a supermicro. But overall I have been quite happy with this build. I have actually underclocked the CPU a little, and disabled a couple of the cores since I did not seem to ever need them.