Settings for a Supermicro A2SDi-8C-HLN4F Motherboard

[jordanthompson]

Hi all, I have an upgraded installation on a Supermicro ASSDi-8C-HLN4F Motherboard (from an Asus ATX that was over 10 years old.) It is installed and working fine but I see there are a ton of settings and jumper connections. Does anyone have any suggestions setting this boardup for TrueNAS? I have ECC RAM, but have not figured out how to tell the motherboard it is installed.

 

[thomas-hn]

Hi,

I assume you mean the A2SDi-8C-HLN4F which simply will take your RAM as ECC without any additional configuration. The only point which could be required is setting the "Command Mode" for the RAM access to "2N" in case your system freezes sometimes (see my post Memtest86 too slow in A2SDi-8C-HLN4F ?). For all the jumper settings, connectors, etc. see the manual available at https://www.supermicro.com/de/products/motherboard/a2sdi-8c-hln4f.

 

[chuck32]

For all the jumper settings, connectors, etc. see the manual available at https://www.supermicro.com/de/products/motherboard/a2sdi-8c-hln4f.

Basically if you don't think to your self "Oh this setting doesn't seem right for me" check that all jumpers are set to their default positions.

I can't speak for the specific model, don't be thrown off, sometimes there are jumper position described which may not be present with your specific model.

Regarding ECC @thomas-hn already answered that, but you will see in the truenas dashboard, that it registered as ECC.

Even new components may be DOA, have a look at this guide. At least let memtest run and check if any errors have been corrected in your ipmi screen. That's my understanding, that memtest may pass but you will see in your server health logs, that there have been error correcting events.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

I never had to change any jumpers from the factory default and in the BIOS setup I usually hit F3 for "optimised defaults" once and then after every BIOS update, then check if the SATA controller brings RAID and make sure it's set to AHCI (your mainboard doesn't have RAID, so no issue here) and finally set the boot method to UEFI only.

For your particular board Supermicro issued a security advisory just recently:

PixieFAIL Vulnerability, January 2024 | Supermicro

www.supermicro.com

So you might consider updating your BIOS (and the BMC firmware while you are at it). Then again maybe not - there's always a small chance you will brick your system. You need to assess the risk yourself, the linked advisory contains all relevant information. An isolated system without publicly reachable services is probably not affected (much) by BIOS vulnerabilities.

 

[Ericloewe]

For your particular board Supermicro issued a security advisory just recently:

I missed that one, though it's nice that they actually issued patched firmware. That's one area where Supermicro falls behind Dell: long-term firmware support.

Does anyone have any suggestions setting this boardup for TrueNAS?

Only the usual, which apply to 99% of servers bought in the last decade+:

• Turn off all CSM/BIOS compatibility crap
• Disable any OpROMs you don't need - particularly NICs
• Turn on VT-d
• Turn on SR-IOV
• Turn on all modern features that are disabled by default to allow the system to boot ancient OSes like Windows XP or 7, or Linux 2.x.
  • This includes disabling legacy USB support and similar options
• Disable all boot options you won't be using

 

[thomas-hn]

For your particular board Supermicro issued a security advisory just recently

Is there a specific newsletter announcing such security updates?

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

You can create an account on the Supermicro website and subscribe to various newsletters: