SuperMicro X10SL7-F

[LoopyJuice]

Has anyone come up with a solution to the rediculous (seemingly) temperature that the SAS chip gets to on this board?
I've done my setup with 6 disks on the LSI SAS ports in IT mode over the weekend (and its not yet running inside a case as it's not arrived yet so i imagine that will help at least a little) but the SAS chip is too hot to touch, ive just put a low flow 40mm fan on top of it since and its been a perfectly acceptable temperature (probably less hot than the other low profile heatsink on whatever the other chip is on the board, easily keep you finger on the heatsink indefinitely).

I *guess* that it running that hot is within spec but I still dont REALLY want the controller for my array at fleshsearing temperatures once I have it inside the case and running day to day. Im toying with the idea of putting a large passive heatsink on or finding a way once its in the case to get airflow over it as the CPU heatsink doesn't blow air anywhere near.

 

[Sir.Robin]

I have not measured mine... although... great time for testing my new and unused IR thermometer!! :p

Will post the result...

That said... as long as it is within spec i don't see a problem. Intel/AMD CPU's also run quite hot... and still they don't break.

Edit:
So results...according to IPMI
CPU: 33C
PCH: 54C

With IR-Thermometer
Hottest drive is 38C. SAS controller is 73C.

So yeah, it's cinda hot... but so were my Adaptec 3805 controller. So...

 

[LoopyJuice]

Yeah if its well within spec im not bothered, but I don't actually know what temperature it is, the IPMI only reports PCH temp I think and the last time I had a heatsink too hot to touch it was the northbridge on a motherboard and it caused lots of crashing until it had a fan pointed at it so i'm weary.

 

[Sir.Robin]

I don't have a rack case with high power/RPM fans... but i have it well ventilated. 2x120mm in front. 2x 120mm in back/top.

If you should be worried about the SAS chip, they should have put a larger heatsink on it or even active cooling.

Been running this setup for almost a year now... no stability issues whatsoever.

 

[LoopyJuice]

Thanks for the temperature info, I think once its in the case it'l be a lot chillier but atm when its just setup on the desk its got no flow whatsoever and its worst possible case. I'll stop worrying when the case arrives and just run it passive.

 

[cyberjock]

Some motherboards have warnings in the documentation that they should only be installed in chassis with certain CFM of air through the chassis to allow for proper cooling. Every adaptec controller I have owned came with a warning that you should install it in a chassis with 80 CFM of airflow or more. Unfortunately, this pretty much meant that you should only be using it in server chassis where the pushed airflow is exceptionally high. Those casefans you buy that claim 50+CFM per fan don't really get the rated flow when installed due to back-pressure, obstruction in airflow, etc. Of course, most people then get upset because they don't want the super loud (and expensive) Supermicro chassis in their living room but they want that hardware that requires high airflows. Sorry but you can have your cake and eat it too. ;)

 

[LoopyJuice]

Yeah i'm fine with the fact that its designed around a certain CFM and a server chassis, just wasnt sure whether it was necessary for me to put any extra measures in place or whether anyone else had, the case i've gone for looks like it should be pushing a fair amount of air over that area with 4x 120mm fans going so i'm not worried now.

 

[cyberjock]

For my Adaptec controller it got incredibly hot. In my opinion it was dangerously hot, so I bought one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835888112

 

[TXAG26]

The LSI SAS chip gets too hot for my comfort as well in my case (too hot to touch is too hot IMHO). Luckily, since the chip is near the edge of the motherboard, I drilled 4 holes through the mother tray in my case and zip-tied a 60mm Noctua fan to the motherboard tray (fan standing up on its end). The fan is angled and about 2 inches from the LSI SAS chip and moves enough air across the chip to make it only slightly warm to the touch. I think a little air also gets over to the PCH chip too. Occasionally, I'll have my case open with the system still on, so its nice having this extra cooling.

 

[Z300M]

The LSI SAS chip gets too hot for my comfort as well in my case (too hot to touch is too hot IMHO). Luckily, since the chip is near the edge of the motherboard, I drilled 4 holes through the mother tray in my case and zip-tied a 60mm Noctua fan to the motherboard tray (fan standing up on its end). The fan is angled and about 2 inches from the LSI SAS chip and moves enough air across the chip to make it only slightly warm to the touch. I think a little air also gets over to the PCH chip too. Occasionally, I'll have my case open with the system still on, so its nice having this extra cooling.

My SAS chip is by no means hot to the touch, and a non-contact IR thermometer shows both the SAS chip and the PCH chip at about 30C with the system idling. I have everything mounted in a large "gaming" case with fans "everywhere," including in the side, but nothing blowing directly on the SAS chip. I measured the temperature with the side of the case open and therefore with the fan in the side not having much effect either.

 

[andromeda]

Hi,

next week I receives my card X10SL7-F, E3-1230 v3 and 16gb of ram samsung. I want to install ESXi 5.5. is what I should put in t LSI IT firmware or put it to IR?
if I decide to put it in It and I install freenas is what the fashion it will work for storage for ESXi?
or is what I need another raid controller? lsi2308 for ESXi and other controller raid for freenas ?

sorry for my english.

Thanks for your help.

 

[TXAG26]

Hi,

next week I receives my card X10SL7-F, E3-1230 v3 and 16gb of ram samsung. I want to install ESXi 5.5. is what I should put in t LSI IT firmware or put it to IR?
if I decide to put it in It and I install freenas is what the fashion it will work for storage for ESXi?
or is what I need another raid controller? lsi2308 for ESXi and other controller raid for freenas ?

sorry for my english.

Thanks for your help.

You'll want to reflash the LSI SAS2308 to "IT" mode using FW version 16. Mine came with IR which isn't good for FreeNAS, so I had to reflash it. Do not use any firmware newer than FW16 as it is beyond the driver included in FreeNAS.

No, do NOT install ESXI on the 2308 controller. Make sure your ESXI boot & install drive is on the white SATA on-board connector (these are part of the Intel chipset controller and are SATA3 6GB/s).

You'll want the 8 blue SATA, which are the LSI 2308, dedicated to FreeNAS since you'll need to do PCI pass-through on the LSI controller into your FreeNAS VM. When you pass-through the 2308, it will ONLY be visible to FreeNAS. You can use the remaining White SATA and 4 Black SATA connectors for ESXi Datastores for your other VM's.

There is a very specific way all of this has to be configured and if you've never used ESXi or FreeNAS before, there is a VERY STEEP learning curve. The questions you're asking seem like you need to look into configuring ESXi and FreeNAS in more detail. You absolutely have to know what you're doing for the initial configuration or everything will be really screwed up from the start. Just my $0.02 though.

 

[TXAG26]

My SAS chip is by no means hot to the touch, and a non-contact IR thermometer shows both the SAS chip and the PCH chip at about 30C with the system idling. I have everything mounted in a large "gaming" case with fans "everywhere," including in the side, but nothing blowing directly on the SAS chip. I measured the temperature with the side of the case open and therefore with the fan in the side not having much effect either.

I recently picked up a FLIR-One thermal imager for the iPhone. Next time I'm in that box I'll take some pictures with the fan turned on & off to see what ranges my board is experiencing.

 

[andromeda]

Thanks very much for your information, i have already installed and configuring ESXi on other board (Z87-V-Pro 32go, i7 2600k) it work well
but i prefer the board X10sl7-f and xeon V3-1230 v3 for vt-d, vt-x, impi etc ... its very good.

How do i do for put memory 2x16go on board X10SL7-F ?

one memory on channel A slot1 and other on channelA slot2 or one memory channel A slot1 and other memory on channel B slot1 ?

Thanks.

 

[TXAG26]

That sounds good. Populate the same color slots. I don't recall which color slot is Ch. A or Ch. B. as I maxed out the board and populated all slots when I first built mine.

 

[andromeda]

thanks. i have another question with no rapport with freenas.
if i create VM win7 x64 ultimate using on board lsi2308, can i create another VM win7 x64 ultimate using same board lsi23008 or
do i need another raid controller put it in pci-e 8x for seconde VM ?

for example one VM for HTTP server with raid for security and other VM for FTP raid security .

Thanks for your help.

 

[TXAG26]

No, once you pass-through the 2308 to the FreeNAS VM, it can only be used by FreeNAS. All 8 SATA 2308 ports will be passed through and dedicated to FreeNAS, nothing else. Any other VM's you install (e.g. Windows 7, web server, ftp server, etc.) will need to run off of ESXI datastores contained on hard drives connected to the 2 white SATA or 4 black SATA connectors on the motherboard.

HOWEVER, if you put all of your storage in FreeNAS, you can use NFS/CIFS shares to present those Raidz drives (shared pools) to other VM's.

Here's my initial setup when I first installed FreeNAS on ESXI:
- ESXI is installed and boots from a 32GB HP USB 3.0 thumb drive.
- 1x SSD connected to the first white SATA connector on motherboard. All of my ESXI VM's live on this SSD, including the 9GB virtual drive that I boot FreeNAS from.
- 1x HDD connected to the second white SATA connector on motherboard. This is a general ESXI datastore that my other VM's use for various storage.
- 6x HDD's connected to the blue 2308 SATA connectors on motherboard. The 2308 IT is passed through to FreeNAS in ESXI. This is my Raidz2 array and it was setup inside of FreeNAS.

As has been previously stated and what you're not clear on, once you pass through the 2308 to FreeNAS, nothing else on your ESXI machine will be able to access the 2308. Nothing else will even see or recognize the 2308.

Also, if you're using ESXi 5.5, you'll need to make sure all of your VM's that you create are in VM7 format. If you create them as VM8 or VM10, you will NOT be able to manage them through the ESXI vSphere Client application.

Good Luck!

 

[andromeda]

thank you for explanation.

 

[andromeda]

its possible to mixing disk sata-3 on sas2 in the lsi2308 on board ?
for example 3x sas2 hdd and 4 x sata-3 hdd ?

Edit: i have see in one post in this forum, is bad idea mixing sas and sata-3.

 

[Z300M]

Thanks very much for your information, i have already installed and configuring ESXi on other board (Z87-V-Pro 32go, i7 2600k) it work well
but i prefer the board X10sl7-f and xeon V3-1230 v3 for vt-d, vt-x, impi etc ... its very good.

How do i do for put memory 2x16go on board X10SL7-F ?

one memory on channel A slot1 and other on channelA slot2 or one memory channel A slot1 and other memory on channel B slot1 ?

Thanks.

I hope you don't really mean "2x16go": that motherboard will take memory modules only up to 8GB. Put two 8GB modules in slots of the same color,