Supermicro H8QGi/6 and H8QGL Next Generation OC BIOS

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If you don't care about extra PCI-E slots or SAS, get the cheapest one
from the series: H8QGi+-F (<$660: Provantage, Wiredzone).
 
*exhales deeply*

1. You don't need to return to stock ROM, just set the refclock to 200.
2. What is your cooling?
3. What OC did you run with?
4. What were the temps?
5. What were the symptoms of crashes?
6. What memory are you running (make and _full_ model)?

I wish you reported your issues earlier too; if a machine crashes once
in a given setup, letting it go is the worst possible idea -- another
crash is only a matter of time.

Hop on IRC in the evening if you're interested, we can try to diagnose
your rig.

P.S.
THIS WEEK ONLY! NW metro house calls at discounted rate!
 
tear, I know this has probably been answered before, but what RAM do you recommend for these boards?
 
tear said:
*exhales deeply*

1. You don't need to return to stock ROM, just set the refclock to 200.
2. What is your cooling?
3. What OC did you run with?
4. What were the temps?
5. What were the symptoms of crashes?
6. What memory are you running (make and _full_ model)?

I wish you reported your issues earlier too; if a machine crashes once
in a given setup, letting it go is the worst possible idea -- another
crash is only a matter of time.

Hop on IRC in the evening if you're interested, we can try to diagnose
your rig.

P.S.
THIS WEEK ONLY! NW metro house calls at discounted rate!
Click to expand...

2) Dynatron A6 Heatsinks set in Server Mode for fan speed.
3) Used a 220 value for a 10% OC.
4) lm_sensors was reporting temps in the mid to high 40s
5) System completely lock with the keyboard LEDs blinking.
6) The G.SKILL DDR3-1333 CL7-21 recommended in the build tread.

I will not be able to hop the IRC channel until 9:00pm MST. I do not know if that is too late.
 
9p MDT (or later) works :)
Query me if I don't respond in the main channel.
 
DooKey said:
tear, I know this has probably been answered before, but what RAM do you recommend for these boards?
Click to expand...
General recommendation is any RAM with XMP profile that's rated at 1.5V (or less).
Non-XMP Vdd=1.5V-or-less RAM will work too but will be tad slower.

G.Skill F3-10666CL7D-4GBXH (2x2GB) and F3-10666CL7Q-8GBXH (4x2GB)
have been folks' DIMMs of choice due to very good price/performance ratio.

Naturally, faster is better. For refclocks above 225 getting 1600/CL7 memory
will allow even tighter timings (all tuned automatically by the BIOS ==
no SPD flashing involved).
 
Is there any provision in the BIOS to allow or prevent mixed CPUs in a system?
Or is that adding too much complexity?
The new 4p will start out with 2 x 6166HEs and possibly 2 x 6128s until I can buy 2 more 6166HEs.
 
Core32 said:
Is there any provision in the BIOS to allow or prevent mixed CPUs in a system?
Or is that adding too much complexity?
The new 4p will start out with 2 x 6166HEs and possibly 2 x 6128s until I can buy 2 more 6166HEs.
Click to expand...

AFAIK, 6128's would be downclocked to 1.8GHz, and from what I understand about tear's OC'ing method, it'd be as if you're overclocking 40 cores from 1.8GHz to whatever GHz the refclock you entered corresponds to.
 
Core32 said:
Is there any provision in the BIOS to allow or prevent mixed CPUs in a system?
Or is that adding too much complexity?
The new 4p will start out with 2 x 6166HEs and possibly 2 x 6128s until I can buy 2 more 6166HEs.
Click to expand...

-smp 40 doesn't work with folding. You've got to do 32 or 48, so you'd have to do some ninja work to get the modified kraken working and run two instances, a -32 and a -8. As usual, the IRC crew can assist in setting up if you go that way.
 
Schro said:
-smp 40 doesn't work with folding. You've got to do 32 or 48, so you'd have to do some ninja work to get the modified kraken working and run two instances, a -32 and a -8. As usual, the IRC crew can assist in setting up if you go that way.
Click to expand...

Are you sure about -smp 40? I thought it was increments of 8 - i.e. smp 24, smp 32, smp 40, smp 48 were all good. I can confirm smp 36 doesn't work, but I never tried smp 40.
 
musky said:
Are you sure about -smp 40? I thought it was increments of 8 - i.e. smp 24, smp 32, smp 40, smp 48 were all good. I can confirm smp 36 doesn't work, but I never tried smp 40.
Click to expand...

No, I'm not entirely certain.

I just did a quick google and it appears -40 will work.
 
Schro said:
No, I'm not entirely certain.

I just did a quick google and it appears -40 will work.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the answers and help.
This would probably only apply for about a month. Long enough for the bank to recover and sell two 6128s. ;)
 
Where do I get the flash utility to do this? The disk that came with my motherboard only had a txt file that said to go to the website... And I can't find anything on the website. Little help?
 
Umm I think Posidon42 was talking about a tool to flash tears bios to the board ChelseaOilman. If you were Posidon42 you just need to make a bootable usb stick and use it to flash the bios.
 
And flash utility is in original BIOS' package... :)
 
The zip file that ChelseaOilman linked to contains a BIOS ROM, the Flash utility, AFUDOS.SMC and Readme instructions. The files you need from this download are the flash utility batch file and the AFUDOS.SMC file.

So:
Create a bootable USB stick
Copy the flash utility batch file, AFUDOS.SMC and the G60NG2.A11 BIOS ROM file to the flash drive.
Boot the computer from the USB drive. You might need to change the boot device priority.
At the command prompt type
Code: 
FLASH G60NG2.A11
to start flashing the new ROM.
 
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Hi Tear,

I'm looking at building a 4P rig for some folding, but mainly for 3D rendering...unfortunately all of my software licenses and the rest of my render nodes run on Windows.

Is it possible to apply the BIOS tweaks through a Linux VM inside Windows, or does it require a full Linux environment? Is Windows support for the BIOS tweak anything you've considered? I know it's not really a worthwhile venture for so many reasons...mainly that folding is better in Linux and that you need Window's Server Enterprise OS to properly use a 4P.
 
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With a 15% OC applied to 6174s, I'm getting an improvement of over 100K ppd (6903) for an additional 60w. Non too shabby.

My sincere thanks to all involved in creating the BIOS and the associated guides.
 
Hai kweechy,

kweechy said:
Is it possible to apply the BIOS tweaks through a Linux VM inside Windows
Click to expand...
Nope.

kweechy said:
or does it require a full Linux environment?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't say full Linux environment. Any bootable Linux should do, even Ubuntu
Desktop installer.

smocng.sh is merely a configuration utility and configuration persists across reboots;
once system is configured and tested I don't expect the need to run the script...

kweechy said:
Is Windows support for the BIOS tweak anything you've considered?
Click to expand...
I gave it some thoughts. Windows version could be written with use of WinRing0
or Windows NVRAM API (I know it must exist but was unable to find it).

kweechy said:
I know it's not really a worthwhile venture for so many reasons...mainly that folding is better in Linux and that you need Window's Server Enterprise OS to properly use a 4P.
Click to expand...
It's not _that_ bad. Feature is on the list but carries pretty low priority at this time.

Hope this helps :)
 
402blownstroker said:
I am moving back to stock BIOS. 4 crashes in 4 days with 4 lost WU.
Click to expand...

Update. Flashed the [H] BIOS again and got things things working with the help of the IRC channel. Turns out I has having memory issues.

With the 220 value used, it was producing memory timings of 6-6-6-17 which was too much for the G.Skills. Running memtest( got spoiled and have not run it much from using ECC memory the last 8 years ) about 60 errors where generated in about 60 minutes. The errors would coming in goups over the entire 32GB range.

I next used a value 210 and that produced timings of 6-6-6-18 which memtest ran errors free for over 2 hours. tear and the other guys on the IRC gave me some other options to run a value 220 and produced timings of 8-8-8-24. This was also another stable variant.

On 6901 WUs the 210 and 6-6-6-18 ran about 30s TPF faster than the 220 8-8-8-24 vesion. Also temps where about 3C cooler on with the 210 version. The 210 version with a 6903 WU is getting about 17m10s TPF.

Overall I am happy with things.
 
402, I'm happy everything is working out for you now! :)
I hope my Crucial's will give me an easier time...
 
theGryphon said:
402, I'm happy everything is working out for you now! :)
I hope my Crucial's will give me an easier time...
Click to expand...

Definitely now. Next free time I want to hop back IRC and do some more tweaks.... and if needed a couple extra investment units, to get it to the next level.

There are a couple of people on the IRC channel will be get six pack or the equivalent version ;)
 
Good to hear that non-XMP (JEDEC) timings are working for you, 402 c.i.

Just so you know, there are reasons for concern -- suspicion is that memory
is not holding advertised specs (hence suggestion of testing XMP timings
in an enthusiast board, such as SR-2).

If it turns out that few of your DIMMs are bad perhaps RMA wouldn't
be a bad idea? Not sure if you're interested in pursuing that.

Alternatively, I could pay you a visit and bring few DIMMs (same model)
along with me (for a quick test).

In any way, disabling use of XMP timings is realized by adding second
parameter (with the value of 8) to smocng's command line, e.g.
Code: 
sudo ./smocng.sh 220 8


Re performance variations, musky's FAQ entry describes that best:
musky said:
Q: Why am I not getting as much of a performance boost as I expected?
A: Several things can be in play here:
1. Are you comparing apples to apples, meaning are you running the same frames of the same unit for your before and after numbers you are comparing? Different units in the same project and even different frames in the same unit can have pretty large variations. If you aren't comparing the same frames in the same unit, you are guessing at performance gains. Dynamic Load Balancing makes a big difference as well - one test running with DLB and one without it is not a good comparison.
Click to expand...

In other words, be cautious when drawing conclusions...
 
Success! Thanks guys, my 2.0ghz 6128's are now running at 2.2ghz. Will probably increase slowly from here, but I wanted to start at 10% and see how it goes. Thanks all!
 
Well Tear if you ever do end up deciding to port it over to Windows, I would be eager to donate to the cause with either cash, folding for [H] or both!

It's unfortunate that Windows decided to limit their OS to dual CPU machines as their maximum. With a 5 machine limit on outside connections to your drives, it's not like you can use a 4P as a server anyway without server software.

Anyway cheers man and thanks for all your hard work with the BIOS hacks. I'll hopefully have my 4P up and running soon, I just won't be able to OC it for the bulk of my work while in Windows unfortunately.
 
As I understand the mod, couldn't you apply the tweak and perform stability testing in Linux and then switch over to a Windows install to do your other work since the blk configuration persists across boots? Am I missing something elementary here?
 
You're not missing anything, R-Type. Was I ambiguous up there?

One wouldn't even need to test stability under Linux.
Boot Linux, set OC, power-off, boot-to-Windows, run your target app, IBT et al.
 
I thought it was clear that only thing about Linux in this is the config script (smocng.sh), which communicates with the BIOS. Other than that, this BIOS is just like any other BIOS; it has nothing to do with the OS.
 
Is it partial to a certain linux build? Or can any linux build run it... Maybe I missed this but I think this was mentioned, just make a live CD boot image with it already on there, boot linux from that image, run it and bam, youre done

thats pretty much what I got from tear. Am I right? Sorry, its late and im wicked tired lol
 
Vaulter98c said:
Is it partial to a certain linux build? Or can any linux build run it... Maybe I missed this but I think this was mentioned, just make a live CD boot image with it already on there
Click to expand...
Simpler:
1. Boot Ubuntu installer CD
2. Pick 'Try Ubuntu'
3. Open terminal
4. wget the script
5. chmod +x ./smocng.sh
6. sudo ./smocng.sh ...
7. Power-off
 
That's great news then!

I'll hop on IRC once I've got the machine set up in case I need any help so I can join in and fold with [H] to support all the awesome work you guys do for the community.

I've got a small film vfx shop that I run from home with a little farm, so I can add in a few OC'd 3930K boxes, a couple 2600K and soon my new Opty. It would be pretty hilarious to get the farm over at the office up and running on F@H though, they've got some odd 600+ i7 2700K nodes there. If you figure roughly 31K PPD from those chips, they could fold close to 20,000,000 PPD if they felt like it.
 
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kweechy said:
That's great news then!

I'll hop on IRC once I've got the machine set up in case I need any help so I can join in and fold with [H] to support all the awesome work you guys do for the community.

I've got a small film vfx shop that I run from home with a little farm, so I can add in a few OC'd 3930K boxes, a couple 2600K and soon my new Opty. It would be pretty hilarious to get the farm over at the office up and running on F@H though, they've got some odd 600+ i7 2700K nodes there. If you figure roughly 31K PPD from those chips, they could fold close to 20,000,000 PPD if they felt like it.
Click to expand...
Kweechy, ladies and gentlemen, does not fuck around!

Welcome aboard :)
 
kweechy said:
It's unfortunate that Windows decided to limit their OS to dual CPU machines as their maximum.
Click to expand...

Server 2008 R2 Web Edition allows 4 sockets and up to 32GB of memory. You can pick up a copy off of crapBay for about $350.
 
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