X8DAi power leads

rtangwai

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jul 26, 2007
Messages
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A frenemy of mine has offered me a X8DAi motherboard w/dual Xeon X5650 CPUs and a 650W PSU, to replace my FX-8350 ESXi 6.5 hypervisor as I'm running a FreeNAS VM and I need both more RAM and ECC.

Something I noticed about the rig, the motherboard has 2x 8pin sockets for power but only 1 is plugged in (limitation of the PSU).

If I take his offer do I need to upgrade the PSU to something with 2x 8pins?
 
The manual says you should but if the machine is running then you should be OK.

I would recommend either a PSU upgrade though or a PCIe-EPS adapter to give the motherboard the power it needs, you could cause damage if the sockets that are plugged in draw too much power
 
I checked the PSU it came with, it is the original one for the box so it is the same age as the motherboard. it's old enough to want me to be careful anyway.

Not sure this darn thing is worth putting the parts into - I'll be $140 CDN into a PSU (looking at EVGA 750W), $360 for 96GB DDR3 ECC registered RAM, total of $500.

Worse I would have to pay for the board/CPUs, not sure I'm willing to degrade myself that far.

That Ryzen 1700 is starting to look really good, wonder if my dignity is worth $1500.
 
I'd be really careful when trying to only run 1 connector and would advise to pickup an upgrade PSU that will work properly with the motherboard. The additional power requirements are a must if you value stability. A friend of mine was trying to run 1 connector, when the mb called for two, on his X8DTN+ and odd lockups would happen out of nowhere until he replaced it and they went away. I'm not saying it'll happen to you but there's a reason they require two =)
 
I checked the PSU it came with, it is the original one for the box so it is the same age as the motherboard. it's old enough to want me to be careful anyway.

Not sure this darn thing is worth putting the parts into - I'll be $140 CDN into a PSU (looking at EVGA 750W), $360 for 96GB DDR3 ECC registered RAM, total of $500.

Worse I would have to pay for the board/CPUs, not sure I'm willing to degrade myself that far.

That Ryzen 1700 is starting to look really good, wonder if my dignity is worth $1500.

I was half way through typing a response that 96GB is $240 at most on any given day if you look for deals, but then I saw that you're in Canada.
EPS Splitter, though: https://www.amazon.ca/8-Pin-EPS-12V-Female-Splitter-Cable/dp/B01JC4D3NU
650 Watt supply is more than enough for that board.
 
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I know i am week or two late on this response. I own several super micro boards with this configuration. I have used adapters in all of them to power the second cpu 8 pin port with no issue. Just get a pcie to 8 pin adapter and you are fine. I will take some photos of one of my servers Wednesday if that would help any??

You do need both to be powered to get the system fully stable. I had x5660s before but have switches to the L versions last year. Still a good idea to power them both for maximum stability.
 
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