$500 Quanta Dual Node Epyc Server - IT'S WORKING!
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- čas přidán 12. 03. 2024
- The Fractal Design Terra is a scary-good ITX chassis. Pick one up here: amzn.to/49GzmE7
The QuantaPlex T22HF is a two-node server I picked up on eBay for just $500, and it's been one of the most frustrating systems I've ever worked with. Zero documentation or resources, and it seems few people who watch my channel have ever had hands on with them. Can it be turned into a decent homelab box, or should I have left this one alone?
But first... What am I drinking???
West Indian Cocktail
2oz Bombay Sapphire Dry Gin
2-3 Tbsp Fresh Lemon Juice
4 Dashes Angostura Bitters
1/2oz Simple Syrup
Spin cycle with a large rock and enjoy
Links to items below may be affiliate links for which I may be compensated
Quanta T22HF-1U on eBay: ebay.us/4mIpiE
AMD Epyc 7351P 16-Core: ebay.us/rwmmht
4x32GB DDR4-2400 REG-ECC: ebay.us/ijr1MY
Grab yourself a Pint Glass at craftcomputing.store
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/ craftcomputing - Věda a technologie
Robbed of my 5 seconds of fame by devclouds :( That's my QVL upload on archive lol. Oh well. Glad you at least got it to POST!
HAHAHA! Thanks for uploading :-D
I know next to nothing about server hardware, but do you have access to the latest UEFI? I wonder if the QVL is only for the latest UEFI and maybe @CraftComputing is out of date?
@TechnoRhino - Credit is most certainly yours and very much appreciated. Your elusive QVL provided valuable information to Jeff and the project, and was derived from a bit of GoogleFu on my end. Proper attributions (e.g. "aka The Uploader" email) were given in communications, as I thought there may be more to the story from the Archive. Regardless, thank you for the valuable information and contribution to the project. Also, my apologies for the theft of your 5 seconds of fame, I owe you many beers.
@@devclouds What a great community we're all in. You all deserves recognition and credits.
@@Sero3_ Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. This is truly a great community.
Me: i need to go to bed
Craft Computing: uploads video about hardware i will never own
perfect timing!
btw. i love this kind of "trying random stuff to see what works"video format. 10/10 homelab experience
gute nacht leute
Seeing you struggle with that system makes me appreciate how straightforward the Supermicro and Gigabyte servers are that I deal with the most.
I had the same experience the moment I went from a fujitsu server to making my own one with a Gigabyte board, just having all the options there and not be obtuse was great
I bought a Gigabyte G292-Z20 (rev. 100) with an Epyc 7402P on ebay for 700€ a few days ago, I think it's a pretty good deal, and in an apocalypse scenario I can use it as an aeroplane with the amount of air those fans are moving.
Well good news you got it working with the Naples CPU so at least you know that the units are in working order. Bad news, It is most likely that those units are on an older legacy BIOS version from when Naples first came out and this is why it will not boot with a Rome CPU as it simply doesn't know what those CPUs are. So your options at this point are find the highest Naples CPU you can find (highest was 7601 32-core 2.2Ghz-3.2Ghz), or try and bribe someone at Quanta to give you the last published BIOS and BMC firmware for that server.
We love to see it! Halfway-ish there... Just need a BIOS... that higher end Rome support... and a rebuild.
It reminds me of how much I've done my own head in trying to get FB DDR3 working in my first dual 2011-v2 system. One little detail made all the difference, and it was assumed knowledge that I, well, didn't know (start filling the memory from the outside to the inside). The moment I had that sorted it was smooth sailing from there, but until then it was just one head scratch after another.
Jeff, I have noticed that over the last couple videos you have gone from beer to mixed drinks. I am hoping the QuantaPlex stress is not causing this. Once you start shots, we are calling an intervention and restricting your access to ewaste. Hate to do it but we can't have you vomiting on the equipment. That just won't do.
March is all about Mixology!
@@CraftComputing , Sorry Jeff! I rescind my premature judgement. We're still watching though.
@@CraftComputing April for Absolution ?
@@Arachnoid_of_the_underverse Don't get ahead of yourself there, April is for Absinth.
@@mikes78 May for Molotov?
Looks like the motherboard is a “S5HF MB” and with bios “3A05.efib2” it supports a 7401P. There’s a geekbench result for it.
I think Quanta manufactured some E-waste here by their discontinuation policy and severe hardware lockdowns. They clearly want to "encourage" customers to upgrade to whatever the latest model is, and enough of their customers must be okay with it because Quanta is clearly still in business, with the preferences in the aftermarket or homelab communities not accounted for. I imagine their customers want the newer versions because of the improved efficiencies of newer platforms and the certainty of business arrangements. Larger organizations don't want to get bogged down in maintenance hell and homelabbers aren't profitable for Quanta apparently. But congrats on getting those blades running again! That was clearly quite a journey, and Quanta doesn't appear to want to on help.
No OEM gives a flying about the aftermarket/homelab, why would they even need to care about the profit of the old server hardware selleres on ebay. And obviously homelab is not profitable for any server manufacturer, the entry level stuff is in the 5k range, who buys that
Quanta's normal customers are usually Data Centers or direct to large clients. So they really do not have to offer support for products that are EoL to anyone other than the people who gave them money. With that said, they should however still offer a way to find documentation, software, drivers and firmware for any solution they have manufactured just like many other larger OEM/ODMs do like Dell, Lenovo, Supermicro, etc... as Quanta is clearly able to do that now on their website with their current products.
@@DaWolfwar
Wonder if it’s legal still.
Wasn't this a Dropbox server that got recycled? Wouldn't it make sense that it was locked down and tailored for the Dropbox environment??
@@shammyh no? Why would locking down bios settings make this "tailored for Dropbox"? Maybe Dropbox didn't want to pay for full featured stuff and Quanta disabled in firmware. But don't tell me bios settings and locking to a single specific processor only is "tailored" for anything besides Quanta revenue
I loved that Pointing and screaming ITS WORKING intro.... that was 100% me today. Although my issue was my own bad code from 6 months ago coming back to haunt me.
There's something lovely about a video that starts with success followed by "And here's how we got there."
Also, it's because of guys like you teaching tech that I even do the num lock check, do you feel proud of yourself?
I loved that I'm not the only one that uses the Num lock as a post indicator
Nice you got the blade system running, but the best part of the video was at the very end!
She lives! Good job! And that is indeed a lovely ice cube.
Congratulations!
this was a fail but good intentions and due diligence in unlocking, i think it shows just how tough it can be to get decent server motherboards that you resorted to this solution and had to use the bombay sapphire to compensate - not the worst coping behavior and you still learned some things and shared the pain
For quantum chemistry calculations i have built an Intel server blade PC. S2600TP board, 2x 2686V4 18 core cpu from e-bay. This board has all the connectivity what a desktop PC has but some with custom connectors. Also needs a separate 5V PSU for the system circuits. The cooling is a bit of an issue since the rectangular narrow ILM version of 2011. I made a water cooled system which i flooded and burned the first cpu slot. So bought another board and added the best possible coolers, two Dynatron T-318 full copper vapor chamber heatsinks with Delta blowers. BIOS files (4 of them) had to installed one-by one jumping the allowed version changes and the system config adjusted not to look for the default fans... which are jet engines... 3 of them. Currently having 4x16Gb ram suits perfectly for molecular structure optimization job utilizing all 36 cores continuously. Usually it runs for 1-2 days periods. For molecular frequency calculations more ram is needed, it depends on the molecule size but with the current amount of ram i can use only 10 cores. Next week i will upgrade to 128Gb which will utilize all (2x4) memory channels. I am also planning to replace the flooded cpu slot on the broken one. Already have the replacement slots. In this one i will use 2x2650v4 (5 USD for one piece... lol). I like in Intel that every bit is accurately described in manuals so it was easy to assemble the whole system.
shhh, dont share the numlock light post test trick with the young ones. do they even make keyboards with num lock lights on them anymore?
If you don’t look just for the „gaming rgb” toys - then yes, they still do :)
logitech K120 usb keyboard - got mine for $18 or so with a mouse and numlock light... was going to get a better one, but I ended up just liking this cheaper one.
Folks talking about things they clearly don’t know about lol
wait, someone dares to do without one?
@@Karti200Pretty much all RGB gaming keyboards still have capslock and more often than not also numlock LEDs on them
Fingers crossed on any higher end CPU's, and overall nice to see keeping tech out of e-waste. but as you stated.. Quanta would have to step up to the plate and offer some "support".
So Funny thing about the cocktail I may have been on my local ABC store website looking at Gins and what I am going to pick up tomorrow. It is warming up outside and Gin season is upon us.
Im still running my Supermicro X10DAi with dual Xeon E5 2696 v3s. I used it to replace my rack full of Cisco switches and routers for network simulations. Love that machine, been rock solid (other than the Corsair PSU which I had to replace...) since I built it in 2017. Just keep adding RAM as the prices fall 🙂
I keep looking around for a modern replacement but am struggling to find the next best bargain solution.
Hey, we all have projects we want to make happen with deals we found. I bought an old 'Berry' colored iMac and was obsessed with turning it into a portable gaming desktop. Got a good (enough) gaming laptop and gave up on it. This is one project I'll be curious to see pan out for my own homelab purposes.
Great video. Great pair of videos 👍
Sounds like reaching the guy that sells those servers is your gateway to the server documentation and support files. A BIOS update (or mod) might be all you need to improve that DOA of a chassis
I actually just got a dual socket supermicro x99 board for $250, and it came with 2 18 core chips without me even knowing, so I'd agree that it's crazy what you get for the money. Oh how the turns have tabled.
Thanks for sharing! The H11SSL-i Supermicro board is a much better pairing for these Zen1/2 EPYC's. The general lack of storage I/O on this blade and the limit to the 7351P is a deal breaker.
The main benefit of these older EPYC boards is core density. The 7601 or Rome 24c/32c chips are the only ones that really make sense in 2024 (and only if you have a specific niche workload). You might as well just go with 8/16 Zen 3 cores for anything else.
I'm going to disagree. You can easily get cheap desktop CPUs with 24+ cores nowadays.
The main draw of these EPYC systems is PCIe density.
If you want to drop +8x NVMe drives into a system AND a GPU/NIC, you are going to be using server hardware because Broadcom are pricks and PCIe switching was yanked out of affordability.
Probablyneeds a bios update that might be impossible to find. Interesting platform even if it is kind of a fail at this point, hopefully that bios is out there somewhere.
My guess is that they locked the board down to a single cpu sku just to make sure that you wouldn't upgrade on your own later down the road, thus ensuring you'd come back to them.
So check out for other bios versions of these things, they have to exist somewhere!
Impressive effort 👏👏👏
Sounds like there should be a part 3 to this, when the information becomes available....
Funny the comparisons to Broadwell Xeon-- I just picked up a Broadwell Xeon box off the 'bay for $200 for a full system. It even came with a (bummy spinning) hard drive despite the listing saying "No HDD". And a cheap CPU upgrade later and it's a pretty powerful unit on the cheap.
Yeah, those larger core Xeons you can score for cheap these days are still just fine for virtualization and other applications.
"But this time around, you guys sucked." I laughed way too hard at that!
yeah if you figure out a way around the cpu lock, they could be damn good compute nodes for homelabbers, but there are better options with upgrade paths in them at that price point.
I should add that it would be interesting seeing benchmark numbers of the 7351 vs something like a 7282 to see the performance difference of the architectures since both would have 2MB L3 cache per thread available where most Zen1 cpu's only have 1MB L3 per thread available.
For the price, a PowerEdge R7425 is within reach. They're limited to first-gen Epyc Naples, but at least you can pick any CPU you want from that family. (The BIOS flash doesn't have enough room to support Naples and Rome at the same time, apparently. The R7525 can, but they're twice the price.)
Glad my dual R730 homelab (each with dual E5-2697 v4s, 512 GB of RAM, and six 1.6TB SSDs) isn't hopelessly outdated yet!
On a Gigabyte mainboard that was Naples-only initially, there was a dual-step bios upgrade process, that converted it into a Rome-only setup. But you were still crippled of Gen4 pcie as nobody cared to re-evaluate the design for those speeds, so they went just with what it was. There is also a hardware difference between Naples and Rome/Milan, but that affects the reverse compatibility - eg. a newer Rome/Milan board will NEVER support a naples cpu, while the Naples board could take the Rome, with some limitations.
Iam happy you got it working. Iam sad that it is not worth anything and you need to buy new hardware
Been looking to replace old M630 blade servers. This just might be what I'm looking for.
Have you tried the way back machine to search the website for documentation and bios updates?
Yep. That was one of the first things I did. No luck :-(
@Craft Computing If you're stuck to the Epyc P Processors, while the 7351P is nice, you could have probably used the 7401P (24-Core), or the 7551P. (32-Core.) I hate to even suggest this, but if Rome processors are compatible you most likely need a bios update and again yes good luck finding a bios update or drivers.
i also think that! maybe that thing need P processor....
You should have overlayed the video of the young Anakin Skwalker screaming "It's working! It's working!"
Obi One would be proud of the young Padwan
Wonder if the BIOS would even support U.2 with the right cable? Seemed like it could have been a nice way to shove 12 U.2s in a 1U box as a fast NAS
Well done now how are you at repairing moisture harvesters ?
Sir, my first job was programming binary load lifters, very similar to your vaporators in most respects.
@@CraftComputing As part of the employment you will be housed in a luxurious underground facility which is a stones throw from an extensive beach facility. All year round sun is a bonus of this job though the nearest town is some miles away.
Does the bios have an toggle for letting Windows update upgrade the bios by chance? I wonder if Microsoft might have the bios files in their servers? The timeframe when this came out is when I started seeing that option in prebuilts and laptops...
Jeff...you and your team create some pretty entertaining ads bro. Great vids too. I almost cried at this part 4:24 Got a lil emotional when the device got resuscitated. Did everything short of looking at it and smacking the side of it. I literally do that sometimes and I am not sure why
This may sound like a stupid question, but could you look for an updated bios for the chipset and manufacturer name as a Boolean search to see if you’re running an old bios version? Reason I ask is because I have and older hp server that I got off eBay and when I went to upgrade the cpus it wouldn’t post, and because it’s a hp server you had to have a service with them for the bios updates. So I did a search with the product name & chipset to find I could get an updated bios without needing to pay lots of cash to HP!
If you haven't tried one, make yourself a Vesper (from James Bond movies and books). Wow!
Probably need to look at modding the BIOS :/ you check out if the BMC can knock anything loose?
I wonder if the EPYC 7551 8-channel RAM is much better than E5-2697V4's 4channel RAM for memory intensive loads?
As I remember Zenstate and other software can tune/overclock even EPYC cpu
I'm wondering if your Rome CPU didn't post because of fuse lock. Maybe try finding Quanta-locked Rome?
When I've overspent on unknown tech I always chalked it up to paying for the knowledge/experience.
Got a Dell Precision T3210, what is the recommended cpu to upgrade to? Which is most worth it? It's 2011 socket.
Comes with a Xeon E5 cpu. Was thinking of using it as a barebone ESXi server with some VMs
At least it works, so not a total loss.
Life! Life! Give my creation life!
Its alive! 🎉
Could be a BIOS limitation? Missing microcodes from other cpus? Maybe modding the BIOS could enable compatibility
I now wonder what my dual e5-2689v4's would compare to this build
Can we get a link to that qvl and other resources found?
I mean, who doesn't use the numb lock light as an indicator? 😯😯
This maybe a really dumb question, but would a BIOS update, since you got it to boot/post, open up some more CPU models that you can install and operate on the blade? One that allows Epyc Rome CPU's? That also is if you can find a BIOS for the MB.
A BIOS update is needed for any other CPUs to be supported. Finding the QVL gives me some hope that a compatible BIOS is out there, but finding ANY information on this server has been an exercise in futility.
@@CraftComputing I tried searching for the bios as well to no avail. Seems like your only option is to contact Quanta.
@@AppriQuanta already told him to pound sand because it's EOL stuff
@@Appri The other option is to contact other CZcamsrs and forums to see if anyone has these machines in production they could get a copy of the bios from.
@@marcogenovesi8570 Which is why you don't buy from Quanta :)
Didn't you get the platform to run the CPU you had?
Seems that it's gone wrong.
I'm not Impressed by the results either.
What was the use case for the hardware? San or something??
high availability services maybe 🤔san controller or something is on radar
The people over at the winraid forum might be able to help you with bios hacking, assuming you need that to get the mobo unlocked for other cpus.
Ah yes a server system where just some craft beer doesn't cut it and you had to switch to a cocktail! 😉
I think it's great that you got these working, but considering how locked down the platform is, and how Quanta purges any helpful documentation of EOL equipment, I would say that this is e-waste. I would go so far to warn others from buying anything Quanta second hand (first hand too for that matter) to lower resale value.
Thank you for this "cautionary tale"!
I don't suppose you have any Dell 2950 2.5" Drive Caddy's kicking around in storage...... I need 6 minimum and max of 14. :P I have 2, and I 3D Printed a bunch of sleds but... I kind of want the LED activity and status lights ...... :P I am in Canada as well so... :D :D :D :D
I just brought this, and I was hoping it could use a better CPU. Though that could be due to a BIOS/firmware update?
If a BIOS update could be found, it might support Rome CPUs.
The only real advantage to going Epyc over Xeon here is the number of PCIE lanes available, which appear to go COMPLETELY UNUSED in that form factor. If you aren't using a ton of PCIE connectivity, save the money and the hassle, just get an X99 motherboard and used Xeon. It's what I did. Just be aware that you may need an even older Xeon on hand to flash the BIOS to support the Xeon you actually want to use (this is why I have a spare Xeon E5-2690 v3 sitting around).
only one advantage over broadwell xeon is 128 pcie lanes but I guess there's no way you can utilise those in this chasis
Awesome!
Try to modify the bios... they might locked some things there and maybe..if it is not rom... might be able to unlock some sweet things.
Is the server missing a TPM?
It's Quanta, it's born to be ewaste...
Our MSP has so many hardware failure with these, it's absolutely mind boggling...
Wonder if the bios could be modded on these to make them decent lol
Seems like my issues with ibm tape drivers and debian linux.... Just know it was easier to move to rocky
Honestly I'm sad the blade concept didn't take off more, especially for home use. Not so much the noise levels, but the concept itself, a sled with replaceable, self contained hardware, which can be slotted along side multiple other blades. Low profile and still powerful. And being able to upgrade things without turning off the entire machine! Just shut down the one blade, remove it, replace it with a new upgraded one, and you're good to go. Why this kind of tech isn't available for home users is beyond me. I mean, look at the lengths people go to in order to make a small form factor computer. 1LPCs are basically the form people at home want, but with the graphical power of a full sized tower. Being able to plug in a blade into a slot in a rack and have it connect with a separately mounted GPU, I feel like that would be peak home computing.
Not related to this video, but it's your latest....
I tried searching CZcams for a video on "how to move a Truenas (core) VM to bare metal" but haven't really come across anything, do you have or can you do a video on this and while you have the hardware running maybe vice-versa for those who need that?
Or if anyone else knows of a good video on this and is willing to share. I'm under the impression I can just make a backup of my current setup (including "secret keys" and all) then build the new system and import the backup and be done, but I think I tried that once going from bare metal to vm and it didn't work, i could be mistaken though.
Thanks!!
I have a x79 c602 dual with 2697 V2 64gb 1866mhz memory running proxmox zfs on 4 1tb drives nvme
I built it trying to learn hypervisor and have a platform for dedicated servers for gaming with friends.
Maybe a bios upgrade to handle a newer CPU???
0:03 _Anakin Skywalker has entered the chat_
first time I watched the sponsor (Y)
I hate that these CPU's are so cheap, but the motherboards are hundreds of dollars. I want to build a super cheap NAS and am looking for cheapish hardware and an ancient Epyc CPU sounds like a great idea.
I was playing with the idea. Then I did the math on the power consumption costs and thought about if I would actually get any benefit from the excess of pci-e lanes (editors note: he did not) and eventually decided on a Ryzen 9 3900x and a B450 along with one of the ES Erying monstrosities I first learned about in here too and now my needs for quite a while are met.
In order to run the newer cpus it probably needs a bios update.
For pure compute workloads old servers are always economically dead. Any modern mid-range consumer CPU humiliates this server in absolute performance and even more in performance/watt. The only use cases are cheap high RAM or IO requirements
Yes, that's true. Although this system is new enough that if it actually booted with other CPUs it would have much more compute power than anything consumer.
I think if Quanta had half a brain they would have already reached out with some support for the second video. One can only hope they might get their heads out thei...... anyway. Hopefully a rep will send over some documentation or bios update soon. These servers seem like they could have a lot of extra life in the used market. Which at the very least increases brand trust and public awareness of products. I'm sure a lot of corporations would be interested in recouping some cost from out of date equipment on the used market. Especially when alot of it isnt in that same enterprise sector.
nice
Pong from Discord
Wait, that's illegal
Maybe this info is something: my dual zeon 2680v4 rd450x motherboard has this stupid bios that don't display anything if there is a short anywhere found on the motherboard, Mostly caused by mismatched recc dimms and sometimes just moving the position of the board helps, with that said, your 500 dorllar is a rippoff from my eye, I've only spent around 1900- 2000 chinese yuan to getting myself a 5700xt, dual 2680v4 and 4x16gb recc dimms, and a definitely not 1000W "1000W" power supply, I love China!
Unfortunately it should've stayed in the ewaste pile
maybe a BIOS update needed?
dump the bios and lets have a look at it!
$500 of ewaste. Nice.
try turning it off and on. 👌👍👋🤣
We are not here to help Jeff, we are here to mock 🤣
Aah of course the bios is also trash, the features are probably locked behind some subscription
X99 boards aren't cheap - not unless you buy the fake china ones. I hope my Taichi never dies because it'd be a mint to replace.
How much did intel pay quanta for this?
Well... The equation compute per U ... Keep your China-boards ;). But yes, I agree on that the damn ducking business practices from the vendor is just a reason for them to be buried with their e-waste.
Most of the shops I have worked in are there Dell or HPE. Sorry.
So, it's an . . . Epyc fail?
Don't worry, I'll see myself out.