- Joined
- Aug 16, 2005
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- 25,864 (3.79/day)
- Location
- Alabama
| System Name | Rocinante |
|---|---|
| Processor | I9 14900KS |
| Motherboard | EVGA z690 Dark KINGPIN (modded BIOS) |
| Cooling | EK-AIO Elite 360 D-RGB |
| Memory | 64GB Gskill Trident Z5 DDR5 6000 @6400 |
| Video Card(s) | MSI SUPRIM Liquid X 4090 |
| Storage | 1x 500GB 980 Pro | 1x 1TB 980 Pro | 1x 8TB Corsair MP400 |
| Display(s) | Odyssey OLED G9 G95SC |
| Case | Lian Li o11 Evo Dynamic White |
| Audio Device(s) | Moondrop S8's on Schiit Hel 2e |
| Power Supply | Bequiet! Power Pro 12 1500w |
| Mouse | Lamzu Atlantis mini (White) |
| Keyboard | Monsgeek M3 Lavender, Akko Crystal Blues |
| VR HMD | Quest 3 |
| Software | Windows 11 |
| Benchmark Scores | I dont have time for that. |
Its been really boring since the rig died. Most of my time has been passed with labs, work and more labs. Since most of my time tinkering must by done not on my production home server it limits the amount of things I can do with no spare systems.
However I was super pumped when a co-worker was doing some hauling work for a friend of a friend, the facily had a lenovo think server TD200 and all of a sudden it was dropped in my lap.
Lets take a closer look.
https://shop.lenovo.com/ISS_Static/WW/AG/merchandising/US/PDFs/WW_TS-TD200-DS_draft-5_June26.pdf
The TD200 is nehalem based It came to me with no RAM. So I went on the hunt. It would not boot my DDR3 and documentation was scarce. I tried a stick of ECC I had lying around and it still was not happy. So I did some digging and came across a post on a long abandoned forum with a modem number to a default stick that led me to what I was after.
Enter RDIMMS. RDIMMS are registered memory and while I haven't handled them in a long time it explains why even my ECC sticks didn't work. So I went on the hunt on ebay and came across some cheap RDIMMS.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Micron-MT18...875527?hash=item5b3185ca07:g:ODUAAOSwzaJX9sL3
I bought two kits and waited patiently. In the mean time I tried to boot the system and was greeted with sparks. A closer examination of the power supply cage and we see why. The cage design allows wires to be caught in it and it has metal tabs like teeth. So i go on the hunt for a new cage and find that I just cant afford it at $100+ for the cage I figured I could pick one up next pay period if needed but I would give sealing them a shot.
I applied some silicone to the damaged wires and after it dried rebundled them tightly with wiring tape to help prevent further issues.
While I was waiting for RAM it was time to see what I was working with, the PSU seemed to work after the repair but expectedly the server did nothing when I powered it on. so I take off the air shroud and heatsink and find a single E5506. I then do some digging to see what the CPU support list is for this server. Unlike desktops servers are ALOT more finicky and so I wanted to see what the manufacturer specified.
I came across this page. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/migr-73208 I was dissapointed by my findings and then kind of curious. Apparently there was a TD200X model. Interested in why something so close in model name would totally cut off hyperthreaded chips I decided I wanted to know a little bit more about big brother. Searches for CPU support and untested/documented results where nowhere to be found. Apparently no one experiments and understandably so. Servers are meant to run critical tasks and given how much these machines were, i'm not surprised rogue system admins in the SMB space did not take risks.
A little digging revealed this however. Someone on wikipedia has been keeping track of thinkservers and had information on the ones I was curious about. While machines prior and after the TD2XX series held different chipsets, the TD200 and TD200X had the same one. This was a good sign since chipsets being the same most likely meant it could handle the CPUs.
Back to the drawing board I decide to keep within lenovo spec and look at the CPU support matrix once again this time paying attention to the TD200x. The TD200x max support (atleast when that was made) was the E5530 which is more aikin to a I7 920 and with hyper threading. I also happened to find a deal for 2 of them on ebay for $8!!!! I snagged them because $8 was not much of a risk.
With aprts on the way I try to get to know the system better. I pull out the 2 redundent PSUs and they read 12 x 76A
By the code these units are 920w redudent PSUs. Well thats good, atleast I know I can load her up now. I also notice on the board there are stickers on some ram slots though they say not to use them because they wont work on this model, however they are electrically connected.
Finally my RAM comes in!!!! one of the sticks was bad. but 1 out of 8 isnt bad. I am only using 4 ATM. but she lives!! With RAM the server beats to life.
Unfortunately it isnt all good times and fun. I get my new 5530s in and totally forgot to get another CPU cooler. That isnt the worst of it though. The system doesnt take them. every attempt to boot with CPU1 or CPU2 in SKT1 or SKT2 results in failure. The rage is real. Not discouraged though its back to the drawing board. At this point from what iv read and seen the TD200x was nothing more than a TD200 with a bit more ram and better CPUs out of the box. This was most likely a pre-boxd solution Lenovo thought they would be able to charge a premium for and get more money.
So lets go through the painstaking process of server BIOS' upgrades. This Lenovo in total took about 14 of them. thats right. 14 different BIOS' as in for all the equipment on it. It took me around 3.5 hours to do them all.
More importantly was the painstaking process of doing them in the correct order. Thankfully Lenvo helped me out. The process isnt documented anywhere except the actual readme of the ZIP file that holds the .bin or .exe of the flash itself.
The proper order is.
IMM
DSA
Systemboard
Those 3 primaries are what need to be done ideally first and in that order to not break anything. So I did. and while I jumped the BIOS' years into the future they are still quite dated (not that it matters) with the newest being around 2013 IIRC.
However. After all is said and done its time to whip out the thermal grizzly and try again. HOLY SHIT!
It works!! Looks like it all paid off, I was REALLY hoping I would not need to force flash the TD200x BIOS' to this machine I was also hoping it didnt have any extra protections that would prevent that from happening. Thankfully though its undocumented in all of the literature I could find on IBMs site and in the readme docs of the flashes themselves they updated the microcode. The TD200 can offically support hyperthreaded chips.
Now I dont know much about VMware since im a BSD/windows guy so I dove a bit into the hypervisor. To cut it short it simply wont do. the latest edition supported by the TD200 was 4.1 U3 and 5.5, 6, 6.5 will not run. The issue is that because of this any VM past win 7 or server 2008 will not run.
So I jumped back to what I knew and grabbed my 2016 EVAL.
Success! Server 2016 didnt have an issue with picking up the hardware or running on the system. So I guess my labs will still cater to Hyper-V for now.
more updates in the future when I get my second cooler in and can get that other kit of RAM running with it!
However I was super pumped when a co-worker was doing some hauling work for a friend of a friend, the facily had a lenovo think server TD200 and all of a sudden it was dropped in my lap.
Lets take a closer look.
https://shop.lenovo.com/ISS_Static/WW/AG/merchandising/US/PDFs/WW_TS-TD200-DS_draft-5_June26.pdf
The TD200 is nehalem based It came to me with no RAM. So I went on the hunt. It would not boot my DDR3 and documentation was scarce. I tried a stick of ECC I had lying around and it still was not happy. So I did some digging and came across a post on a long abandoned forum with a modem number to a default stick that led me to what I was after.
Enter RDIMMS. RDIMMS are registered memory and while I haven't handled them in a long time it explains why even my ECC sticks didn't work. So I went on the hunt on ebay and came across some cheap RDIMMS.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Micron-MT18...875527?hash=item5b3185ca07:g:ODUAAOSwzaJX9sL3
I bought two kits and waited patiently. In the mean time I tried to boot the system and was greeted with sparks. A closer examination of the power supply cage and we see why. The cage design allows wires to be caught in it and it has metal tabs like teeth. So i go on the hunt for a new cage and find that I just cant afford it at $100+ for the cage I figured I could pick one up next pay period if needed but I would give sealing them a shot.
I applied some silicone to the damaged wires and after it dried rebundled them tightly with wiring tape to help prevent further issues.
While I was waiting for RAM it was time to see what I was working with, the PSU seemed to work after the repair but expectedly the server did nothing when I powered it on. so I take off the air shroud and heatsink and find a single E5506. I then do some digging to see what the CPU support list is for this server. Unlike desktops servers are ALOT more finicky and so I wanted to see what the manufacturer specified.
I came across this page. https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/migr-73208 I was dissapointed by my findings and then kind of curious. Apparently there was a TD200X model. Interested in why something so close in model name would totally cut off hyperthreaded chips I decided I wanted to know a little bit more about big brother. Searches for CPU support and untested/documented results where nowhere to be found. Apparently no one experiments and understandably so. Servers are meant to run critical tasks and given how much these machines were, i'm not surprised rogue system admins in the SMB space did not take risks.
A little digging revealed this however. Someone on wikipedia has been keeping track of thinkservers and had information on the ones I was curious about. While machines prior and after the TD2XX series held different chipsets, the TD200 and TD200X had the same one. This was a good sign since chipsets being the same most likely meant it could handle the CPUs.
Back to the drawing board I decide to keep within lenovo spec and look at the CPU support matrix once again this time paying attention to the TD200x. The TD200x max support (atleast when that was made) was the E5530 which is more aikin to a I7 920 and with hyper threading. I also happened to find a deal for 2 of them on ebay for $8!!!! I snagged them because $8 was not much of a risk.
With aprts on the way I try to get to know the system better. I pull out the 2 redundent PSUs and they read 12 x 76A
By the code these units are 920w redudent PSUs. Well thats good, atleast I know I can load her up now. I also notice on the board there are stickers on some ram slots though they say not to use them because they wont work on this model, however they are electrically connected.
Finally my RAM comes in!!!! one of the sticks was bad. but 1 out of 8 isnt bad. I am only using 4 ATM. but she lives!! With RAM the server beats to life.
Unfortunately it isnt all good times and fun. I get my new 5530s in and totally forgot to get another CPU cooler. That isnt the worst of it though. The system doesnt take them. every attempt to boot with CPU1 or CPU2 in SKT1 or SKT2 results in failure. The rage is real. Not discouraged though its back to the drawing board. At this point from what iv read and seen the TD200x was nothing more than a TD200 with a bit more ram and better CPUs out of the box. This was most likely a pre-boxd solution Lenovo thought they would be able to charge a premium for and get more money.
So lets go through the painstaking process of server BIOS' upgrades. This Lenovo in total took about 14 of them. thats right. 14 different BIOS' as in for all the equipment on it. It took me around 3.5 hours to do them all.
More importantly was the painstaking process of doing them in the correct order. Thankfully Lenvo helped me out. The process isnt documented anywhere except the actual readme of the ZIP file that holds the .bin or .exe of the flash itself.
The proper order is.
IMM
DSA
Systemboard
Those 3 primaries are what need to be done ideally first and in that order to not break anything. So I did. and while I jumped the BIOS' years into the future they are still quite dated (not that it matters) with the newest being around 2013 IIRC.
However. After all is said and done its time to whip out the thermal grizzly and try again. HOLY SHIT!
It works!! Looks like it all paid off, I was REALLY hoping I would not need to force flash the TD200x BIOS' to this machine I was also hoping it didnt have any extra protections that would prevent that from happening. Thankfully though its undocumented in all of the literature I could find on IBMs site and in the readme docs of the flashes themselves they updated the microcode. The TD200 can offically support hyperthreaded chips.
Now I dont know much about VMware since im a BSD/windows guy so I dove a bit into the hypervisor. To cut it short it simply wont do. the latest edition supported by the TD200 was 4.1 U3 and 5.5, 6, 6.5 will not run. The issue is that because of this any VM past win 7 or server 2008 will not run.
So I jumped back to what I knew and grabbed my 2016 EVAL.
Success! Server 2016 didnt have an issue with picking up the hardware or running on the system. So I guess my labs will still cater to Hyper-V for now.
more updates in the future when I get my second cooler in and can get that other kit of RAM running with it!
