- Joined
- Mar 26, 2014
- Messages
- 9,226 (2.52/day)
- Location
- Washington, USA
System Name | Veral |
---|---|
Processor | 5950x |
Motherboard | MSI MEG x570 Ace |
Cooling | Corsair H150i Elite |
Memory | 4x16GB G.Skill TridentZ |
Video Card(s) | Powercolor 7900XTX Red Devil |
Storage | Crucial P5 Plus 1TB, Samsung 980 1TB, Teamgroup MP34 4TB |
Display(s) | Acer Nitro XZ342CK Pbmiiphx + 2x AOC 2425W |
Case | Fractal Design Meshify Lite 2 |
Audio Device(s) | Blue Yeti + SteelSeries Arctis 5 / Samsung HW-T550 |
Power Supply | Corsair HX850 |
Mouse | Corsair Nightsword |
Keyboard | Corsair K55 |
VR HMD | HP Reverb G2 |
Software | Windows 11 Professional |
Benchmark Scores | PEBCAK |
VERY long post.
I've got a buddy who ordered a Dell T7600 for running virtual machines for a game. We were looking at about 11 virtual machines (VMs from here on) with 1-2 threads, 3-4GB memory, 20-30GB disk space per VM. We went with two E5-2687w chips (8 core 16 thread/ea) and 128GB ram (16x8GB). Our first issue was shipping, as the package got to my friend's damage, with some cosmetic and fan mounting issues. All of the shipping issues worked out, and fans put back in properly, we started to get it going. Do mind the board is original to the T7600.
This is where our first issue starts as installing Windows 10, as the target drive wasn't showing up. We tried multiple drivers for the board with no avail, and resorted to plugging in directly to the sata ports to the board. There our first ID-10-T issue was the SAS cables were plugged into nothing so of course nothing was gonna show up. We did get the SSD to show but couldn't get Windows Installer to see or use it. We went through AHCI, RAID, SATA settings in the BIOS and leaving AHCI and RAID on, the BIOS sees the drive but no install.
Next morning he tried again and somehow got Win7 to install, with PLENTY of driver issues and missing drivers. He launched the Win10 install and bam, Win10 is going on the SSD, on the SATA1 port on the board. Progress!
Now the HDD that's on the SAS line that's from the board? Nothing until he went through the Dell driver thing and voila! SSD and HDD works off the SAS now (in the proper drive locations) however now we're having issues transferring files, more so doing anything above one task at a time. He can move 100GB of files but as soon as he opens another Explorer window it restarts hard, and yes Windows Update says we were updated fully by this point. We also switched out the CMOS battery thinking maybe that was the issue; BIOS settings not being saved.
So we got back into it and now it can't boot. We ran BIOS tests and ram was fine, but it can't test the drives because "they're not there" yet, they are. Again, somehow, it allowed us back into Windows and now we get ghosty, as in he will delete files off the desktop, and they come back. When clicked on it just, kinda, sits there.
Next day, with the SSD and main HDD in the proper slots and the second HDD sitting there, he wedged some items to limit the vibration and lo and behold the file transfers do their thing and no crashing. Possibly a vibration issue? We have no clue. At this point we were looking to replace the GTS 8800 as he wanted to maybe game on it. Why not? He has the extra resources so let's have some game time fun! We get that ordered, second CPU, and two Scythe Shuriken 3s for the coolers, GPU being a R9 380x. He has a 1300w PSU so everything should be good power-wise. At this point we have the VMs running smoothly after the wedges and everything is good.
Second CPU comes in, with coolers, and GPU. I forgot to mention ram came in too, so each white slot gets one stick per manual. 1866mhz 8x16GB DDR3 ECC. Yes the board goes to 1600mhz but it worked.
Now here's where sh1t gets bad. He gets everything in and splits the ram up. He gets a "correctable memory issue on DIMM4 CPU0" from nowhere, and can't get past the "press F1 to continue" because it blackscreens. He moves tick from DIMM4 to DIMM6 and the error is in DIMM4, even though there is nothing there. We stick all the ram into CPU0 and the error is STILL in DIMM6. We clear error messages, reseat CMOS battery, moved ram back and moved DIMM6 stick from CPU0 to CPU1 DIMM1. Didn't work so he put them all back in the white spots and got this:
Now mind BIOS sees all 8 sticks, and all sticks are in the correct spots, again, 1-4 on each CPU. Diagnostics go to a black screen and with another reboot, CPU1 now has issues in DIMM3 and 4. Next:
I tell him to remove all but one stick per CPU, and errors on 3 and 4 persisted. After a few reboots it clears and he gets back into Windows.
Our new issue is Windows Home is on the drive, not Windows Pro, so we can only see one CPU. We get all that mess ready to go and he decides to stick some ram back in. This is the result:
It's just easier to screenshoot this.
He gets to boot with three sticks of ram on CPU0, and two sticks on CPU1 with all of them in the correct white spots and per number. Now we can't reinstall Windows because of the same issue as before. He wipes the hell out of the SSD, gets Win7 back on it, He launches the 10 installer from inside 7 and gets to the "making Windows.old files" where it says ‘we couldn’t create a new partition or locate an existing one.’ He at this point found out he's gotta remove all other internal drives to install 10, and yep, it worked. ID-10-T for earlier.
So now we are at the point of:
Not all RAM is installed, and I'm not sure what all is left in the system as it was sleepy time for him and I was getting off work. We've spent weeks on this thing and I had to dig through our chat logs to compile this massive post. Forgive my scattered writing as I'm tired, it's been a long day, and it's too late for coffee. We just need to figure out what we gotta do. We DO have the PERC card, though not installed yet.
I've got a buddy who ordered a Dell T7600 for running virtual machines for a game. We were looking at about 11 virtual machines (VMs from here on) with 1-2 threads, 3-4GB memory, 20-30GB disk space per VM. We went with two E5-2687w chips (8 core 16 thread/ea) and 128GB ram (16x8GB). Our first issue was shipping, as the package got to my friend's damage, with some cosmetic and fan mounting issues. All of the shipping issues worked out, and fans put back in properly, we started to get it going. Do mind the board is original to the T7600.
This is where our first issue starts as installing Windows 10, as the target drive wasn't showing up. We tried multiple drivers for the board with no avail, and resorted to plugging in directly to the sata ports to the board. There our first ID-10-T issue was the SAS cables were plugged into nothing so of course nothing was gonna show up. We did get the SSD to show but couldn't get Windows Installer to see or use it. We went through AHCI, RAID, SATA settings in the BIOS and leaving AHCI and RAID on, the BIOS sees the drive but no install.
Next morning he tried again and somehow got Win7 to install, with PLENTY of driver issues and missing drivers. He launched the Win10 install and bam, Win10 is going on the SSD, on the SATA1 port on the board. Progress!
Now the HDD that's on the SAS line that's from the board? Nothing until he went through the Dell driver thing and voila! SSD and HDD works off the SAS now (in the proper drive locations) however now we're having issues transferring files, more so doing anything above one task at a time. He can move 100GB of files but as soon as he opens another Explorer window it restarts hard, and yes Windows Update says we were updated fully by this point. We also switched out the CMOS battery thinking maybe that was the issue; BIOS settings not being saved.
So we got back into it and now it can't boot. We ran BIOS tests and ram was fine, but it can't test the drives because "they're not there" yet, they are. Again, somehow, it allowed us back into Windows and now we get ghosty, as in he will delete files off the desktop, and they come back. When clicked on it just, kinda, sits there.
Next day, with the SSD and main HDD in the proper slots and the second HDD sitting there, he wedged some items to limit the vibration and lo and behold the file transfers do their thing and no crashing. Possibly a vibration issue? We have no clue. At this point we were looking to replace the GTS 8800 as he wanted to maybe game on it. Why not? He has the extra resources so let's have some game time fun! We get that ordered, second CPU, and two Scythe Shuriken 3s for the coolers, GPU being a R9 380x. He has a 1300w PSU so everything should be good power-wise. At this point we have the VMs running smoothly after the wedges and everything is good.
Second CPU comes in, with coolers, and GPU. I forgot to mention ram came in too, so each white slot gets one stick per manual. 1866mhz 8x16GB DDR3 ECC. Yes the board goes to 1600mhz but it worked.
Now here's where sh1t gets bad. He gets everything in and splits the ram up. He gets a "correctable memory issue on DIMM4 CPU0" from nowhere, and can't get past the "press F1 to continue" because it blackscreens. He moves tick from DIMM4 to DIMM6 and the error is in DIMM4, even though there is nothing there. We stick all the ram into CPU0 and the error is STILL in DIMM6. We clear error messages, reseat CMOS battery, moved ram back and moved DIMM6 stick from CPU0 to CPU1 DIMM1. Didn't work so he put them all back in the white spots and got this:
Now mind BIOS sees all 8 sticks, and all sticks are in the correct spots, again, 1-4 on each CPU. Diagnostics go to a black screen and with another reboot, CPU1 now has issues in DIMM3 and 4. Next:
I tell him to remove all but one stick per CPU, and errors on 3 and 4 persisted. After a few reboots it clears and he gets back into Windows.
Our new issue is Windows Home is on the drive, not Windows Pro, so we can only see one CPU. We get all that mess ready to go and he decides to stick some ram back in. This is the result:
He gets to boot with three sticks of ram on CPU0, and two sticks on CPU1 with all of them in the correct white spots and per number. Now we can't reinstall Windows because of the same issue as before. He wipes the hell out of the SSD, gets Win7 back on it, He launches the 10 installer from inside 7 and gets to the "making Windows.old files" where it says ‘we couldn’t create a new partition or locate an existing one.’ He at this point found out he's gotta remove all other internal drives to install 10, and yep, it worked. ID-10-T for earlier.
So now we are at the point of:
Not all RAM is installed, and I'm not sure what all is left in the system as it was sleepy time for him and I was getting off work. We've spent weeks on this thing and I had to dig through our chat logs to compile this massive post. Forgive my scattered writing as I'm tired, it's been a long day, and it's too late for coffee. We just need to figure out what we gotta do. We DO have the PERC card, though not installed yet.