Tag Archives: supermicro

Recovering the Firmware on a Supermicro BPN-SAS3-846EL1 Backplane

In a previous adventure I replaced an Adaptec HBA with a LSI SAS3 HBA, and the chassis drive bay LED’s stopped working. I suspect the LSI card does not play nice with the SGPIO sideband controller, and I decided to replace the chassis with one similar to my SC846 chassis, where the LSI card andContinue reading “Recovering the Firmware on a Supermicro BPN-SAS3-846EL1 Backplane”

Moving from W2K16 to Unraid

I have been happy with my server rack running my UniFi network equipment and two Windows Server 2016 (W2K16) instances. I use the servers for archiving my media collection and running Hyper-V for all sorts of home projects and work related experiments. But, time moves on, one can never have enough storage, and technology changes. SoContinue reading “Moving from W2K16 to Unraid”

Storage Spaces Leaves Me Empty

I was very intrigued when I found out about Storage Spaces and ReFS being introduced in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. But now that I’ve spent some time with it, I’m left disappointed, and I will not be trusting my precious data with either of these features, just yet.   Microsoft publicly announced StorageContinue reading “Storage Spaces Leaves Me Empty”

Dyslexic Intel RSTe Driver

I encounter one problem after another running Windows 8 and Server 2012 on the dual Xeon E5 Intel C600 chipset based SuperMicro 7047A-T and 7047A-73 SuperWorkstation machines. I will say that this is really not representative of my Windows 8 experience in general, as all other machines I installed on worked fine with the in-boxContinue reading “Dyslexic Intel RSTe Driver”

Windows 8 VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE Madness

I finally figured out why I kept on getting VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE BSOD’s when installing Windows 8 on my SuperMicro workstations. It turns out that the problem goes away when I use a PCIe slot associated with CPU #1, instead of a slot associated with CPU #2. Some history on my adventures with Windows 8 and SuperMicroContinue reading “Windows 8 VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE Madness”

Windows 8 Install Crash With NVidia Quadro 5000

I got Windows 8 RTM installed on my two SuperMicro SuperWorkstation machines, with a bit of trouble along the way, but nothing I could not work around. But, I ran into a problem with NVidia Quadro 5000 cards causing a VIDEO_TDR_FAILURE BSOD during the Windows 8 install process.   I was running my two workstationsContinue reading “Windows 8 Install Crash With NVidia Quadro 5000”

Windows 8 Install Hangs Booting From LSI 2308 SAS Controller

I’ve previously posted about problems installing Windows 8 on SuperMicro machines, and that SuperMicro released a Beta BIOS that solved the install problems. I’ve since run into two more problems; the install hanging when booting of the LSI 2038 SAS controller, and a BSOD when using a Quadro 5000 video card (more on that inContinue reading “Windows 8 Install Hangs Booting From LSI 2308 SAS Controller”

SuperMicro Beta BIOS supports Windows 8 and Server 2012

In a previous post I reported that my SuperMicro SuperWorkstation 7047A-T failed to install Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 due to a ACPI_BIOS_ERROR. I contacted SuperMicro support, and I was informed that new BIOS releases are on their way that will support Windows 8 and Server 2012. This morning I received an email fromContinue reading “SuperMicro Beta BIOS supports Windows 8 and Server 2012”

Debugging Windows 8 Install BSOD

In my last post I described how to prevent Windows from automatically restarting when encountering a BSOD during the OS install process. This allowed me to see the  ACPI_BIOS_ERROR fault code while installing Windows 8 on my new SuperMicro workstation. The new Windows 8 BSOD page looks friendly, but no longer displays any error parametersContinue reading “Debugging Windows 8 Install BSOD”