Supermicro X9DAi Weirdness

[Neil Stubbings]

thanks for your reply!
The cards do not show up either in windows or in OSX Lion with the X9DAi. They do work on my other computer which is a 2008 MacPro. So they are not broken.
Are there any options in the BIOS i should try out?
To answer your other question: The system works quite well as a hackintosh. Very stable. However, Cinebench seems to be around 25% faster in Windows7. Probably because the turboboost option is not yet supported. I am curious if it will increase in 10.8
I built the system to work as a hackintosh because I was frustrated with the last "update" of the MacPro. I was waiting for 2 years for a real update and it did not happen. As I worked on mac computers since the beginning of my carreer I am still having some trouble converting to windows. Thats why I wanted a system that works in both worlds...

Anyways, I am very puzzled about those hardware issues which do not seem to work. Because I do not know PCs and Windows well enough to find out if there is something wrong with the hardware or if I am just doing something wrong.
The weird thing really is that the graphics card works well in every slot, but the cards dont. And I know that the cards are not broken....

[Subhadip Sen]

It is tempting to build your own computers, but often, it is not worth it. I thoroughly recommend people to avoid it, unless and only unless they know all their components inside out. It is true that in most cases nothing will go wrong, but when you build your own anything can go wrong at any time, and you are completely on your own. That can be an infuriating waste of time.

Which is why my unreserved recommendation always is buying a turnkey solution from the likes of HP and Origin. On the other hand, if you are confident enough, or your colleague / employee is, go ahead with the build your own solution - it has its benefits.

Hackintosh is another can of worms... I know with some luck, skill and considerable maintenance it can work out, but it is simply not worth the headache when I would rather concentrate on my work. If you must use OS X, stick to Mac Pro.

I know I am not helping, sorry. As for why they are not working, it might be because you are trying to use a Mac edition graphics card.

[Neil Stubbings]

well, yeah you are basically right.
I was interested in building a machine on my own and getting to know the process behind it. Just because I am also a geek :D
After Apple disappointed with their MacPro update i just wanted to give it a shot... The Hackintosh does work surprisingly well and its a huge step from my 2008 MacPro.

As for the Sonnet card problem: I managed to solve it! I just had to make the PCIe ports "Generation 1" compatible in the BIOS.
Which is pretty complicated to understand to be honest. There are tons of complicated options for the PCI ports in the BIOS...

But now the cards work in both Windows7 and OSX

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Glad you have it figured. ....Funny, I have a system built on this motherboard and I didn't even realize that you could enable/disable PCIe gen 1 support. Not sure why, but that feature seems kinda silly. Didn't run across it on my end, I put a RED Rocket in the system to test several weeks back and it worked fine, being a gen 1 card and all.

I do agree with Subhadip on the build vs. buying systems. I don't mind building systems and still tend to build most of my workstations. But I always find it fascinating that people think they can save by building themselves. I suppose it works out if you are limited on funds and have all the time in the world. From a geek point of view, building a system can be rewarding, if for no other reason to satisfy your own curiosity and inner geek.

The HP Z820, aside from it's little quirks and quibbles and a curious design choice or two, is proving to be a fantastic workstation. There have been several times lately I wish I would've bought two of them and had not messed with assembling this X9DAi based system. Performance is pretty much identical between the two. The X9DAi system is a bit cheaper and is a fine workstation, but it's cost me more time than I should have spent. It wasn't up and running before my long-delayed Z820 because it took forever to get the proper RAM modules and cooling in place. It has no advantages over the HP box when all aspects are considered. I'm half tempted to unload it and pick up one of the RED edition Z820 systems bundled with the internal reader and another Rocket...

[Frank Cueto]

That's fairly high praise coming from you for the HPZ820.


I am on the wall about a similar system, but I think I am going to hold on for the ivy bridge 8C unlocked xeons. Hopefully by the end of this year...

[Jeff Kilgroe]

The Z820 has been solid as a rock, other than a couple BIOS issues with the release firmware -- caused an SSD incompatibility on my end and some others had reported various SAS/SATA issues. All fixed now and we're two firmware releases down the road since then in just a month.

I won't sugar coat it either, there are issues with the Z820 that bug me... I'm not wild about their slot arrangement, for example. I think the way they shoe-horned this larger platform with more slot capability and physically larger, more power hungry and hotter running CPUs, into the existing Z series workstation designs was not the best move. I actually prefer Dell's new T-series workstation designs in terms of component layout, accessibility and expandability. Not too wild about their performance tuning and other aspects. The T7600 is better laid out than its Z820 competitor, but it was long delayed and still more expensive with fewer high-end options to choose from -- no option to order without graphics cards, no option for the Quadro 6000, etc..

I'm not sure I understand the current marketing and methodology behind the E5-2600 platform. Every vendor offering it is selling these systems at huge premiums over their systems based on the prior generation of Xeon platform. The prior generation systems are still in full supply, full production and still being sold at full price. Very curious move coming from HP, Dell, Origin, etc.. Almost as if Intel is behind it. Like there's a production surplus of i5520 series "Westmere" core Xeons and supporting hardware. Just one more reason to throw on the heap when discussing why Apple didn't launch a new Mac Pro system.

I think it best to wait for the Ivy Bridge Xeons if you can. Release is starting to look more like early next year rather than this year. But all bets are off with Intel schedules lately, it seems they're either early or late these days, but never on time.

[Les C.]

It is tempting to build your own computers, but often, it is not worth it. I thoroughly recommend people to avoid it, unless and only unless they know all their components inside out. It is true that in most cases nothing will go wrong, but when you build your own anything can go wrong at any time, and you are completely on your own. That can be an infuriating waste of time.

Which is why my unreserved recommendation always is buying a turnkey solution from the likes of HP and Origin. On the other hand, if you are confident enough, or your colleague / employee is, go ahead with the build your own solution - it has its benefits.

Hackintosh is another can of worms... I know with some luck, skill and considerable maintenance it can work out, but it is simply not worth the headache when I would rather concentrate on my work. If you must use OS X, stick to Mac Pro.

I know I am not helping, sorry. As for why they are not working, it might be because you are trying to use a Mac edition graphics card.

Congrats on your SuperMicro adventure!

I build all my own, and only use SuperMicro for anything important, for me and for my clients.

I always buy Crucial (Micron) RAM.

Please keep us informed of your progress with the Hackintosh (or do you have a resource)?

My main box is Win7, but I also own a MacPro, and doubt I'll ever give Apple any more money on principal.

Really liked Apple before they became evil, brought out one of the first compilers for the Macintosh in the early 80's, and was foolish enough to try develop a personal accounting app on the Mac (sold in CompUSA - wow, that's a long time ago!), back when accountants thought of DOS as the promised land.

So, if my MacPro dies, I'll need something to run Logic Pro.