Intel Quad Port PRO/1000PT and PCI-E revisited

I was really annoyed that I had to put the Intel Quad Port PRO/1000PT right next to the video card in my new build since it wouldn't work in a PCI-E 3.0 slot - and, in fact, would stop the machine from booting if inserted. That was making the video card 5-10C hotter since it was passively cooled and needed a bit of air circulation.

So I dove into the BIOS and found that I could set the PCI-E version for the PCI-E 3.0 slots (but not the 2.0 slot for some reason). This could be just the thing - so I set the problematic PCI-E slot to PCi-E 2.0 mode, remembering that Supermicro still numbers the slots as if the PCI-X slots that aren't there on the X9SRI are still there, and moved the network card over. Lo and behold! The machine booted.

Unfortunately, this was as a result of the network card just not working at all, as opposed to actively stopping the boot process. Obviously there is a subtle difference between a PCI-E 2.0 slot and a PCI-E 3.0 in 2.0 mode - remember, this is an Intel network card in a motherboard with an Intel CPU and chipset. Moderately unimpressed with both Intel and the mess that seems to be PCI-E standards.

A search for Intel documentation reveals that the low profile PT-cards are actually PCI-E 1.0a (which I wasn't aware even existed) which should work with PCI-E 2.0. Finding this was a lot harder than in the past as Intel seem to have expunged or broken links for older products. I remember when they used to have really good legacy support not so long ago (i.e. 18 months!). So I drop down to PCI-E 1.0 in the BIOS and finally everything works OK.

Outcome, a cooler, working system and increased disillusionment with Intel and the whole PCI-E mess. PCI/PCI-66/PCI-X either inter-operated or was keyed so you couldn't make a broken configuration - this is not progress, guys!  

Mobile Device Table

A summary of the portable computing devices that I have used for work over the years for no reason other than general interest. There are others (such as the Omnibook 600C) that I have owned and toyed with but not used in anger.

The heaviest device was the AST Ascentia J30 at 2650g, a large chunk of which was battery as far as I can remember. The largest screen was the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition which, with Linux out of the box, was a real delight apart from the trackpad.

I don't get on with trackpads of any sort (yes, I've tried Macs and I find they're even more annoying than PC ones). The Omnibook popout mouse was a great idea, trackpoints are fine and touchscreen are OK provided they have stylus support. The Samsung Tab S is interesting - it has a capacitative screen but works with a special Samsung stylus with a narrow tip. I don't know how they do it since the stylus won't work on other screens.

Mfg	Model	Year	CPU	RAM	Storage	Screen Size	Screen Resolution
Casio	FX 700P	1983	Hitachi HD61913A01	2K	12K ROM	~2 inch	12 chars
HP	Omnibook 300	1993	Intel 386SXLV 16Mhz	4M	~12M ROM 10M SSD	9 inch	640x480 (16 grey levels)
AST	Ascentia J30	1996	Intel Pentium 133MHz	40M	800MB HDD	10.4 inch	800x600 DSTN (256 colours)
HP	Omnibook 800CT	1996	Intel Pentium MMX 166MHz	80M	2G HDD	10.4 inch	800x600 TFT (16 bit colour)
Fujitsu	Lifebook B2154	2000	Intel Mobile Celeron 450MHz	192M	2G HDD	10.4 inch	800x600 TFT (16 bit colour)
Sharp	Zaurus SLC1000	2005	Xscale ARM 416MHz	64M	128M SSD	3.7 inch	640x480 ICZ
Fujitsu	Lifebook U810	2007	Intel A110 800MHz	1G	60G HDD	5.6 inch	1024x600 TFT
Toshiba	NB100	2009	Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz Hyperthreading	2G	120G HDD	8.9 inch	1024x600 TFT
Dell	XPS 13 L322X	2013	Intel Core i73537U 2GHz (3.1 turbo) Dual core+HT	8G	256GB SSD	13.3 inch	1920x1080 IPS
Samsung	Galaxy Tab S 8.4	2014	Exynos 5420 Octa	3G	32GB + 128GB MicroSDXC	8.4 Inch	2560x1600 OLED
GPD	Pocket	2017	Intel Atom X8750 1.6GHz (2.56GHz turbo) Quad core	8G	128GB SSD + 256Gb MicroSDXC	7-inch	1920x1200 IPS

Mfg	Model	Year	HxWxD (mm)	Mass (g)	Touch-screen	Track-point	Conver-tible	Notes
Casio	FX 700P	1983	71x165x10	116				BASIC Programmable Calculator
HP	Omnibook 300	1993	163x282x36	1315				MSDOS 3.3, Windows 3.1, MSOffice in ROM Popout mouse
AST	Ascentia J30	1996	289x228x47	2650		X		Win 95
HP	Omnibook 800CT	1996	185x282x40	1770				Win 95, popout mouse
Fujitsu	Lifebook B2154	2000	308x274x40	1400	X	X		Win 98
Sharp	Zaurus SLC1000	2005	128x87x24	298	X		X	Cacko Linux, Dpad
Fujitsu	Lifebook U810	2007	150x168x33	712	X	X	X	Win Vista (replaced with OpenSuse),
Toshiba	NB100	2009	225x191x33	1000				Win XP (replaced with OpenSuse)
Dell	XPS 13 L322X	2013	205x316x18	1360				Ubuntu preloaded (replaced with Kubuntu)
Samsung	Galaxy Tab S 8.4	2014	214x142x8 (inc. kbd)	647	X		X	Android, Removable Bluetooth Keyboard
GPD	Pocket	2017	180x106x18.5	480	X	X		Win 10

Old Soundblaster Live Card and Windows 10

One of my Windows 10 boxes has an old noname soundcard based on the CMedia CMI8738SX which only has Windows 7 driver. When I allowed Windows 10 to auto-upgrade the preceding Windows 7 installation, somehow it kept on working. However, at some point recently the Windows installation became borked to the point that it no longer updated - and no amount of repairing would fix it. There was nothing left but to re-install Windows from scratch (upgrade and repair installs both failed). Fortunately, everything of import is kept on my Nextcloud server so I can resync my data afterwards quite easily.

However, I could not persuade the C-Media card to work nicely with Windows 10 (it being 64-bit didn't help). I cast around and found that I had a SoundBlaster Live 5.1 PCI card sat in one of my Linux boxes, mainly because it worked with the 3.3V PCI slot in an H8DCL motherboard. However, having worked out previously that C-Media chipsets support 3.3V PCI, and can be converted merely by filing a suitable notch in the PCI connector, I duly did a swap with the Linux box (Linux supports old CMedia chipsets just fine).

The SoundBlaster is such a standard that surely Windows 10 will support it...? Nope. A visit to the Creative site confirms that there is only a W7 driver. Do I sense a conspiracy to sell new kit when the old stuff works fine? Anyway, a search online turns up the KX Project and, more importantly, their GitHub site which ensure things will hang around a bit. Under Windows 10 64-bit the driver installs fine. Ignore the bit about using KXMixer since it does not work, but the W10 mixer seems to work OK for me.

Unfortunately, they are no longer accepting donations - but a big thank you from me.

Fun and Games with the SuperMicro X9SRI

Scored a Supermicro X9SRI off eBay as a useful way of using up my DDR3 memory once I start decomissioning some of the older machines in the house. It has 8 slots so I can get a tidy 64GB into it when fully loaded. It turns out that this board - or maybe Intel's server chipsets - are a little temperamental.

I paired it with a Xeon 1650 v2 which is slightly faster than an i7-4930K and is still quite respectable CPU. That's round about a Ryzen 2600 level in modern terms and a lot cheaper, especially when you factor in the price difference between DDR3 and DDR4 RAM. And there my problems started...

I reset the BIOS, loaded up defaults and proceeded to install Linux. Everything went fine, for a while, and then I started getting random hard freezes - but not associated with any particular activity. After swapping out RAM, video cards and everything else I was till no nearer a solution. In desperation, I acquired another Xeon (E5-2609 this time - cheap enough for a quick test) and sure enough, I dropped it in and everything worked fine. So, it's the CPU, I thought, but I was puzzled by the behaviour - working fine under heavy load (Phoronix CPU Benchmark Suite) and the freezing at idle didn't seem like any other failure I'd come across. So I worked my way through the BIOS Options and discovered that the culprit was in the CPU Power Management Settings. If I set it to Power Saving (the default) then I get freezes, but if I set it to Performance then all is well. Interestingly, Linux still seems to do power saving, dropping the clockspeed and voltage of the CPU so it runs quite cool at idle. So I have no idea what the setting does other than break v2 Xeons!

I dropped an old GT 710 card in so I didn't have to live with the 1280x1024 that the on board video can do. I hesitate to call it a GPU but it's only really meant for IPMI redirection so I'm being a little unfair. That works fine with nouveau but I install the proprietary nVidia drivers which have better power management.

Finally, I drop in an Intel Quad Port PRO/1000PT to give me a few more ethernet ports to play with and the board refuses to boot - giving me beep sequences instead. A few more card swaps and it transpires that the Intel card really hates being in PCI-E 3.0 slots and will only start up in the middle, PCI-E 2.0, slot. I was hoping to put it on the slot further away from the video card since the PT gets quite warm but there you are. Reminds me of the old DOS days fiddling around with interrupt combinations to get all your peripherals to work.