NVMe wearing out?!?

 One of the developer machines had an error, further digging revealed hard disk warnings.  The drive functions just fine, but was showing an error.  Turns out this this particular drive is well beyond its design specification.  There is no failed cells, no errors reading or writing, but the drive has 200% of amount of data written to it as designed.   Kind of like if one has a car that goes 250,000 miles; the manufacture didn't expect nor design the car to go that far.  Except in this case one gets a warning.  FWIW in this case the drive in question is HP M.2 NVMe drive.  I question HP's fuzzy match in calculating the endurance of the drive.

MAC OS on VMware ESXi

 Can one run a MAC OS as a VM on a VMware host?  Well technically yes.  Legally, No.  In my case we needed to just test how Saffari acts with some web pages.  

Disclaimer: my understanding is that Apple VMs are only legal on Apple Hardware.  The only hardware that supports ESX is the "TrashCan".  Otherwise Vmware Fusion is a free download. 

High Level Steps:

-on a Mac using the App Store, download the bits to the OS in question

-on that Mac, convert those bits to a DMG file

-on that Mac, convert the DMG to an ISO

-upload the ISO to VMware server

-create a VM, mount the ISO and install, however the following changes need to be made to the ".vmx" file.

smc.present = "TRUE"

smc.version = "0"

hw.model = "Macmini8,1"

board-id = "Mac-7BA5B2D9E42DDD94"

serialNumber = "C02ZK0XXXXXX"

efi.nvram.var.ROM = "A1B2C3D4E5F6"

efi.nvram.var.MLB = "C02712300Q6NNNJA8"

Once installed, install VMware tools.  I had a really hard time finding them, the file is called "Darwin.ISO"

New life to really old Macs??

 Apple is really strict as to what OS can be loaded on their hardware.  In this case I have a Mac Mini 2014, which is an i5-4278u.  The newest OFFICIALLY supported OS it will run is Monterey.  However with the help of "OpenCore Legacy Patcher" I was able to put Sequoia on it. 

The machine is slow, but that is to be expected on 11 year old hardware, including a spinning hard disk.  I should put in an SSD but I didn't want to take an hour to do that swap.  No thanks to Apple Engineers making things overly complicated. 

Sequoia installed on the infamous Trashcan, which isn't so bad considering it has an actual GPU, a Xeon processor, and a NVMe hard drive.

Somewhat ironically many Mac Mini 2012's actually outperform a 2014, due to the type of processor used.  Here is a few of the different models I found floating around:

Swapping out the 5400rpm hard drive isn't the most straight forward but very doable on the 2012, and more of a PITA on the 2014.

And for a bit of blasphemy: Windows 11 installed on a 2012 Mac Mini

Even more blasphemy......running Windows 11 on the infamous Trashcan.

Perle IOLAN Serial-Over-IP switch

 Do you have network devices that you need to occasionally log in via a console/serial port?   For example one wants a backup access to a switch at a remote site?   Perle has a solution.  In this case the IOLAN SDS32c has 32 ports for serial access.

Here are somethings I discovered.

They have an "Admin" port which I assumed was a serial port to access the box.   I could never get any connection, despite trying various serial cables and what not.   

The way to set up the box is to power it up, hold the RESET button down for three seconds, once it reboots, launch the software "EasyConfig", it will scan the network looking for Perle devices, once discovered, assign an IP address, then use a web browser to connect to that IP.  The default username is "admin" and the password: "superuser"

The models I have also require a CROSS-OVER in the mix.  I purchased little adapter/couplers from both MonoPrice and Amazon.  

In order to connect to a device, one telnets into the IP/DNS name of the serial switch followed by the port number that matches the port of on the serial switch.  IE if one wanted to connect to "stella", then telnet to:  IP-Of-Serial-switch:10002

One thing that REALLY annoys me, is that ANY change requires a reboot of the device.  Even changing the label to a port requires a reboot!

I also have a IOLAN SCS48 which is different far as the serial port wiring and I haven't been able to successfully get a terminal session to work.  Supposedly it prewired as RS232 Sun/Cisco pinout for direct console meaning it should just be a straight through cable for most connections.

mechanical 4gb USB "thumb" drive?

 This came through during some e-wasting recycling.  It is a 4gb hard drive (yes 4gb, not 4tb....CIRCA 2001?), but it is has a mechanical/spinning platters!  It appears to be in the Compact Flash form factor.   The card it is plugged into is a USB adapter.  Some searching says it is mostly likely from an early PlayStation memory expansion card.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PSP/comments/rvnkor/the_4gb_hard_drive_for_psp_by_datel/

10gb network card

 I ran across this and had to research what the heck it was.  I don't think I have ever seen a connector like that before. Turns out it's a 10gb network card, this particular one is a Chelsio.

Dell A/I GPU Server: Dell PowerEdge C4140

 

Another interesting build.  Dell has a line of GPU servers, and they are aged enough that they are on the 2nd hand market.  The cost of PCIe Tesla's or equivalent are kind of ridiculous.   However, Nvidia has another form factor, called SMX or NVlink.  It has more bandwidth than PCIe 3.0.  Because it has a completely different interface, it means there is less machines than can run this GPU, thus the prices are much lower.  In this case I was tasked with converting one from PCIe GPU's to SMX GPU's.  There is not a lot of information on these machines so maybe this post will help someone else. 

Pictured with Telsa GPU's

Pictured with Nvidia SMX GPU's

PowerEdge c4130 vs c4140

Side by side picture of the 2400 watt power supply next to the 1100watt power supply.  Note the 2400w power supply take a different power cord!  It takes a C19 connection.  As the power supply has a 16amp draw.  The system will not run on two 1100 watt power supplies, well kind of.  The system powers on, get through 1/2 of the posting process then powers down.  Looking in iDRAC, no errors are logged!  See this video:

System powers on, starts the posting process then shuts down.

Picture showing SMX2 system board with the GPU's.

To put this board in the bottom tray had to be swapped out.  To swap the trays the front frame had to be removed.  Which unfortunately meant there is now way to mount the power button, and LED indicator.  I couldn't find a replacement component listed anywhere.  I might be able to cut the old one down.  For now the LCD board is held in with foam and a zip tie.

Official cable routing for PCIe and power cables, there is not circuit board connector between the SMX board and the system board.

Picture showing post power, and PCIe cables, and GPU's installed.

Notes:

-System MUST use a 2400 watt power supply, dual 1100 watt supplies is not sufficient

-the third PCIe slot, the riser card is the same as the PowerEdge r640

-the 2nd PCIe slot does NOT support PCIe fraction 

-Does not support booting from NVMe; at least not from a PCIe->M.2 NVMe drive

-There is a "kit" to mount two 2.5" drives in the spot where the 2nd power supply would normally live, I just could not find the parts to purchase

-Used the same "modified" OCD SATA connector as other x40 PowerEdge servers

    -tried both the generic and Dell cable and could not get it to recognize any SATA drives.

-There is a fan shroud that goes between the GPU's..couldn't find the part number and/or a place to purchase

-Doing Automatic Updates on Windows 2019 would cause it to bluescreen.  My theory is that the Microsoft video drives conflicted with the Nvidia GPU's.

pcie cable  0y6tgj

pcie cable 0688n0

pcie cable  02f5p8

pcie cable  086khr

power cable   0ynp05

power cable   0528cn

power cable   0528cn

power cable   0ryj56

What's inside a 100gb DAC cable?

 Ever wanted to know what is inside of a 100gb DAC cable?   I had a defective one finally come through so I opened it up.

Lenovo SR655 Server: IPMI/BMC Password & firmware

 Early versions of this server have at least one flaw.   If one has a server and doesn't know the password for IPMI access (the default username is:  "USERID") there is no way to change it!  One can go into the BIOS and go to change the account...one must actually type out the user account, as there is not display or drop down box, so literally there could be 10 usernames on the system. Typing in USERID, then typing in a new password, save, exit, test.....no dice, it will not work!   OK, so go back into the BIOS, create a new user with a new password, save, exit, no dice, it will not work!   It wasn't until AFTER updating the firmware, that I could create a new user, and get into the IPMI.  These servers use the REDFISH platform, so other tools SHOULD work. 

Also when setting the IP address, pay close attention to which NIC one is using.....one is for the dedicated NIC for BMC the other one is for a different NIC.  In this case this server only has not other NICs so I don't know where it goes to.  I have added in a pair of 100gb NICs so maybe it's riding on top of those?

The easiest way to update most of the firmware on these machines is to acquire a utility called "Lenovo XClarity Essentials Bootable MEdia Creator".   In this case, download and install on a Windows machine; go through the prompts, it will download all of the latest firmware for the server one chooses, and makes it into a bootable ISO.  From there load it onto a USB drive or whatever.  FWIW I haven't tried it on Ventoy yet. 

Dell PowerEdge r640: on board SATA ports

 Often times I choose to utilize the onboard SATA port on my servers.  Usually it is because I want the boot OS drive to be something outside of the RAID controller.  Maybe it is because all of the drive bays are in use for data drives, maybe it is distribution of I/O load, being less reliant on a specific controller, or even simplicity.  

On the Dell r640 is has a "new-ish" connector.  SFF-8611 Cable OCuLink  I have seen them in use in SuperMicro's.  I guess these are intended for PCI-e communications, however Dell decided to use them for SATA connectors.  That being said I was able to track down a "Oculink PCI-express SAS SFF-86114i To 4X SATA Server High-speed Conversion Cable".  This did not work.  I broke down and paid a premium to get a specific Dell cable.  Apparently the pin-out is different. On the r640, this would normally be used for the optical drive.  This particular machine didn't have a optical drive bay, so that cable didn't help me.  I did eventually find the  MB SATA cable PN 0VDHV7

In this case the SATA cable is leading to a combination PCIe-M.2 NVME & M.2 SATA card.  Due to the heatsink on the NVME card, there was only one spot to put the card.  The cable routing was tight but acceptable.