LGA 1155 Desktop mobo for ESXi?

[ExtremeX]

[bigmike82]

http://ultimatewhitebox.com/motherboard

Short answer...it seems like a heck of a lot of mobos out there will support esxi.

[glock 357]

1155 or 1156?

[ExtremeX]

1155 or 1156?

1155

This is the exact same proc I removed from the systems.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115074

[ibanezfoo]

For a lab machine, as long as its 64 bit with a few cores you will be fine. Cram as much RAM as possible in there. I just got a Dell M1000E loaded with a few M620's, an Equallogic back end, and some Force10 network gear to play with for my VMware environment (production)! Whoohoo!

[NorCal Einstein]

I have 2 whitebox machines built off Xeon E3-1230 and ASRock Z77 Extreme4 motherboards. At first I went exploring the ESXi road, but the combination of new consumer hardware + "enterprise" software was a nightmare. If I remember right, I think I was able to get a bare system (no RAID card, no PCI-e NIC) up and running after using ESXi5 Rollup 2, but the more cards I added, the more problems I got which I believe ultimately boil down to UEFI in these consumer motherboards.

Whatever you do, before you buy the motherboard, search like mad to see if there are use cases of that particular motherboard working with ESXi 5. While the ASRock + ESXi didn't work for me perfectly, it might be enough for what you need. I don't know for sure, but if you can find a 1155 motherboard that has BIOS instead of UEFI, I think you'd probably be in good shape.

[NorCal Einstein]

Actually I take it back, I just checked my bookmarks and I ended up getting ESXi to work after customizing my own installer package, NOT using R2.

Directions I followed:

http://loadingsysadmin.wordpress.com/2012/05/09/the-broadcom-bcm57781-asrock-z77-extreme-4-and-you/

Pretty small and crude worksheet I ran across. Not super helpful but here it is anyway:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AjymuQhfM0vYdHZtNThGSllMeU1SMU9ldVltUmp4NWc#gid=0

[ExtremeX]

NorCal Einstein,

Thanks so much for the information... I also came across the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 in my searches, seems to be a few blogs while some whitebox builds using that same board. I decided to give that one a try and I have ordered it. Worst case scenario I don’t like the results and I just turn it into a regular desktop… Actually looks like a decent motherboard for a general purpose desktop too.

Thanks for the input and links, much appreciated.

From what I have researched myself, it looks like VT-d is confirmed on the Extreme4. I have plenty of Intel NICs sitting around which I plan on using too.

That E3-1230 is a great proc, why didn’t you go with something like a Supermicro server board (X9SCM-F) with IPMI if you are using Xeon Processors? I have that setup working in my production environment and it’s fantastic. I would have loved to go that route but that board doesn’t support the i5 processors.

[NorCal Einstein]

I wanted to passively cool the E3-1230 which restricted my choice of boards due to height clearance around the socket area, hahah

[bwiese]

I'm using Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770 and a Gigabyte Z77N-Wifi miniITX w/128GB SSD. (Adding another 256GB shortly.)

Good board.

I have special needs for my build, as I'm doing a Hackintosh.

[Bryansix]

No joke on the RAM. I admin a couple of servers and one has 48 GB and the other 128 GB.

[ExtremeX]

I'm using Ivy Bridge Core i7 3770 and a Gigabyte Z77N-Wifi miniITX w/128GB SSD. (Adding another 256GB shortly.)

Good board.

I have special needs for my build, as I'm doing a Hackintosh.

[ExtremeX]

No joke on the RAM. I admin a couple of servers and one has 48 GB and the other 128 GB.

Absolutely… my home lab server is only running 16GB ram, last night and I was doing for disaster recovery backup testing and I hit my ram cap. It’s unfortunate because when I build it I never thought I’d need that much.

New systems getting 32GB ram and adding a couple hosts would be nice.


My new mobo shows up tomorrow, just in time for a weekend build.

[ExtremeX]

I have 2 whitebox machines built off Xeon E3-1230 and ASRock Z77 Extreme4 motherboards.

Thanks again for the recommendation... built the system last night with this mobo and went off without a single problem.

Intel i5 2400 Sandy
AsRock Z77 Extreme4
16GB Ram (1333)
1 x PCIe Intel NIC (Pro CT)
1 x Dual Port Server Intel NIC (Pro MT)
Internal USB flash drive for ESXi
2 x Crucial SSD for VM Datastore
2 x 750gb 7.2k drives for bulk storage datastore

65 watts total @ idle

This worked out good for me, only cost out of pocket was $185 for the ram and mobo, everything else I had.

I’m going to buy another one of these mobos for the 2nd proc that I have... UEFI is kinda weird but didn’t present me with any problems. Still have to test VT-d for Direct i/o but it presents all the hardware to the host…

[NorCal Einstein]

Glad it worked for you!

I have some weird issue where CentOS will disable my dual port NIC (same as yours Pro MT) after it sits idle for awhile. I get the "disabling IRQ #177" message...still haven't figured it out, haven't had time to do it either.

UEFI is weird, and I'm a little sad it's the new standard. So long as you don't try to run RAID controllers (for now), you should be able to avoid the headaches I had. Enjoy your new hw!