SUPERMICRO MBD-X9DAi-O Extended ATX Server Motherboard Dual LGA 2011 DDR3 1600/1333/1066/800

Pros: im here to ask question , I stumble upon a PSU problem, I need 24-pin and two 8-pin power connec-tors.Which manuracturer had that

Cons: none since haven't put it to work

Pros: Bought them in bulk, all working smoothly. one ram slot is not working in one board I received, but changing my ram to another slot makes it work. This board has everything I need for a server machine.

Cons: single DOA ram slot is my only disappointment. But i am satisfied with this low failure rate.

Pros: I'm sure there would have been plenty if the board would have worked.

Cons: Motherboard was basically faulty and when testing the setup on my workbench, with the power-button cable from the case properly connected, I found that the motherboard would turn on automatically once: (i) the 20+4 pin and two 4+4 pin 12V connectors were attached to the motherboard, (ii) the PSU switch was flipped to on, and (iii) without pressing the case's power button. Further, all of the other components, except the GPU/GPU fan, e.g., the HDDs, the optical drive, the CPU fans, and the PSU fan, would also start up with the motherboard, which is, suffice to say, very odd behavior.

Also, it would have been nice to have had dual, on-board USB 3.0 connectors for the front panel.

Other Thoughts: For those who are interested, in an attempt to see if, perhaps, some of the components were faulty, I placed the GPU (an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680) in an ATX-based system and found that it worked perfectly. Further, I verified that the PSU (COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold Series RSA00-80GAD3-US 1000W ATX 12V v2.3/EPS 12V v2.92) worked on two different ATX-based systems.

Since these two tests demonstrated that the GPU and PSU were seemingly fine, I set about trying to diagnose if the motherboard was at fault. To this end, I ran the following tests, all of which led to the same behavior, i.e., the motherboard would turn on by itself and (where appropriate) without powering the GPU fan/GPU:
- Removed the case's power-on cable
- Ensured that the motherboard was properly grounded with nothing, save for the riser studs in the appropriate places, touching the underside
- Removed the I/O shield
- Put the motherboard in the case and attached the I/O shield
- Disconnected all drives
- Inserted, one at a time, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, 580, and 280, all of which are known to work, into the various PCIe x16 slots
- Removed the GPU entirely
- Removed and reseated the RAM (16x Kingston 16GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1600 Server Memory DR x4 1.5V)
- Removed CPU2 (an Intel Xeon E5-2687W) and left 8 sticks of RAM for CPU1, all of which were in valid slots, according to the motherboard manual
- Removed CPU2 and left 1 stick of RAM for CPU1 (also an Intel Xeon E5-2687W), which was in a valid slot, according to the motherboard manual
- Removed CPU2 and replaced CPU1 with a spare Intel Xeon E5-2630; further, I swapped out the DDR3 1600 stick for one stick of Kingston 16GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1333 Server Memory DR x4 1.35V
- Left the Intel Xeon E5-2630 in place and removed the RAM entirely, which did not produce any beep codes
- Removed the battery and reset the board, according to the motherboard manual

Since the penultimate step, i.e., removing the RAM entirely, did not produce any beep codes, according to the manual, the motherboard was flawed.

Pros: Everything fits on this board. The x16 Slots are positioned so that you can get basically any graphics card on the market into them.

Cons: Motherboard was DOA. Power supply was checked out good, as was the front panel switch, cable, and connection to the board (verified with the manual and a multi-meter). But the computer won't turn on. Because of that, I'm going to mark this board as 3 Eggs for now, I want to see how a working board will run in my setup (2x 4 core Xenons, 32 GB DDR3 RAM graphics workstation), before I re-review it after getting a working board.

Additionally, there's only one USB 2.0 riser on the board, the other one is an internal USB 2.0 jack, which makes more than two USB 2.0 connections to the board impossible for cases with more than one set (or an internal card reader, for instance).

Other Thoughts: Having gotten to the point of having fully built the computer before attempting to turn the stupid thing on, I was reminded that a motherboard will still turn on with no damage to any components without a processor or RAM... having done that would have saved me a couple of hours of squeezing the board (it's huge) into the case and then getting everything installed and connected, oh, and wasting a tube of thermal paste on the processors and heatsinks which had to be removed to RMA the board.

Pros: It has good features at the price-point.

Cons: 1. They do not correctly advertise the specifications. This is NOT and EATX motherboard. it is a *variation* of EATX. The mounting holes do not line up with any other chassis... besides their own. Tthis is a "EATX revision 'm' " product -- It only works in their own chassis, that happens to cost 3x the price!

2. Whoever approved the BIOS should be fired. Immediately. It is a royal pain to set up, and simple things like boot drive selection wind up taking far, far too long.

Other Thoughts: This motherboard right here is a good reason for me not to trust Supermicro anymore.

Pros: Top-notch build quality and components. Very well thought-out. Oodles of management options for use in an enterprise environment. Connectivity options are pretty good too, with all the essentials you would want in a beefy workstation. Super fast! Love this platform. Using it for video post-production and visual effects, working with 4K RED footage.

Cons: Beware! Mounting hole pattern is listed as EATX on NewEgg and SuperMicro's website. But, it is not what you would expect for what's usually called EATX! I put this into a Corsair 800D case (awesome, btw) and I had to drill and tap four holes to get it to fit. Not a big deal for me but it could be a nasty surprise to someone.

Other Thoughts: I put DDR3-1600 ram into the board, but I can't get it to run full-speed (I did it correctly according to the memory population rules - read them, they are complex). It may be the fault of the DIMMs, as they report a number of options to the bord, but I setting the board to force 1600 doesn't stick. Perhaps a BIOS update will fix this. Intel storage drivers for installing windows are jinky! Highly recommend ignore the on-board RAID, put it into AHCI mode, and go get the Intel RSTe (Rapid Storage Tech Enterprise) drivers, not the normal RST ones. I had all kinds of stability issues until I figured that out. But now it's rock-solid and silly fast, and totally worth the headaches during the build (which honestly are to be expected for a generation of technology that's only months old)