Has anyone seen this issue? Xeon E3-1260L and SuperMicro X9SCM-F

Builds [LGA1155] NAS Killer 4.0
#1

I’m completing my 2nd NASKiller 4.0. This time I’m building a basic NAS backup server

CPU: Xeon E3-1260L
Motherboard: SuperMicro X9SCM-F

ISSUE:
CPU temperature sensor always seems to improperly present that it’s at “Medium”. This causes PWM fans to always fun at a high rate even from cold boot, which is then extra annoying noise.

The SuperMicro X9SCM-F IPMI/BIOS only has 3 temperature levels that it displays “low”, “medium” and “high”. It never displays actual temperature.

I’ve fairly thoroughly tested this to isolate it to being the CPU as the issue or at least the CPU not being perfectly compatible with this motherboard.

I have a working build with a the same model SuperMicro X9SCM-F motherboard and a Xeon E3-1270V2, this works properly as expected and the true CPU temperature is communicated between the CPU and motherboard. I swapped the CPUs between my working build and my non-working build. The result is that the Xeon E3-1260L improperly communicates its temp as medium or higher and causes fans to run at higher rate. I’ve returned this specific CPU for a replacement, hoping that maybe that particular one was faulty, however the same issue occurs with the replacement.

I would have liked to use the E3-1260L for lower power, and i suppose I could try the E3-1265Lv2. However, that’s much more expensive and may end up having the same issue because maybe this issue could occur with all 45W TDP CPUs?

Is there any insights or solutions for this?

#2

What are your actual temps?

#3

@JDM_WAAAT

BIOS/IMPI say medium even when I measure surface temperature of cpu from cold boot around 22-23C.

Booting into Linux and running “watch sensors” from lm-sensors it seems to show all the cores at around 38-39C when my IR surface thermometer shows 27-28. However it does seem that fans do slow a bit to a slightly more reasonable level when booted into Ubuntu.

Hanging out in the BIOS fans still run according to the Medium level that is being reported. System and peripheral temps show at 24C and 26C respectively.

#4

@JDM_WAAAT

I’m thinking I’ll probably return the E3-1260L

Thoughts on me trying the E3-1265Lv2v (45w TDP)? ~$60

Or should I just play it safe and stick with the E3-1270v2 because I know it already works ~$80?

#5

What are you attempting to accomplish by replacing the CPU?

#6

@JDM_WAAAT

I want a cpu that is fully compatible with the motherboard. I want it to properly communicate cpu temperature levels and not cause my fans to spin at 1000+rpm when they only need to be spinning at 300rpm.

Quiet system vs needlessly loud system wasting extra energy.

I know that the E3-1270v2 works fine. But I don’t need that powerful of a CPU in this server. That’s why I was hoping to be able to use the E3-1260L but i don’t want to deal with the temperature sensor incompatibility issue.

I’m not familiar enough with these families of CPU to know if a E3-1265Lv2(45w TDP) would potentially have the same issue with this board as the E3-1260L. If not, I’d go with the lower cost lower power CPU instead of buying a E3-1270Lv2

#7

The E3-1260L is fully compatible with your system. IMO just use a manual fan controller and set temps to a low speed, there’s no need for them to ramp up and down. Your system will not produce that much heat.

Like this one: https://amzn.to/330uv0c

#8

Thanks for your thoughts. That’s a pretty neat controller that looks like it could actually work around the issue pretty well I suppose.

#9

SOLUTION:

Just follow up on this, I’m personally going to conclude that the E3-1260L CPU model is specifically not try fully compatible with the SuperMicro x9scm-f motherboard in terms of reporting proper CPU temps to the BIOS / IPMI.

I tried ordering and using multiple different CPU chips of this model and all behaved the same.

In the end, I ordered the E3-1265Lv2(45w TDP) and it works fine.

1 Like
#10

See I was under the impression you weren’t supposed to use a processor with built-in graphics with the Supermicro boards that have the integrated graphics.

This is straight off the support page at Supermicro…

Per Intel’s spec, for platforms using C202/C204 PCH:

  1. Intel i5/i7 CPUs are not supported
  2. Intel E3-12x5 series processors which have integrated graphics support are not recommended.
    ** Supermicro X9SCM-F motherboard is using a dedicated graphic from Matrox G200eW.
    *** BIOS rev. 2.0 or above is needed to support new E3-1200 v2 CPUs, which supports PCI-E 3.0 & DDR3 1600.