So… A buddy and I were talking and got this idea into our heads about building new systems. He has a great homelab, however he wanted a bit more power. He started looking around and we found X99 Dual Processor Motherboards. that came with Dual E5 2680 V4. Yes Old tech… Curiosity got the best of us… the price seemed ok so they will be arriving in a few days.
Ram Prices are insane. he sold me his 32 GB of memory so I will have 64 GB in total, he found 4 x 16 GB Sticks for his system for a song.
I will be installing FreeBSD 15.0 and playing around.
Let the fun begin. Pics Soon
2 Likes
so from what I understand so far. This is apparently what is coming.
Once it arrives I will take pics.
My plan is to overbuild the snot out of this system. merely for the reason. once I can get lets say a dual 7000, or 9000 Epyc or a Xeon 5th Gen system. I can merely just drop it right in.
My Friend bought the same system I am getting his RAM so I have 64GB in total.
Case Ordered, power supply ordered, Small SSD Ordered for Functionality. Just the basics for now
no headless mode that I can see. so I have a radeon 6400 that will be used. (No gaming on that bad boy), just enough to give me a display.
Ok Case has finally come in, and Power Supply has come in. Friend has the Motherboard, Just scrounged up ram. putting in 128GB. Anyways
Here was my choice for case and Power Supply. I have the same Power Supply in my workstation. been running great, and cannot complain about the warranty
Love My Define7XL, Stayed with Fractal for the case choice. Just went for the Meshify 2XL. Reason Being … I am unsure if FreeBSD will work with the new USB Hub System for Cooling. Love the look of the XL2
I got a line on a Supermicro X10 Board. If this does not work out.
Should be an interesting experience either way. I think the boards have gotten a bit better as that video is about 4-5 years old.
Well… my friend came through. I now have 128GB of memory for this monstrosity. I am still waiting on the 2x E5 2698 V4
Soon… Very Soon
long story on the 2680’s My friend ordered just the board by mistake. so we had to go hunting.
1 Like
the processors should be here soon. 2 E5 2698 V4 will soon be in my possession as well as Ram and heatsinks. just need to pick up some 140MM fans for the case and thermal compound for the processors
40 Cores, 80 threads. gonna be great!
1 Like
alright… Little update here. All cooling supplies have arrived, cpus have landed, they are at my friends house. he is giving them a test to make sure they are good. then I will get it. (this was a team effort) 
Meshify 2XL fans installed 6 x Arctic P14 Pro PST PWM clocked at 2500 RPM with 110 CFM. that system should be nice a cool in a basement. especially in - 30 c to - 40 c in the winter time.
we bought 4 xeons All 4 are E5 2698 V4
Meshify 2XL with Arctic fans equipped
All 6 are installed 3 in front, 1 in back 2 on the top
and PSU
here is the thermal grease I am going to apply. I haven’t tried this one yet. we shall see
build probably getting finished on the weekend
rig will be 2 x E5 2698 v4
128GB DDR4 ECC REG 2133 Memory
radeon RX6400 just for a disply when needed , there is no hgeadless mode on the board
it will be fine
enjoy
1 Like
and the fan hub I picked up. IO am trying a different fan setup from my workstation. intake front, intake top, exhaust rear. I want to keep those cpus cool.
fan hub controller
Going for a little drive today to pick up motherboard, ram, memory, heatsinks… oh yes. the Xeons! 
build time.
cpus are mounted. since there is intake on the cpu fans I am presuming. I have intake on top fans
that is what I am going with
Going with a little test fit here, eyeing up my mouint holes
Video Card In and mounted
ok cpu power supply cables are too short to mount. I am unable to get power to the board. power suply is out of the case. Unable to get the system to power on.
I am guessing a dud power supply. no life, no post no nothing, dead in the water.
I am tired. Going to bed here soon.
2 Likes
all good. I think I have a power supply tester somewhere in the house. Still looking. worst comes to worst send the power su pply back
alright. found my PSU tester it was good. rechecked my wiring. I saw the issue. got that fixed up, forgot the cmos battery as well so that is all good.
got the system to power on. now seems to be a ram issue. I am getting a B7 code on the post code. Going to check and reseat ram one channel at a time. but not a bad power supply
I was very tired last night, got a little frustrated. lighting sucks, every time I needed to see something. there is no light.
1 Like
opk good news!!! almost got it
heres a fetch
I wanted FreeBSD 15.0 on here. so fedora only temporary
heres a fetch
Meet MyLittleProject
A work in progress
yeah. Just for the record. this system is insane. older tech… yes. I compiled bash 5.3 from source as a test with a make -j32
unreal.
1 Like
