AMD FX 8-Core Black Edition build

[Ernst0]

Hello everyone I'm Ernst

I looked and I don't see a thread on this chip so I will start one. Forgive me if I missed it.

I have upgraded my machine and I did so somewhat blindly. I simply have TigerDirect send me the bare-bones.

My experience level is novice and the machine seems to be a monster.

I am currently waiting for the memory to arrive so now is a good time to find kind souls to advise me. I thank you sincerely ahead of time if you help. I know I will not understand all that is now and improved.

I use my computer mainly for writing C programs and general Internet and Entertainment.

I want to install the Latest Fedora and I will skip adding Windows all together this machine.

So, let me start with introducing the CPU. I simply am an AMD man so I asked about the 8-core and it was available and affordable. Here is a link that caught my eye first. There is no other reason for me linking this. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4955/t...-fx8150-tested
In fact I didn't even know it was named BullDozer until I found a thread here and connected the two. There are many threads on Buldozer so you can search.
I see by reading that article I have the current top chip the 8150.

So CPU is the 8150 and the Motherboard is the TA990FXE http://206.108.48.60/app/en/mb/intro...S_ID=560&tab=3

This is my first build ever. I have been plug and play for decades. I believe I have things plugged in okay but I have to wait for the memory so I have not turned it on yet.

Now on to Fedora.

I wish to use Fedora 16 and I would like to share my experience with others seeing that this may be the first of many FX 8-Core

If you will be so kind this is what I have to work with.

I have three 1.5 TB drives and one 500 GB drive I am unsure of how I work the RAID and such. I have been reluctant to follow along or as I get older I fail to follow along it's a fair call either way.

I need to be sure my data is protected and I read that RAID drives can do that from the motherboard manual. But as is always true it is a Microsoft point of view that is used.

What I need is safe storage for my programming data and reasonable safe storage for the media collections.
Can I have say 500 GB of redundant data across 4 drives and use the other 3TB for Media? I hope I am asking that correctly. This new system is a Monster and I sure can use some advice.
So for me personally I will fit fine in 500 GB and for media files well more room is better than less.
Is it possible to mix and match RAID and is it possible to divide up the 4 drives into those two configurations?
I think I can make backups to an external 3TB on the media stuff. The code stuff well if there is a failure of a drive then the redundancy seems very smart indeed.


The next part is what about Fedora 16? are there any friends here who have experience with the AMD FX 8150 who can over view? Not just for me but for all. I wish to report my experience as I go.
I'm confident this will all work and I am ever so thankful for all this great technology and that goes triple for RedHat. Every year I access Windows less and less. Mostly now on the Laptop when a movie won't play on anything else but that is an external to Linux issue.

So I plan to install Fedora 16.

The complete system here is the Amd 8150, TA990FXE, Apeiva Xcruiser2 tower,Evga GTX550Ti, Apevia 680w Iceburg power

The only flaw so far is that the 680 power supply came with the old style plugs when the package states SATA style. Easy fix but annoying.

One other thing is this will be the first time I will be hooking up two monitors as well. I have two 28 inch and I wish to rotate one the long way for documents and code display. I am unsure how that works as well.

So once again I intend to add to the content of the site in a hopefully helpful way and also lean on you my friends since in terms of swimming in a swimming pool I am starting out in the deep end for my skill set but isn't it wild that we have such technology today? Just amazing.

Okay, I will be reading more and the expected power up is mid week or later so there is time.


Ernst

P.S. Moderators : Maybe I posted in the wrong forum? Please move if so. Pardon me if I am in error.

[GregLee]

Originally Posted by Ernst0

Can I have say 500 GB of redundant data across 4 drives and use the other 3TB for Media? I hope I am asking that correctly. This new system is a Monster and I sure can use some advice.
So for me personally I will fit fine in 500 GB and for media files well more room is better than less.
Is it possible to mix and match RAID and is it possible to divide up the 4 drives into those two configurations?

I'm pretty sure you can do that with no problem, using Linux software RAID. Just so you can match up the 500GB parts of the 4 drives, any remaining storage on the drives can still be used for un-RAIDed filesystems. I don't recall the details any longer, but I set up two such systems, and one worked fine for a long time. The other, my home system, did work for about 4 years, but unfortunately all its disks were hooked up to a single HD controller, which broke. (Now, I'm thinking it is safer to back up on independent USB disks -- no single failure point.)

That sounds like a nice system you're getting. I'm expecting, in a couple days, an AMD 4-core system, so a step down from yours, but we might encounter some common problems. Today, I've been looking around the Web for how to give Gnome 3 the 3D video driver it needs. My system is an A8-3820 with on board Radeon HD 6550D controller, and it looks to me like I'll need to use the AMD proprietary "Catalyst" video driver for it. But I'm not sure.

[Ernst0]

Thank you for the reply.

Thanks it feels good just to touch base. Every time I upgrade it seems the technology has changed even more.
That is welcome news that I can make use of redundancy. I mean I have it so now to use it.

I agree with you that ultimately an external drive backup is the restore of last resort. I know too how it feels to lose data. I lost a drive full of pictures because of one mis-click of the mouse.

I take it that it is okay to blog about this here so i will try and share my experiences. Again if what I am doing is in a wrong category please move.

Just a few more days till the memory arrives.

---------- Post added at 09:19 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:00 PM ----------

Hey, I have a question about Fedora and RAID controllers.

I see in the Motherboard manual that the RAID configuration is transparent to Fedora because of it being a hardware controller.
The hardware controller offers RAID0, RAID1, RAID10 and RAID5
I have very old school understanding as it has served many years.

On the Hardware RAID side RAID5 is recommended as General purpose use. The drawback is the write performance may be CPU intensive, Read is same speed as single platform drive. RAID5 looks like a good choice for a hobby-programmer with personal and media files.

So I have the question about Fedora and the hardware. Once I have this RAID5 setup going it is all logical so there is no partitioning is that correct?

Advice on what to do here is wlecome. I realize that I only have 4 SATA plugs on the motherboard now so it is one dvd and 3 1.5TB drives.

There is something disturbing about virtual storage to me however, understanding error checking codes as I do there is much to love I am guessing. Everything is a trade-off isn't it.

It feels like I am stepping into space with this as an old school computer user who started on a z80 reading Micro-80 as thick as a small town phone book monthly.. There is something about virtual data storage under algorithms one can only imagine that tugs on the data-storage strings of my mind.

Summery: I pick RAID5 and then I deal with it as one big drive under Fedora and that is what I can expect or am I in error? Backups to external drives is the best way to keep collections intact? RAID offers the metrics and dynamic logical storage?

I am trying to make headway. Any advice is welcome because I don't know if I have things right.

Ernst

Ernst0

[GregLee]

I have no experience with hardware RAID. I used software RAID, as I mentioned, and at the time (a decade ago) the review comments I saw said the software RAID on Linux was at least as good as hardware RAID.

[Ernst0]

Originally Posted by GregLee

I have no experience with hardware RAID. I used software RAID, as I mentioned, and at the time (a decade ago) the review comments I saw said the software RAID on Linux was at least as good as hardware RAID.

Thanks GregLee,

I am unsure what to expect. I've limped along not really understanding logical volumes and now RAID hardware. It's my fault.
Looks like I have more reading to do. I'm betting I'll see something today that will lift the fog.

[GregLee]

I set up logical volumes on my previous Linux system, but not my present one. I didn't find any advantage to them -- if I recall correctly, they let you resize partitions -- but I never needed to do that. And a problem I've had with using such special features in Linux is that, after I've got it set up and running okay, if I need to go back and make some change in the system after a few years, it's hard for me to remember just what I did when I set it up, even when I can find my notes. So for the home system I'm using now, everything is plain vanilla.

[Ernst0]

I'm an old SCSI minded guy. In fact I remember when everyone was switching to SCSI in my club. I think my first SCSI drive was a 52 MB 3.5 inch and my second was a 640? mb 5 & 1/4 inch monster. Sounded like a train when it spun up. Cost like $400 too.

But back then it was all about physical volumes. It was easy to rationalize what was going on.

The memory arrives today so I will start investigating this new machine and F16. I assume the system will work with a single drive even though it's a RAID controller.

There are new things to discover but I think getting older and the tech getting newer is bad news for me lol

---------- Post added at 03:56 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:32 AM ----------

Good news. The memory arrived and after discovering I had the front power switch plugged wrong I am now able to power up and it feels good.

I see already I have to learn how to do a few things.

I hope people won't think I am too lazy to research things as I am not but I am unsure what to look for.
I will make every effort to solve things on my own but advice is very welcome.

Trying to allocate 1003 pages for Vmlinuz
Got pages at 0x02dbb000 [Linux-EFI,setup=0x1017,size=0x3eafb0]
I see nothing directly related in search.

The above is an error I assume has something to do with protected memory but I don't know.

Oh this is the Fedora 16 install disk through Torrent download.

The big problem is the video. I see that it says fb: conflict hw usage nouveaufb vs EFI VGA - removing generic driver.
Obviously I see nothing after this. I have a Gforce GTX550TI. The only link I saw is http://forums.fedoraforum.org/archiv.../t-270798.html . I assume I must set a jumper or set something. Oh it is more than a blackout it's hung.

I will go with the on-board video and see what happens oh my bad no on-board video.

Well I am not crying I'm excited. This is a dream computer from my point of view.

Any suggestions? I wish I was young and could plough through it all while sipping pepsi and chatting on-line at the same time but not any more for me.

I used the drives from the desktop I have here awaiting a replacement cpu. It's a HP and uses the early quad core chip so I have to see who has some to sell. It is Fedora14

I need to ask about MMU I see in the BIOS of the AM3+ board that is has an IOMMU I read that as I/o MMU and this is "NorthBridge" I remember reading years ago that NorthBridge would be in chips but I don't remember more. So it's default was disabled and I tried things with it enabled and see no difference in the issues I am facing but I could stand advice on which setting is the right one.

Edit: I found information on working with building systems here http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...41#post1553441. I posted a question of IOMMU on or off in NorthBridge

Ernst0

---------- Post added at 04:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:56 PM ----------

I asked about the video issues here http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...48#post1553448

[VernDog]

You might try looking at theis guide on nVidia drivers.

[Ernst0]

Originally Posted by VernDog

You might try looking at theis guide on nVidia drivers.

I think I missed your post before. I had a new build, I am sure I was distracted.

So do the install, patch and change out cards?

Sorry, it's late and I just saw this.

[VernDog]

Originally Posted by Ernst0

I think I missed your post before. I had a new build, I am sure I was distracted.

So do the install, patch and change out cards?

Sorry, it's late and I just saw this.

Its best to follow the instructions on that page and ask your questions their. Also go to that forum and search for your card in question. Your question may already be answered.

I'm unsure what is meant by change out cards. You mentioned the integrated video vs the plug-in nvidia card. I would guess you want to use the more powerful plug-in card.

[Ernst0]

Hey I have a new desktop and it's the AMD AM3+ 8-core with a GTX550Ti graphics card.
I have a thread sharing my experiences here http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showth...=1#post1553358
Since this is an issue that effects the F16 DVD and also effects the F14 installed in previous desktop's drives perhaps there is some information on what to do already available.

I placed the displayed error reports in the above thread.

Basically the F16 install DVD advances says there is a conflict with video and removes the generic driver and hangs. With F14 it simply advances and hangs.

Both events require a power off and will not allow a reset via reset on the front panel.. Didn't try the motherboard reset but I can if need be.

So I thanks you, this site and AMD for such a cool cpu.


Ernst0

---------- Post added at 04:59 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:53 PM ----------

On motherboard reset works after "hang up"

---------- Post added at 05:07 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 PM ----------

I enabled something called VGA Pallet Snoop and the install DVD printed an aditional line in the stratup output of Started Mark the need to relabel after reboot

So that seemed to help print another line before hanging

---------- Post added at 05:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:07 PM ----------

Turning northbridge iommu on with vga pallet snooping goes back to fewer lines displayed

---------- Post added at 05:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:14 PM ----------

I used the old video card out of the old desktop and I am in on the old hard drives.

If there is no solution is this a bug?

I have never reported a bug before.

[Ernst0]

Update ; On the video : I put the old cheep video card in the new machine and I am in on the old hard-drives which is way cool since the old desktop cpu had heat lock issues when running 3 cores at 100% and the other for system use. (number crunching)

So if that problem is a bug I can report it? Should I??

Originally Posted by Ernst0

Update ; On the video : I put the old cheep video card in the new machine and I am in on the old hard-drives which is way cool since the old desktop cpu had heat lock issues when running 3 cores at 100% and the other for system use. (number crunching)

So if that problem is a bug I can report it? Should I??

report it to https://bugzilla.redhat.com/ http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_file_a_bug_report

[bob]

Threads merged. Please read the Posting Rules - one thread per topic.

[Ernst0]

Fedora 16 is weird.

Why the deviation?


News. 4.9 TB storage 16GB ram and an 8-core. I am ready but Fedora 16 is like a Mac?


Strange.. I'll keep an open mind but my focus is broken.