Best Practices For Building A Multiple GPU System

[smicha]

1. If you boot your SSD in legacy mode and MBR then 4 partitions are max, but enough to have win10 installed on a separate partition.

2. Use mini tool partition magic to create 3rd partition for win10

3. Download latest compilation of win10 and save as ISO. Use rufus to create a bootable stick in MBR DOS mode.

4. If a boot loader does not work properly after installing win10 you may fix it with easybcd free software.

If you need further help let me know

PS. Use Aomei backupper to backup your entire SSD including boot loader.

[FrankPooleFloating]

smicha, I appreciate the help so very much, I really do, but I was looking to find out if I can extend the System Reserved Partition with Disk Management (or even a partition app I guess), so that I may upgrade my Win7x64Pro to Win10Pro and not have a 2nd copy of windows on C-drive, with dual boot etc. I think I am just 8mb shy of being able to upgrade to Win10. Are you saying that it is impossible to extend the System Reserved Partition? I have not been able to get a solid answer on this.

[smicha]

Oh, I see. I've never had such issue.

BTW If you want to go with win10 only I strongly recommend not updating win7 (very unstable in my case after updating). If you want just to try win10 backup your entire SSD including boot partition (and keep it just in case you want to recover back) and run clean install of win10 in UEFI mode on GPT. I know it will take some time to install it all but it will be stable, at least should be.

After installing win10 and updating it run disk cleanup function anyway. To free some more space run CMD in admin mode and type: powercfg.exe -h off (if you don't need to hibernate win10).

[Tutor]

Thanks Smicha for helping Frank.

[FrankPooleFloating]

AOMEI claims its Partition Assistant Standard Edition (free one too) allows you to extend the System Reserved Partition, and they even cite my situation of not being able to upgrade to Win10 from Win7/Win8 because of insufficient SRP space... I am going to try that, and if it doesn't screw my CDrive I am going to try and upgrade to Win10Pro. I will report back and let you fellas know the outcome. If you don't hear from me by tonight some time, I'm indeed screwed and restoring everything... And if it does work but Win10Pro is unstable, I will be able to restore to current state... My Win7x64Pro is damn stable, and has been for a couple years. I virtually never get crashes that require reboots. From what I have read, if OS is stable to begin with, Win10 upgrade should be pretty stable, but if it was dodgy to begin with, most or all of those problems carry over to Win10. So we will see. Call me a Guinea Pig I guess...

Edit: Extending SRP went off without a hitch. Whew! But between cloning CDrive and JDrive (SRP) to a backup, and then extending SRP took something like 4 hours! Win10Pro upgrade in progress... Like anyone is hanging on the edge of their seat here on a Sunday night...

Edit Part Deux: Success!! Pretty stable so far. Fired up LightWave/Octane, rendered some crap. Worked on a heavy scene. No crashes. Same with Davinci, PS, ZBrush, Painter. All good so far.

[FrankPooleFloating]

Just thought of something else I'd like to ask you guys.. If my mobo has the NVMe PCIE x4 m.2 slot between GPU-2 and GPU-3 slots, is this considered a bad location -- because of heat of m.2 - and lack of airflow between two of my hybrids to the m.2 below -- and thus I should not bother putting in a m.2? I would really like to slap one in, for animations editing (not tons, less than average I think - and nothing above 2k res), but don't want to waste the dough if heat will be a major concern... I do have two 200mm fans in front of my X9, blowing towards mobo (horizontal) and I imagine that at least some wind gets between my hybrids, but prolly not much... I would be getting a Samsung 970 EVO 500GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 (..Samsung’s advanced nickel-coated controller and heat spreader on the 970 EVO enable superior heat dissipation.) . Anyone have any guidance on this?

mobo_m2.jpg

[smicha]

If your X9 is well ventilated (I used few in the past) you shall be fine with m.2. Can you mount a fan on a side of X9 to blow some extra air?

If you boot windows from it then make sure to set UEFI boot in BIOS. If this is for working files you may leave BIOS settings on default settings.

Look in the manual if you may run 4 GPUs and M.2 - if your CPU has enough PCIe lanes.

(M2_20G and SATA Express connectors can only be used one at a time. The
SATA Express connector becomes unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed,
but the SATA3 4/5 connectors are still functional.)


Check if you have latest BIOS, F23c isn't it?

PS. Look at PM981 drives - more server oriented - better performance and longevity.

[FrankPooleFloating]

Great! Thanks smicha! I will definitely consider PM981. Looks like it is only $20 more.

Win10Pro and apps running like champs! So I will stop hijacking this thread.

[smicha]

I am on a UEFI and GPT win10 for 1 month on a Supermicro X11 platform and scalable xeon 4110 - it rocks

PS. Once you get into Supermicro world there is no way going back :

[Notiusweb]

I am on a UEFI and GPT win10 for 1 month on a Supermicro X11 platform and scalable xeon 4110 - it rocks

PS. Once you get into Supermicro world there is no way going back :

Hi Smicha,
This is a mega Noob question, but do you run Windows or Linux with the Supermicro?