I am about to setup some nodes. I have been reading the forums extensively and I regularly see that some NICs are not supported by Zero-OS. I am about to invest in some Dell R620s and I can specify a quad port NIC. Is there a list of NICs that are supported? I haven’t been able to find one.
Thanks.
Not sure if a list exists, but I can confirm that the factory default 4-port NIC works 100% on the R620
I have had problems with the embedded nic on dell r710 and others of that generation. As the other poster said r620s work and are probably the best choice of any server.
I can also confirm that the NICs on the R620s work pretty well.
I have some of the 4 port cards and dome 2+2 SFP+ ports cards. Both cards work fine.
I can choose either the Dell i350 quad port or the Dell BCM5720. The latter is half the price.
What isn’t clear is whether there are any Ethernet ports native to the chassis - so maybe I don’t need to add this?
They should be semi-embedded (I made that term up, so don’t google it) with no need to add any, but I don’t know if the reseller is doing something weird. It looks like both of those models come in standard pcie card and the modular semi-embedded format. It would be very lame he was charging more to include the NIC they all come with by default.
I checked the Dell spec sheet and the server is sold with a variety of NIC options. I have selected the cheapest one. It is $30. Let’s see what arrives.
I have also gone for this RAID option (H310 MiniMono (SAS/SATA) RAID Kit ) as it comes with all the SATA cables and can be configured for “No RAID”. Any experience with this?
H310 is the standard RAID controller. I’m guessing in the no raid option they are pulling out the raid card? Is there a link you can share?
If you plan to use the front bays you should opt for the controller.
I appreciate the help.
I plan to put 2 x Xeon ES-2560L processors (10 cores each - 40vCPUs) with a 70W TDP. In your experience, how much power does the chassis consume at idle? I am trying to understand the power demands/costs and whether I should try to offset with a solar/battery setup.
They will idle at less than 100w I think. I can get you better number tonight.
I have the 12 core and I’m below 100W with these. So you really can expect less than 100 W power draw.
RAM configuration can also does +/- some Watts.
Hi guys I have BRCM 10G/GbE 2+2P 57800 rNDC on my Dell R620 but somehow i am getting a message “No Network Card Found” on the start while booting into Zero-OS. Any ideas? someone had issue with this NIC?
Looks like this card has been supported in the kernel for some time, so I don’t think it’s a driver issue. Is the card recognized by iDRAC or some live Linux?
Thanks for the reply scott, yes they are recognized - I lost my nerve with farmerbot and everything, - something similar happen with a node running on dl380p gen 8, it was working fine and after and then after farmerbot (5th try) it went into error - no network connection same as the R620, so i ordered replacements for both of them on Ebay and shold have them soon Broadcom 5720 4 port 1gb Nic for the DELL R620 and 331FLR 4port for the HP. Lets see what happens.
Also I did not received any minting rewards from the day i deployed the FB - I saw that there is an update so maybe, i should redo the deployment for the 6th time. Fun times 
Cheers…
Scott I have to report this, because maybe it is normal but it looked like a strange behavior to me. I don’t know if it was better to write here or on Telegram.
The 331FLR for the HP DL380p Gen8 arrived and I replace the 2 port NIC that was in the server with it.
This node was the second one I have build and deployed, and was working fine for months, I got error “no network connection” while booting ZeroOS, - I noticed this few days days after I configured WOL and deployed farmerbot.
The strange thing is almost instantly after I connected the server on the network and powered it on, all the other nodes started to wake up, and I starter receiving notifications once again on the Telegram Bot.
I was planning to redeploy the FB this weekend, thinking I had some issues with it, but… I’ll wait for few more days to see what happens, and what will show in the log file.
cheers
Hi @3bolt, just catching up here.
With the new information that you had multiple nodes start displaying the same networking error, I’m wondering if the issue is actually in the network cards at all.
Another farmer noticed an issue after starting the farmerbot that was actually upstream at the router. It manifested as intermittent network errors on all of the nodes during boot. Doing the regular reboots can reveal issues that are hidden when Zos is running constantly.
I think this makes sense given the mechanisms that allow the farmerbot to work. If all of your nodes have a power target of “Up” but they are all powered off, then when you power on one node it will start waking up the others automatically. This happens even if the farmerbot isn’t currently running.
Thanks for the reply Scott. Just got back from a trip and i see the other NIC has arrived. It looks to me that i have to amend all issues with the NIC but most importantly with Farmerbot ,since on last payout i received only 2,48TFT instead of 2.470,00TFT. Per node.
Hopefully the new Farmerbot version 0.2.0 will resolve the issues I’m having.
The alternative will be standard minting for me with a higher electricity bill, Or… Selling some of my nodes.
We can take a look to see what happened with your minting. Feel free to contact the support team with your farm info or DM me on Telegram (@scottyeager).