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Desktop motherboards/CPUs that work with Hyper-V
Desktop motherboards/CPUs that work with Hyper-V
- I would like to build a test system using a desktop board and CPU to use with Hyper-V. I found a prior thread here that ended a few months back where some people had partial success with an E6550 CPU and boards such as the AsusP5E-VM DO or Intel DQ35J t. I have done quite a bit of searching and haven't found a lot of success stories. I also looked at socket AM2+ motherboards using a Phenom CPU.
I contacted Gigabyte and they said the BIOS of all their current boards supports AMD-V hardware virtualization if a suitable CPU is used. So a board such as the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H with a B3 stepping Phenom could be a candidate.
So my question is has anyone had good success with the above combinations or others when Hyper-V is installed?
Answers
I'm using the E8400 in one of my test systems, and it works great.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.- Marked As Answer byMike Sterling [MSFT]MSFT, OwnerFriday, May 30, 2008 10:47 PM
All Replies
Most of the people who are reporting successes are using Intel Q6600 processors with 8 GB of ram. I have an ASUS P5N32-E SLI and an Abit IP35 Pro. The ASUS is okay, but I like the Abit better. It supports 6 SATA drives and I will eventually go to a 6 drive RAID 10.
I'm already thinking about more ram. 4GB dimms will be available late this year. I want my next motherboard to be able to accommodate 16 GB of ram.
- Unmarked As Answer byUser 5 Friday, May 30, 2008 2:22 PM
- I am using the Intel Q35 chipset desktop motherboard and a Q9300 CPU which just announce; it is working OK.
Thanks for the reply.
Do you (or anyone else) know about success using a core 2 duo such as the E8400? I am also concerned about power consumption since this machine will probably be on all of the time (and our electric utility says the cost will more than double in the next two years). I don't know a lot about Hyper-V but I would imagine it is like most virtualization where you run out of RAM before you run out of CPU.
I don't know of any desktop boards that support 16 Gb. Maybe some of the current boards will support higher density modules with a BIOS upgrade?
I'm using the E8400 in one of my test systems, and it works great.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.- Marked As Answer byMike Sterling [MSFT]MSFT, OwnerFriday, May 30, 2008 10:47 PM
- I know it is subjective but when you say it works great do you mean you don't have any blue screens or lockups etc? Do you have the impression it has sufficient "horsepower" and are giving up anything compared to a quad core?
In prior time I would just buy the quad core but with rising energy cost I want to be as efficient as possible.
Thanks - Hello,
I use motherboard that is already mentioned above, Abit IP35 Pro with Intel Q9300 & 8 GB DDR2. I can easilly use at least 6 or 7 VM's (Win 2k3, 2k8, Core, Linux) with no problems.
About bluescreen... I did have one bluescreen but that happened on RC0, but now I use RC1 and everything works just fine except that Hyper-V mmc console crashes sometimes (but when I open Hyper-V Manager again it works without interrupting VM's). But that happens rarely so it's not much of a problem.
Hope this will help,
Ivor
Running Light without Overbyte - Anyone using the Intel BOXDQ35JOE motherboard? It has the Q35 chipset and 6 SATA ports. I can get those from distribution.
- I am using an Intel DP35DP board with the E6550 (2.33GHz) CPU along with 8 GB of RAM and everything works great. Performance-wise, my VMs seem faster than they were when using VMware Server (1.0 or the 2.0 beta). CPU usage numbers are much lower as well.
(Before switching to Hyper-V this week, I was considering upgrading the server to a quad-core CPU - it seems unnecessary right now.)
I would imagine that similar Intel boards would work as well. Interestingly, the DP35DP has a BIOS option for VT-d as well as regular VT. I'm contemplating building a white box Hyper-V solution. Like others here, I'm looking at a Q6600 and 8GB of memory. The question I have is related to IO subsystem. I'm sure from a performance perspective SCSI/SAS/SAN/NAS/whatever is better, but from a compatibility/important feature perspective, what is the minimum I should be looking at?
From a budget perspective, I'm hoping that a motherboard with a well supported controller and 4-6 SATA 3.0 drives in a RAID will be good enough. Is that realistic and if so, what tips would you have? One blog I read about white box ESX servers suggested a Perc 5i card with SAS to SATA cables.
As an aside, I'm hoping to run MSSQL on Server 2008 and then in a series of guest OS's run a TFS server, Developer Environment ( VS2005/2008 ), a Build Server and then have several other guests available for Windows Installer Package testing. I'll run everything remotely without console access.
Chris- Alright...I have been researching this for a few days now. I want to build a desktop system as well to run the Hyper-V technology of Server 2008. I called Gigabyte and asked them about their boards, specifically the Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H and the tech guy said that all of their boards are designed for multimedia purposes only. The architect behind the board is not designed to support hyper-v. Has anyone have success with this board running hyper-v? If not can anyone recommend a board and a CPU that does work together and is relatively cheap.
Thanks.
Donald Brohl - OK, I'll admit it, I'm really thrifty when I'm spending my own money....
I am a developer. I put this together from scratch (as a proof of concept) a couple of months ago, for less than $500, and it has been terrific for that purpose. Raise eyebrows now....
ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI Socket AM2+ uATX Motherboard, AMD 780G Chipset, supports AM2+/AM2 CPUs, SATA 3Gbs RAID (max 6 drives, Raid 1, 0, or 1+0) $88.00
(Note: this board has been eclipsed by it's newer brother, the M3A78-EM which supports AMD's higher-power (140 Watt) Quad-core CPUs and is the same price, at least on eBay, so anyone seriously looking @ this platform, please buy the newer model.)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ BE Black Edition, dual-core 2.6Ghz CPU, $80, plus cooling fan, $25 (after rebate)
4GB Patriot PC2-6400 DDR2 RAM (2x2GB) 800MHz, Low Latency (fast) extreme performance series, $65 (after rebate)
(2) 500GB Hitachi SATA 3 drives 7200RPM, power saving 7K500 series, $80 each (after rebate)
Thermaltake Purepower 500W Power supply $80
(1) old desktop case that already had a floppy, DVD+-RW, DVD-ROM, and an ASUS WL130-N (N-speed) wireless PCI adapter card ($0)
Total cost: $498 Dollars,
"A Windows Server 2008 Standard Ed. Hypervisor that could double as a HTPC when I'm done with it, PRICELESS"
The motherboard has video (incl. 1080p HDMI), audio, RAID, and a gigabit ethernet controller onboard. So you only load about 2 or 3 driver packages and you're done. Vista 64 device drivers worked flawlessly, thank you AMD/ATI. Wireless works fine too, fwiw.
The ASUS wireless PCI adapter card uses Railink's chipset and I have been using the Railink OEM wireless drivers for a while now with this card (under Vista) and I was pleased to see that even their 32-bit wireless config utility worked in WOW64 without a hitch. I have since gotten off my lazy butt and pulled 80 feet of CAT-5 through part of the garage and the basement ceiling, so now I have enabled the gigabit NIC instead. I still owe the wife two drywall patches in the ceiling.
I used one drive for the OS and a parent data partition, and the other for the VMs and their VHDs.
BTW, I got all the hardware set up before I added the Hyper-V role. And, the Hyper-V role is the only role on the Parent.
I am using Symantec Endpoint Protection for my anti-every-kind-of-ware suite on the Parent, and child VMs too, except for XP vm's. Downgraded to something less resource intensive for the XP VMs.
Turns out that 4 Gigs of ram is just enough to boot about 3 VMs, depending on how much RAM you give each. I've got an IIS VM, a SQL Server VM, and a Vista VM that I'm working with. I have a couple XP VMs too but there is just something about the integration that makes XP act like a CPU pig so I'm not playing that game atm.
Confession time: I just got another 4GB RAM this week. I need to work with a directory services + cert server, so that's next on the list. And to be fair I think the SQL server could do with a bit more RAM. I found a $25 rebate on a 4GB kit of the 1066Mhz ram (so that's another $100), and bought it to use now, with a quad-core Phenom in mind for later.
Now that I've seen what can be done, my plan is to upgrade to a quad-core and increase storage soon. I have the drives I need to run RAID-5 via an old Promise board now. Or, I can wait a month or two and get a new motherboard based on the forthcoming 750 southbridge which will also have integrated graphics. I think it'll be called the 790GX chipset. The 750 southbridge is better-tuned for AMD's quad-core CPUs and the newer chipset will support SATA3 RAID-5 onboard.
So all told, this was a cheap POC box and I am serious about re-purposing it as an HTPC in a few months. This forum has been/continues to be a great resource too.
Game on...
- Edited bymrbillishere Wednesday, July 30, 2008 8:26 PMtypo!
- i want as well use a Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2H, because it need with an Athlon 64 X2 4850e only 45 Wattin Idle
best Powersetting for an Homeserver
but i read Bios,
there is this Option:
Virtualization
Virtualization allows a platform to run multiple operating systems and applications in independent
partitions. With virtualization, one computer system can function as multiple virtual systems.
(Default: Disabled)
But i read, i need as well this Option
Execute Disabled Bit
but i dont can find this in this Bios did i always need this option - What did you find out about the "Execute Disabled Bit" issue?
I have been told by ASUS tech support that all the recent Intel and nVidia chipsets will refuse to run a server OS on a desktop motherboard but AMD did not [at least not yet] restrict this. If true, this is really crappy of Intel and I will be finally switching to AMD processors.
Can anyone verify this for other mobos using Intel chipsets? It is at minimum true of actual Intel mobos as I have read exactly that on their website.
I would appreciate any good suggestions for building an HTPC 2008 server. It will sit in my wire closet so I want good audio to my A/V receiver and video to my HDTV as well as run Hyper-V for my development systems.
Thanks, Dave
Dave - The Gigabyte GA-MA78GPM-UD2H is a WASTE of money. I have one with F3 BIOS version and is incompatible, despite AMD-V_Hyper-V_Compatibility_Check_Utility confirming its compatibility.Perhaps all of Gigabyte's AMD desktop motherboards are incapable of running Hyper-V server? Has anyone had any success with them?Anybody from AMD reading this? Don't you have any influence over Gigabyte?
- My GA-MA78GM-S2H works fine, except I can't get hardware RAID, under the sb700, to be reliable.
- Seriously? you got it to work? Maybe I should try that model? Or not...I already bought an ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI, works perfect for Hyper-V. I recommend this ASUS motherboard to everyone! Ditch Gigabyte!
- I have a GA-MA78GM-S2H Rev 1.0 and it is working perfectly.
Only performance issues I am having is related to poor disk I/O due to my own poor balancing of disk workloads.
Currently running 5 VMs on it 24/7 for my home enviroment.
2x SVR2008STD x64
1X SVR2003STD x64
1X SmoothWall (Linux Firewall/Gateway distro)
1X Windows Home Server
I am currently troubleshooting some network/disk performance issues, but I suspect that those are caused by my guest setup.
I have the same M/B and it BSOD's just b4 windows starts for the first time, I have tried every sata driver on the planet for that M/B what driver did you use to get it to work? The only difference i can see is that I'm trying to load 2008 Enterprise 64. I have an AMD 5000+ and 6GB. I will try loading standard tonight but don't see why that would cause this? If someone can help i'd be very greatful, don't really want to waste money on a new M/B.- Bliz-
I have used both the AMD and Microsoft drivers, various versions.
Currently I am using the Microsoft Standard AHCI 1.0 Serial ATA Controller driver, on Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V. You do need the AMD chipset driver, with the PCI Express driver.
When you install, set the BIOS at AHCI mode for the SATA controller, and just let Windows setup do it's thing.
If you want RAID, do it with software under Windows. Use Disk Manager or diskpart.exe.
I currently have four virtual machines that I can run at the same time in 8 GB of memory. One of them is my PDA, and file server, with a pair of mirrored 500 GB physical drives assigned.
Brian This boards shows a limit of 8 Gigs of RAM which is quite limiting for Virtualization.
Keith Caravelli
The motherboard has four memory slots. The manual for the GA-MA78GM-S2H says it supports 16 GB. I also have an ECS A780GM-A Ultra, which theoretically supports 32 GB. Although ECS admits they have only tested 2 GB modules (8 GB).This boards shows a limit of 8 Gigs of RAM which is quite limiting for Virtualization.
Keith Caravelli
Both manufacturers have disclaimers about use of 1066 memory. Indeed it seems very hard to get four modules working at 1066 MHz. Using 4 GB modules would be expensive at this time, blowing the idea of these MB-Chipset combinations being low cost.
On a good note, I established a reliable AMD RAID on the ECS. I am still using Windows for mirroring on the Gigabyte.Below are few Intel Desktop boards that support Hyper-v
Intel Executive Series
Intel® Desktop Board DQ965GFE EOIS
Intel® Desktop Board DQ57TM uATX LGA 1156 DDR3-1333 Launched
Intel® Desktop Board DQ45EK miniITX LGA775 DDR2 800/667 Launched
Intel® Desktop Board DQ45CB uATX LGA775 DDR2 800/667 Launched
Intel® Desktop Board DQ43AP uATX LGA775 DDR2 800/667 Launched
Intel® Desktop Board DQ35MP uATX LGA775 DDR2 800/667 End of Life
Intel® Desktop Board DQ35JO uATX LGA775 DDR2 800/667 End of Life
Intel® Desktop Board DB43LD uATX LGA775 DDR2 800/667 Launched
