[CentOS] Motherboard and chipset compatibility

[Warren Young]

On 8/12/2013 11:01, m.roth at 5-cent.us wrote:
> VERY STRONG RECOMMENDATION: DON'T buy Supermicro. They have a *lot* of
> trouble with this new, fuzzy concept called "quality control".

We have a *lot* of SuperMicro based systems in the field, and they 
aren't failing.  In fact, I can't remember the last time we had to fix 
an actual motherboard issue.  It seems like every field hardware failure 
for years has come down to dying HDDs.

We did once upon a time have a QC problem with SuperMicro, around Y2K, 
but that was because we chose to use AMD processors, and AMD OEM 
fan/heat sink combos at the time used little 60mm 6000 RPM pancake fans 
that would seize up after a few years.  This was before processors had 
overtemp shutdown features, so once the fan seized, the processors would 
cook themselves.

You can't really lay that one at SuperMicro's feet.  AMD screwed up.

The real fix was switching back to Intel processors, which shipped with 
bigger and slower-moving fans, which lasted longer.

You'll notice that both of these failure modes are due to mechanical 
wear.  I can't say I've *ever* seen a SuperMicro board fail in any of 
the solid-state components, solder joints, capacitors, etc.