I finally got some time to start the H8QME-2+ build last night and I ended up staying up until 6am to finish it. I though I would share my experiences with it here in the hope that it may help some others decide to take the plunge and/or get some ideas of what buy and/or how to deal with some potential problems. This is my first "from scratch" 4p build, but I have been hardware hacking since about 1990 so I was pretty well prepared for this.
 
I started out on fleabay by picking up a SuperMicro H8QME-2+ four processor Socket F/1207 motherboard, which was populated with four 8216 Opteron CPUs and eight 2 GB DDR2 1333 mhz 5-5-3-15 (at least that's what they are running as) DIMMS for 16 GB of RAM. I then picked up four hexacore 8439 2.8 ghz Opterons as those are as good as it gets with the Socket F platform these days. I decided to buy an already flashed BIOS chip for the motherboard in case I roached the one on the board as I wasn't going to dicker around with floppy drives to flash it and stories abound of people killing their chips while attempting a USB flash. $10 on fleabay, that's cheap insurance.
 
Now a note about the dual 12v EPS power connectors and power supplies. I have seen a lot of questions from people as to what the best way is to get two connectors out of a standard power supply so I thought I would share my thinking on this issue. Many of you already know what I am about to explain, but I think some of this will be beneficial to a lot of 4p newbies. As the H8QM boards require two EPS eight pin 12v power connectors, I ordered a variety of cables from a few different sources to cover all bases as I also bought an H8QM3-2 so I'll need to do it all again. I picked up an eight pin EPS 12v splitter, a six pin PCI-E to eight pin adapter and a double four pin Molex to eight pin EPS adapter. Part of the reason I got three different kinds is that it provides me with flexibility as to what power supply I am able to use. Various power supplies are configured in different ways as to their output current capability on the various connectors. The better ones these days run on a single 12v rail, which means that it doesn't matter what 12v connector you use, they all can provide a lot of amperage/wattage, some to a wire frying degree. Most of the affordable ($100 or less) power supplies these days have multiple 12v rails with various current ratings. It is important that you don't overload any one 12v rail or you'll have serious stability issues and may actually destroy components or possibly worse, cause a fire. Ideally, with a multiple 12v rail PS you want to run each EPS motherboard connector on a different rail from each other and the 24 pin motherboard connector on a third separate rail. If your power supply doesn't come with two 8 pin EPS connectors, as few standard power supplies do, having various adapter options is a good thing. I ended up using the six pin PCI-E to eight pin EPS adapter on this build and I will probably pick up another one to keep in stock.
 
Power supplies are another hot topic for people interested in building these 4p Socket F folders. I haven't put my Kill-a-Watt on this beast yet as it is on my i7 rig (at 883 watts right now), which is folding away happily, but I have seen a number of people posting what their rigs are using at the wall with the 8439's. Prevailing wisdom is that a 650 watt PS will handle it in a pinch, but you are far better off getting an 850 watt unit. There are two other factors to consider that are even more important for 24/7 folders, one of which may seem counter-intuitive for some. As a power supply nears its rated capacity its efficiency starts drop off quickly.If you are using a 650 watt power supply and it is loaded to 625 watts, it will use more power at the wall than an 850 watt power supply that has the same efficiency rating. The difference can be enough so that over the course months of folding you'll likely end paying the power company more than the difference in the price of the power supplies. That can be important to some people. Next is the efficiency rating of the power supply. The efficiency rating is effectively the measure of how much current the power supply is outputting as compared to how much power it is drawing at the wall. Generally, you want one that is has at least an 80% efficiency rating, sometimes called "Bronze." If you can afford a "Platinum" rated PS (89%), go for it. I have an 1100 watt Apevia Warlock kicking around so that's what I am using at the moment for this build. I write off the power bill as a business expense anyway so its efficiency rating doesn't matter so much to me at the moment. Once I get actual usage figures at the wall I'll probably pick up the most efficient one I can find that is a decent deal and can handle the load with a generous buffer.
 
The Northbridge and Southbridge chips on my board didn't come with any fans, just bare heatsinks. As I will be running this build "naked" with no case, I popped on a couple of 40mm fans. These boards are meant to be run in server cases with a large amount of airflow running across the board from front to back. Anyone who has heard a SuperMicro 4p board in a rackmount case at full song knows they sound like jet engines. They are deafening! I have one with a G34 board that I wasted no time converting to Cooler Master Hyper 212+ HSFs because six 80+ CFM 80x80x38mm ultra-high speed fans are just insane. Do not neglect chipset cooling and also pay attention to moving some air across the board itself to help cool MOSFETs and other components, they do get hot on these.
 
On to CPU cooling. There are numerous ways to deal with this ranging from the "wind tunnel" method using the stock heatsinks to replacing the heatsinks with high performance heatsink-fan (HSF) assemblies. My board came with 1U (One rack Unit or a case that is 1.75 inches high) copper heatsinks that might be sufficient for the weak dual core 8216 CPUs, but would never cut it with the six core 8439s, even with insane airflow levels. I had planned to use the four Cooler Master Hyper 212+ HSFs on it with a "musky mod" bracket setup, but I ended up using them on my G34 as it was driving me nuts. As I was planning on building two of these Socket F 4p systems I laid in a small assortment of Socket F heatsinks for experimentation. While I expect to replace them at some point in the neat future, what I am using right now is four SuperMicro p/n SNK-P0023P+ 2U heatpipe heatsinks with four 80mm Rosewill 42.5 CFM fans, one per heatsink, in suck mode to pull heat away from the board and another generic 60mm fans blowing into the front of the heatsinks. I had hoped to get away with just the 80's on top, but folding an 8103 (bigadv) drove the processor temps over 50c on a couple of cores at 80f ambient and I don't consider that to be acceptable. I plan to fabricate a set of shrouds that will place an 80mm fan between 1.5" and 3" above the top of the heatsink to provide a good sized plenum that helps straighten the airflow into the fan and allows it to draw more air through the fins. I will also enclose some of the fin area with the shroud to maximize the heat transfer. It will require some experimentation to optimize it, but that's what I think of as fun, free efficiency Even if it doesn't turn out to be a viable option and I have to musky mod it I will have learned something.
 
Dinner's approaching quickly so I'll leave this first post with a pic of the motherboard with the 8439s and the chipset fans installed.
 

 

Good job!
What's in the 2U server running in the background?

Well hell's bells, this thing is purty close to being able to fire up, I just need a solution to mounting some fans on the heatsinks. It's about midnight and there's no way I am quitting until I see this thing fired up.
 
I had thought I might be able to use some skinny screws to lag into the heatsink fins enough to work as a temporary solution until I can fabricate some shrouds. Nope, nothing I had on hand would work without virtually destroying the fins. I needed a plan B. Thinking about the problem got the old light bulb in my head illuminated as I noticed how similar the fins look to my Thermalright 120 eXtreme on the QX9650, which in stock form used wire retaining clips to hold the fan in place. Maybe I can bend up some wire to do the trick. Now what to use for wire? Jumbo paper clips looked top be close to the right length when unwound and I happened to have a fresh box of them in the office supplies cabinet. Sure enough, they were almost perfect once bent into a suitable shape, a wide, shallow U with small inward facing 'lightning bolt" shapes bent at the end to catch the holes on the top of the fans. Thread them through the length of the heatsink outer fins and under its fin binding strap and pop them over the top fan holes. Voila, 80mm fan mount clips! I spent about an hour bending and fitting the 8 fan clips and while not store bough perfect, I think they are a pretty slick temporary solution.
  
 
 
  This pic is jumping the gun a bit, but it better shows the fabricated fan clips with the Z-bend at the ends.

 
 
EDIT: Redid the pics

Sounds a lot like most of my build sections. I never give up until its all working, even if it takes days.
I do take a few short breaks to clear the head or grab a bite to eat, but no sleep for me until it all working right.
Good luck man, sounds like your close.

Some nice engineering there with the fan clips! Looks like you had some good ideas and put them in play. Nice job!

Very nice, you have a good brain for extemperization as well as manual dexterity
 
I agree with Wolf on the fans, you have all the heatsinks with the fins pointing in the same direction, so a couple of fans blowing across the board down through  the same direction as the fins
 
scotty8 posted a photo of his board mounted rig using the config I mentioned and I'm using similar (will be the same when the rig gets into the workshop)
 
Post 23
 
http://forums.evga.com...83&mpage=1#1910317

Very nice monster build.  I'm still over your PPD.
 
I wonder what that board would look like watercooled....

TheWolf

Wanted to thank you about posting the Rosewill RFX-80BL 42.5 CFM 80mm ball bearing fans.
I grabbed 4 yesterday and a 4 port KVM switch from the egg. This 2 port is killing me having to swap it around so much.
What I'm using now is working fine, but I could use those couple 120 fans else where. I'm always short on 120's.

Sorry for the hi-jack... Which one did you get? I was looking at this one... http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817107212
 
Back on topic... Looking forward to your new found production as the weeks go by... 

It finished it's 8101 and picked up an 8103 with 16:51 TPF and 251137 PPD.
 
I also grabbed a 4-port IOGEAR KVM for the upcoming basement rack setup, thanks for the link!
 
I need to get these things into the basement, with them sitting next to the desk they drive the ambient temps up to 85f+ even with the inside double doors to the room open and a 20" fan in the doorway. If I keep a fan by the outside door with it open about three inches it stays about 77f by the 4p boxes, but rest of the first floor drops below 70f because the thermostat for the downstairs circuit stays above 72f. A basement rack capable of housing three 4p systems and their components will be this week's project. I'm going to set it up so the rear of it can be ducted out the window in the summer.
 

Wow these fan light are way to bright! 
Looks like I will be cutting the wire on these.

Just a quick update. I'm still experimenting with cooling on this build and have been gathering the rest of the bits for the basement folding station build. A couple of days ago when it hit 80F outside I decided to see what would happen to the ambient temp with only some fans cooling this room. With three 20" fans, one of which is an industrial quality wind blaster, and one 18" fan moving air in and out of the room, temps quickly hit 90F and I had to shut down the i7 folding rig for the first time in over a month. The hottest 6172 and 8439 CPUs peaked at about 52C, which is not too bad, but a bit higher than I care for. I had doubled up the fans on the 8439's, without that two of them hit 55C. Just for kicks I put an 84 CFM Vantec 80mm Tornado on the hottest 8439 and it dropped the temp by 4C at full blast, but the noise it makes at 5400 RPM isn't acceptable. Dialed back to about half that it is still noisy, but somewhat liveable. Even with it going to the basement in the near future I'd still like a quieter solution than four of those.
 
Just for kicks I picked up a cute little CM Hyper 101 HSF that looks like a little 80mm version of the Hyper 212+. It's only rated for 95 watts, but I figured it at only $15 was worth trying out. I lapped the base up to 1,000 grit wet/dry paper (it really needed it), fabricated Socket F adapter brackets and swapped out the single 30CFM 80mm CM fan for two 46 CFM Rosewill 80's in a push-pull configuration. To my surprise the experiment worked!
 
To make the Socket F mounts I scrounged a cad plated sheet metal bracket from my scrap box in the garage and hacked a couple of 20mm wide pieces out if it and shaped them as seen in the photos below. The four threaded holes on the 101's base are on 10mm centers so I drilled holes to mate to the center two holes on the H101 and mounted the tabs to the underside of the base. I then measured out the 3.5" center to center distance of the Socket F mounting holes and drilled those. I used 3/16" spring tension screws from the SM heatsinks with a couple of #8 washers for sufficient clamping power and voila, I had a clean Socket F Hyper 101. I waited for a checkpoint on the current project and shut down the system. Dismounted the SM sink on the hottest running 8439, cleaned off the TIM, applied some fresh Antec Formula 6 diamond paste (using the "tinting" method), mounted the H101 and Rosewill fans and fired up the rig. Resumed the project (I think it was an 8101) and after it had heat soaked up to a stable folding temp i was pleasantly surprised to find that it was now running 3C cooler than it had been. I let it run for a couple of more hours and being satisfied with its performance I hit the Egg again and ordered three more H101's. They should be here Monday morning. I'll fabricate three more sets of tab brackets this weekend and hopefully be able to get them lapped and installed by Monday evening.
 
Here's my reasoning behind the CM Hyper 101 experiment. I want the airflow to move from front to back on these boards. With the stock SM heatsinks and 80mm fans blowing down onto them the airflow is all messed up, going out both the front and back of each heatsink. When the rig is installed into the basement folding rack the airflow on the front side of each heatsink will be fighting the rear exhaust of the rack. I wanted a solution that would both fit the tight CPU1 and CPU2 center spacing and exhaust rearward. Aside from a couple of Chinese imports with a long availability time, the CM Hyper 101 was the only potential unit that fit the bill. I wasn't impressed with the 95 watt design capacity, but I figured I might be able to raise that with some good lapping and doubling up 80mm fans rated at 50% more airflow than CM's. It would appear that I have managed to achieve that so we'll see what three more of them will do. I expect to see even better results with the air all moving one way, although I may have to add a pair of styrene air walls to duct the output of the front 101's in between the intake of the rear 101's.
 
Besides, they're cute as hell, I think four of these baby 212's with dual fans on the board will look pretty cool!
 

 

  Edit: Typos.

My gawd man... you could plant that on the moon and still see it from my house!

Yeah, 32 LEDs do light things up a bit...
 

What's that alligator clip doing biting on that fan! Looks hungry!

I have slowly been getting the basement folding rack built. I can't recall how many other things have gotten in the way over the past couple of weeks, but it's a lot!
 
I got work out of the way early today so I would have a good sized solid block of time for construction. I need to get the rack finished so I can move the two 4p folders into the basement so I have room to build and set up the ankle biter 8425 4p without the wife flipping out. I managed to finish the framework so all that is left is slicing up some masonite and luan plywood for the two sides and the shelves, building a screen door for the front and cobbling up some sort of rear exhaust blower setup that ducts out the basement window for the summer. Since it will live in my basement shop area the screen door on the front will keep out the lions share of the detritus that occasionally floats around and more importantly, it will keep the nosey cats out of there.
 
I finally shot a few pics of it to satisfy the "pics or it didn't happen" crew since I have mentioned it so many times and still haven't gotten it done yet. I'm no carpenter or cabinetmaker, but I can cut, glue and screw. It ain't a work of art, but it should do the job I need it to do adequately.
 

 
I started out with a sturdy base of 2x4's and added some heavy duty 3" casters as it is likely this thing will weigh a couple of hundred pounds when populated with servers and power equipment. I was going to use 1x4's for the uprights, but I already had a couple of 1x3 8 footers kicking around so I decided to see if those would be sturdy enough to do the job and to my surprise they are! The rack is 4 feet tall from the base to the top. without the casters. It is 30" deep and 24" wide on the inside.
 

 
I topped it with a piece of 3/4" plywood I had kicking around, I would have preferred 1/2", but I didn't have any handy. It was already the right width and I only had to slice off about 2 inches on one end. My original idea was to screw and glue 1x2 shelf supports and that's what the 3/4" ply is sitting on at the top, but for the other three I just used drywall screws. The second from the top shelf frame was assembled outside of the unit and then screwed in place. That's why it only only has two screws through the uprights at each corner as the shelf frame itself was already screwed together. I simplified things on the last two frames by driving two screws at each corner straight through the 1x3's and shelf frame side 1x2's and into the front and rear 1x2's. Not only does it use one less screw at each corner, I think it is a lot stronger.
 

 
There are metal corner braces at the four rear corners to keep it from being a flexible flyer. I figured I would need to add more corner braces tied into the shelf frames, but after testing it with a heavy toolbox (~50 lbs) on top I don't think I'll need to. I had also planned on adding another pair of uprights centered on the sides, but I really don't think it will be necessary, especially when the the masonite is screwed to the sides. I added center supports to the shelf frames to minimize drooping with thin luan plywood or masonite shelves and to provide support when the shelves are slid partially out for maintenance work. There's room to add another shelf for a fourth nekkid server later on or the extra height can be used for tall UPSes like the Back-Ups XS units I have. Each shelf would actually hold two nekkid 4p server boards so I suppose it could eventually hold eight folders if my insanity worsens...
 

 
Here's a wider angle of my Mad Scientist basement shop area. I also have a garage shop for welding and working on bigger stuff like cars
 
The folding rack will live off camera to the left. I already ran a new 20 amp circuit and ethernet cable for it.
 
I plan on priming it tomorrow and maybe cutting the shelves and sides. I haven't decided what the final color will be yet, maybe black.
 
Oh yeah, the best part? I haven't yet had to buy anything yet for this rack. I had all the wood, hardware, screws and even the casters in stock! I even have masonite and screen to finish it. I might have to buy some paint depending on what I color I decide on. I know I have a can of black kicking around somewhere...
 
Edit: Forgot to put in the dimensions