I have the new server operational with the new motherboard and OLD CPU.  However, it will not operate at rated speed let alone overclock.  There is something wrong with the memory controller and it will not operate at the rated 2933 Mhz under Linux, oddly it will run at over 4300Mhz using memtest-86 so there is something about the way Linux accesses memory that is different than memtest-86 and I know not what.  I suspect it has to do with system mode where the address is direct verses user mode where the address is translated.

     However it is running at lower speed with the new motherboard so that is better than not at all.  I have a new CPU on order, the first one was dead on arrival, the motherboard won’t even recognize it as being installed.  I’ve got a bit more work to do on it, I have to upgrade the firmware and UEFI bios on this motherboard, and then if the new CPU isn’t here yet I’ll return it to service at slightly below normal speed until the new CPU arrives.

I am moving eskimo.com domain to a new registry. I have some issues doing this in that my name servers are in the same domain presently. This is problematic as it creates a circular resolution problem where to resolve a name server address here, say ns1.eskimo.com, you first need to access the name server to get the IP address of ns1.eskimo.com but since you don’t yet have the IP address you can’t get it.

This is presently resolved by the use of glue records. These are records maintained in the upstream name servers that resolve our name servers to physical IP addresses to get around this circular resolution problem. And in the beginning there was only one registry, Network Solutions, so this was okay but today there are multiple and Network Solutions will eliminate the glue records the instant they release the domain but the new registry might take several days to get it in their database during which time we have no glue records.

This is no good, so what I have done is placed a DNS server in another domain which I own, yellow-snow.net, and it will be one of eskimo.com’s name servers, however web.com’s website for changing the DNS records is not working so I have to wait for their team to change it for me. So we are holding off moving the domain, this may happen this weekend or next depending upon their timing. Anyway wanted to make you aware of that potential interruption.

In addition, I am going to setup a name server on my machine off the cable modem so that in the event of a network interruption, eskimo.com’s mail servers will still resolve.  This will cause sending sites to queue and resend the mail rather than bouncing it so that in the event of a future network interruption, e-mail will not be lost or bounced, only delayed for the period of the outage.

Another potential interruption is that I am going to be replacing the CPU on the new web server, currently an I9-10900x which is 10 cores, to a I9-10980xe which is 18 cores, upgrading the CPU cooler fan from one that maxes at 1500 RPM to one that maxes at 3000 RPM to help dissipate the huge amount of heat these CPUs generate, and I’m replacing the RAM which is currently 8x32GB sticks with 4x64GB sticks, and the reason for this is that this CPU has difficulty driving two sticks per channel, just not enough drive current requiring that I slow memory down, but to feed 18 cores I want this memory I/O to be as fast as possible.  Right now only social media is on this machine but eventually I will be moving all web services to it.

So probably next weekend there will be a period where this site is down for that hardware upgrade, but the end result should be faster performance.

     The new server continues to be unstable, it tends to spontaneously reboot when the upper reaches of memory get used.  It may be a bad DIMM.  I also accidentally over-volted the CPU at one point, I meant to set 1.17 volts and accidentally set 1.7, the max for this CPU is supposed to be 1.5v so may have broken down a transistor or two.

     When I bought the RAM for this machine I bought 8x32GB DIMMS as 64GB DIMMS were unavailable at the time.  The Intel engineer did warn me that the CPU had difficulty driving two DIMMS per channel and I probably would not be able to run memory at the memory controllers rated speed, none the less until recently it was running OK.

     Since 64GB DIMMS are now available, I’ve ordered 4x64GB to replace the existing 8x32GB, that way the CPU only has to drive one DIMM per channel and can operate at maximum speed.  I also got a steal of a deal on an i9-10980xe, this is basically an 18 core version of the i9-10900x.  So when this all arrives I will be replacing all the RAM and the CPU.  Also, I purchased a 3000 RPM max CPU fan to replace the 1500RPM fan on the Noctua 15 cooler, with 18 cores I will need all the cooling I can get.  Though this CPU really does not get real hot until you clock the cores at 4.3Ghz or above, below that you can keep the voltage down to where it stays reasonably cool even under load.