Mail lists and some aliases are currently out of service owing to the aliases file on the client mail server somehow being truncated and half not there.  I am restoring from backups.  While this is in progress mail lists will not work as ALL aliases for smartlist are gone and many users aliases are gone at the moment.

(Update the aliases file is restored, lists are back in service)

On other news, while waiting for the new CPU chip to get here I had the machine sitting in BIOS configuration screen and after about three days it shut itself down spontaneously.

Since I had already replaced the motherboard (some bent pins on the CPU socket necessitated this), I went ahead and replaced the power supply.  Prior to replacing it, it would not run at all above 4.3Ghz and would not run stable even at 4Ghz, now it is running at 4.7Ghz, so there was some issue with the old supply, either a ripple problem or it would just not capable of supplying enough power on the 12v line.  Since this CPU can use as much as 540 watts it requires a very robust supply.

     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.

     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.

     The issues that remained with Centos7 and Scientific7 with the existing 6.0.x kernels were not expected to be fixed until 6.2 according to the developers, however, 6.0.12 appears to have fixed them as both machines booted cleanly after the upgrade last night.

     Also, I adjusted the clock on ice from 4.3 Ghz to 4.2 Ghz as it was ever so slightly unstable at 4.3 Ghz.

     Lastly, Manjaro is restored, but your existing ssh keys will not work as this is a fresh install so you will need to delete and create / propagate new keys.  There is much software not yet installed, so if something you need is missing please send a note to support@eskimo.com and I will prioritize.