Running a Supermicro X10SLE-F compute node without the Microcloud Chassis

History

Lately on the used market, there are compute nodes (blades) of Supermicro Microcloud on sale. As expected, they aren't selling well, as you need the Chassis to power and control them. Single nodes are usually pretty useless.

However a few homelab'ers on the ServeTheHome Forum just tried out their luck to figure out how to utilize these boards manually.

X10SLE-F Details

X10SLE-F with original heat sink

  • Single Socket H3 (LGA 1150) CPU which allows the usage of Xeon E3-1200 V4 and V5 series, but also Pentium and Celeron and Core i3 of the 4th Generation.
  • Able to use up to 32GB Ram via 4 Slots (1,2,4 and 8GB Dimms), but only UDIMM ECC allowed - No Non-ECC or Reg-ECC can be used!
  • 5 SATA3 Ports
  • AST2400 IPMI Interface (including Redfish and HTML5 Remote Console)
  • MicroLP-Port for 2x 1GBE Ethernet (Most times included), but 1-2x 10GBE is available as well

Additional Documentation

Power-Supply Pinouts

CPU Cooler-Overview

IPMI Compatiblity Matrix when used without Chassis

Howto Backup and Restore BIOS and BMC Firmware with SPI Flash Programmer

BMC-Firmware Modifications, to reset unkown ADMIN Logins