CPU Upgrade for PowerEdge T30

Taffeys,

I am not showing that as a supported processor for the T30, which is only showing 3 listed (E3-1225 V5, you referred to, the I3-6100, and the Skylake-S G4400. That being said, it doesn't necessarily mean that it won't work in the server, it just isn't tested in it. So you can update the BIOS to current, then test it.

Hope this helps.

Chris,

Thanks for your input. I think I'm going to hold-off gambling $300+ on a v6 Xeon for this T30 since I have read that MB manufacturers have released bios updates to accommodate the Kaby Lake CPUs and I see no mention of Kaby Lake support being added in the latest T30 bios ver 1.0.2.

Has anyone else here installed an E3 v6 Xeon, Kaby Lake i Series, or Pentium in a T30?

1.0.5

What BIOS are you running?

That's really sad; even the Precision 3000 Towers (3420, 3620) which have the same/similar motherboard support the V6 Kaby Lake Xeons.

I have decided to dump my PE T30 and my two PE T20s due to Dells intentional crippling of these systems.

Good bye Dell.

Thanks John for sharing your experience. Two questions though:

1. Have you tried downgrading the BIOS and retry? (Maybe to v1.0.2, and don't worry about the Intel-SA-00075 Vuln., downgrading won't affect IntelME Firmware since it's in a different ROM)  
2. What was the LED Flashing Code? (Check the owner's manual page 14)

Anyone got a T30 running on a "better" CPU yet? 

i7-6700K works; using 64GB DDR4 non-ECC, and running Centos6, Centos7 on a couple of T30's.

i7-7700K did not work.

Forgot to add that Windows 10 Professional also works.

Windows Server 2016 0n my T30, processor suggestions?

Hello! The technical specifications of the i7-6700K processor on the https://ark.intel.com/content/www/ru/ru/ark/products/88195/intel-core-i7-6700k-processor-8m-cache-up-to-4-20-ghz.html

website contain information that it does not have support for the Intel® vPro platform, which also means there is no support for Intel AMT. Can you clarify whether Intel AMT really does not work in such a Dell T30 + and i7-6700K configuration? Thank you!

Good morning,

The processor you've linked is not a supported processor. The E3-1225, G4400, and i3-6100 are the processors validated for use with the platform. I would defer to Intel's documentation in regard to what the processors are able to do.

I also see this note in my documentation:

NOTE: Intel AMT is supported only on Intel Xeon processor-based systems.

I have recently repurposed a PowerEdge T30 and came across this thread when I too discovered the M.2 slot on the motherboard and was trying to find spec info. Turns out, you can fully update the bios of the T30 mobo and still use bootable OS NVMe drives on this system - you just need to use a PCIe adaptor w/NVMe M.2 slot instead of the one on motherboard which gets disabled with newer BIOS. PCIe adaptors are cheap mine works great. The important thing is that although the BIOS updates disable the onboard M.2 slot, they don't disable bootable support for NVMe drives. The T30 motherboard even has dual slots with x16 slot width, a black and a blue one, so I placed my NVMe adaptor in the 4x black one (but x16 width that accommodated my adaptor) and it works great. That leaves the blue one with full x16 link still free if you really want/need a good graphics card installed as well. This board takes both ECC and non-ECC ram (the latter being easy to find and cheap), up to 64GB (read the manual for proper matching as you'll need 2R (rank) to max out). My T30 has an optical drive but if I want to fill all 3.5" bays with drives, I can detach that and get all 4 internal bays filled for storage. The back panel connection options with HDMI, dual DP, and lots of USB on back and front make this an awesome box for many tasks. They were super cheap near the end of their selling period so I've got one more of these still unopened in my inventory. Being able to use NVMe with a cheap adaptor, and cheap extra ram (non-ECC) extends the usefulness of the T30 for many years to come. PS - I've used two brands of PCIe NVMe adaptors, GLOTRENDS PA09-HS and SABRENT NVMe