Motherboard recommendations ?

SimonTownsend

Ok, this may seem out of place, but I'm not sure where would be better. I'm looking to do some MCITP certification, notably the 70-640/642 stuff, and planning to do it on a system Server 2K8R2 using Hyper-V. (I have a reasonable amount of experience administering 2K8/2K8R2, have the MS self-paced courses, and a solid background in using VirtualBox).

I recently purchased a system to undertake this, as follows:
Intel i7-3770 (not 3770K)
Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H motherboard
16GB RAM etc.

When I installed Server 2K8, added the Hyper-V role, and went to create a 64-bit VM, I couldn't get it to start. I kept getting an 'Unknown error' and couldn't find any info on the Web for that error number. (I may not be looking in the correct area. I did check to see that the Hyper-V service was running.

I then installed VirtualBox in Server2K8, and tried to create a 64-bit VM. I was able to create the machine, and tried installing Ubuntu into it. I was given a message that the hardware configuration did not support x86-64 bit, but rather only i686 architecture. I checked the BIOS on the mobo, it was at F9, the latest I could find. Intel virtualisation was turned on, and VT-d was supported.

Looking on the web I've found one other person running this mobo under Windows 8 and he says he can't get Hyper-V to run under it. I'm starting to wonder why it won't run correctly, but more importantly went back to the vendor (I'd asked for something that would support Hyper-V when I bought) and they're happy to swap the board as long as I can tell them what I want. Given that most boards around are really consumer level, and I don't want to spring for a real server, can anyone advise what consumer mobo's they have running Hyper-V under Server 2K8 ? A friend has an old ASUS 1366-pin i5 that does it happily, but that's not really an option for me.



Thanks for your time,

SimonTownsend

By the way, I'm new here - how do I format paragraphs ? It just doesn't seem to work for me....

SimonTownsend

Never mind about the post-formatting, I figured it out.

neilbaal

Hi Simon, hope your well?

I just got through 70-640 today, just before I started studying I bought a motherboard, cpu, ram combo.
The board is a Asus p8277-vlx, cpu is i5 2500k and 16gb ram. It works very well, will happily run 8 vm's with a good amount of ram each, no sluggishness and no errors.

Hope this helps,

Neil

MickQ

It's been a while, and a lot of learning other stuff since I looked at this, but perhaps it's the CPU that's the problem. You should check out the hyper-V CPU architecture requirements.

SimonTownsend

MickQ : I checked the CPU requirements on the Microsoft site, it just mentions Intel VT and DEP XD-bit as requirements, which the i7-3770 supports.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=3512
neilbaal: Did you use Hyper-V on this mobo ? Thanks for your info, Simon Townsend

JayTheCracker

most 1155 motherboards will support that CPU
buy a SSD , it'll help u a lot

neilbaal

Yes Simon I did, like I said it worked well, no issues at all

JayTheCracker

sry, neglect my previous post, didn't read the thread thoroughly ><

ITMonkey

Timely topic, as I began reading a Hyper-V book last night. My last remory before putting the book down was mention to make sure the motherboard and bios could run Hyper-V. No sugestions or recommendations were given, naturally.


I'm looking at the chapter now, and the two headline requirements match what you have already checked: 64-bit w/CPU Assisted Virtualization (Intel-VT and AMD-V), and Data Execution Prevention (DEP) -- both of which must be turned on in the bios. The author writes that lab users should check the internet to make sure the motherboard they are about to purchase can run Hyper-V. In addition, he mentions you should see if there is a more recent bios to flash.

But you already know that! I'll be putting together a new lab machine in the coming weeks. I'll be interested to see your resolution to the problem.

Book is Mastering Hyper-V Deployment, by Aidan Finn.

Additional input:
After writing this post, I searched the Microsoft technet database. Sure enough, there were loads of hits ... mostly in the 2009 and 2010 timeframe. Have a look yourself. Maybe it will help.