Tyan S5502 Server/Workstation System Board

Installing the S5502:

As we mentioned earlier we actually installed this server board inside a standard ATX chassis, in this case it was a Thermaltake chassis that plays host to our budding beast.  Installation went smoothly with no issues at all. The included hardware worked to secure the chassis and we used a standard socket 1156 heatsink for our Xeon X3470 CPU.   We would like to mention that it seems habit that Intel likes to shake up its CPU tree on a regular basis and changes sockets and specifications at the drop of a hat, that being said those with a keen eye might notice the socket 1156 looks very much like the socket for 775. You would be sorely mistaken, while the holes are a near match, as is the CPU socket height, the holes do not line up. Weather by design or for marketing purposes Intel has chosen to make the holes only a few fractions of an inch off from the standard 775. Thats right, you can’t use your existing hardware unless its specifically designed for socket 1156. Thanks Intel.

Once the platform was secure in the case we immediately installed 8 GB of Kingston DDR3 ECC ram (Big thanks to Kingston for the assist) and 4 Seagate 73GB SAS hard drives to fill out this system in true server fashion.  The moment of truth came and we pushed the button and the system without missing a beat posted perfectly. Installation of our Windows server 2008 OS would  have gone just fine except for a slight overight on the part of Tyan. In order to install your OS onto a SAS drive connected to a SAS controller you are required to load a special driver during the installation sequence. Now in the past Microsoft required you to use a floppy drive to do this but nowadays you can use a CD, a USB, another hard drive, or an old style floppy to get the job done. It seems however that unlike the rest of the S5502 this part has not kept up with the times. To sucessfully install your OS you must first booth the system from the included Tyan CD and create your system disk with an included utility, easy right? Wrong! The utility will only write to a floppy drive and if you take a close look at the system board picture above . . . there is no floppy controller. Now for those among us that Think Outside the Cube this is not really a problem, just boot another system with the CD and create your floppy that way. Oh a quick show of hands among you for those that still have a floppy drive handy, and even fewer for those that currently have one installed in a system. Its for purposes like this that I even continue to save the 1.44 floppy disks as it is. Wake up call anyone?

Ok aside form that little hitch our installation proceeded just fine once we created the floppy and loaded the driver. It should be noted that while our installation worked fine for Windows Server 2003 and 2008 the included driver does not work for Windows 7 as our test system simply hung repeatedly when we tried to install the Marvell 6440 driver provided by Tyan. Our efforts to locate a suitable driver on the Marvell site were unsucessful.

Testing the Marvell 6440:

Outside of Windows 7 the Marvell 6440 performed flawlessly. Creation of our array in any configuration went smoothly and without any issues. Installment of the drivers for OS install was also not an issue with all server OS’s, XP, and Vista. We would like to note that booting the Marvell 6440 in the bios took significantly longer than does the Highpoint controller.  this could be due tot he on-board nature of the controller or just an aspect of this controller. It does , however, do its job without any lag when in the system. Since Windows 7 is the prevalent OS all of our testing was done with the Highpoint controller.

Workstation OS:

As a part of our testing we did install Windows 7 using both a standard SATA drive and an add on Highpoint 2640 x4 add in SAS controller card which does have Windows 7 drivers. this installation went without issue and allowed us to present results in a RAID configuration. We thank Highpoint for sending us the 2640 x4 controller card.

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