Highpoint 7101A - PCIe 3.0 SSD performance for the cMP

[w1z]

Yea I’ve been looking for a lid. Perhaps I may need to go back to stock and deal with the loud fan. *sigh*

Remove the heatsinks from your blades and put the shroud back on with the replacement fan.

Can you share a close up photo of the PEX switch surface?

The sticky thermal surface on the 17mm heat sink I am using (recommended in my previous post) is strong and durable so I am sure you won't have any issues attaching it to the switch surface.

Edited: corrected as I thought you were referring to the card's fan speed.

 

[dorianclive]

Remove the heatsinks from your blades and put the shroud back on with the replacement fan.

Can you share a close up photo of the PEX switch surface?

The sticky thermal surface on the 17mm heat sink I am using (recommended in my previous post) is strong and durable so I am sure you won't have any issues attaching it to the switch surface.

Edited: corrected as I thought you were referring to the card's fan speed.

 

[tsialex]

This is dirty or the exposed dye it's already damaged?

 

[dorianclive]

This is dirty or the exposed dye it's already damaged?
View attachment 930604

Spec of dust. Definitely not damaged.

 

[w1z]

@dorianclive I don't foresee a problem with using the recommended 17mm heatsink on that die. Just make sure to clean and swab it with an alcohol pad before attaching the heatsink.

Another option you can look at are clip-on heatsinks from Enzo Technologies.

For now, and until you decide on what route you want to take, continue using the card with the shroud and replacement fan.

 

[dorianclive]

@dorianclive I don't foresee a problem with using the recommended 17mm heatsink on that die. Just make sure to clean and swab it with an alcohol pad before attaching the heatsink.

Another option you can look at are clip-on heatsinks from Enzo Technologies.

For now, and until you decide on what route you want to take, continue using the card with the shroud and replacement fan.

I’ve heard of Enzo. I gotta check them out.

Thank you for the suggestion. How’s yours been holding up?

 

[w1z]

How’s yours been holding up?

Perfectamundo. I'm seeing the same temperatures as I have reported in my mod posts for both blades and PEX switch with PCIe fan auto spinning at 800RPM during the summer months.

 

[dorianclive]

Perfectamundo. I'm seeing the same temperatures as I have reported in my mod posts for both blades and PEX switch with PCIe fan auto spinning at 800RPM during the summer months.

That’s amazing. Once I figure out what’s what I’ll PM you. Don’t wanna be that guy derailing the thread or bringing it off topic.

Thanks again

 

[tsialex]

Spec of dust. Definitely not damaged.

The die is too small to attach the heatsink with just the heatsink adhesive, but you can try a shim, like some NVIDIA GPUs with exposed dye have, or even a foam spacer like old Athlon XP/Duron had, and glue the heatsink with 1/3 long cure epoxy and 2/3 white silicone thermal paste. It's a very common formula to attach heatsinks to exposed dyes like this one. I'd only do that after warranty expired.

 

[handheldgames]

That’s amazing. Once I figure out what’s what I’ll PM you. Don’t wanna be that guy derailing the thread or bringing it off topic.

Thanks again

Keep the conversation going. It's all good info - thanks for sharing.

 

[dorianclive]

Keep the conversation going. It's all good info - thanks for sharing.

Thank you. Will do

 

[dorianclive]

The die is too small to attach the heatsink with just the heatsink adhesive, but you can try a shim, like some NVIDIA GPUs with exposed dye have, or even a foam spacer like old Athlon XP/Duron had, and glue the heatsink with 1/3 long cure epoxy and 2/3 white silicone thermal paste. It's a very common formula to attach heatsinks to exposed dyes like this one. I'd only do that after warranty expired.

Good call. I’ll keep that in mind. FWIW I bought the card used off eBay.

 

[MarkSt]

I have a couple of questions after reading through the thread. I bought my card through a Amazon Warehouse deal and was fortunate to get one that the fan control was optional. (If not I really cannot handle the shrill sound of the stock fan)

I am running the 7101a in slot one of my cMP Mid 2010 and have the fan controller set to the off. The temperature threshold is set to 140 but the two WD Sn750 1Tb drives never seem to get above 130º even when running the Blackmagic Test for extended time. I have the two SSDs configured in the HighPoint RAID and am waiting for a third card to complete my setup.

1) I know from looking at the HighPoint site that the Management software will cause an alert if the monitored temperature goes about the set 140º but will it also trigger the cards fan to spin up in order to drop the temp?

2) Running in stock configuration with fan off and drives remaining cool - do I need to be concerned that the PEX switch will overheat - is there a way to monitor/see the temp of the PEX in the HighPoint software?

3) I am trying to determine if an additional WD Sn750 1Tb drive will be sufficient to set up as my boot drive with user accounts located on the 2Tb RAID. Everything currently exists on a single 2Tb SSD with 500Gb available. How should I go about splitting the data and system between a new NVMe boot drive and the RAID array? (Migration Assistant / Super Duper / ???)

Any suggestions and concerns would be appreciated

 

[dorianclive]

Hey everyone. I finally have 4 970 Pro 512GB in my Highpoint card. I ran Black Magic this morning to check my speeds and admittedly was expecting much faster results.

My setup is as follows:

1st 970 runs the OS and the last 3 I use in a RAID 0 config I created using Apple's RAID Assistant.

Am I doing something wrong here? I was expecting a much faster result. Any help is appreciated. I've attached a screenshot below.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^If they are not RAIDED your numbers are fine.

My 2019 NcMP and a Highpoint 7103 with a Samsung 970 pro:

Lou

 

[dorianclive]

They are raided. Sorry if my post wasn’t clear. 3 of the 4 are in RAID 0. The other one is for the OS.

 

[mikas]

Your card sits in a cMP slot 3 or 4 maybe?

 

[dorianclive]

It’s in Slot 1 right now which is why I’m super confused as to the low speeds.

I’m running a Mac Pro 5,1 on Boot ROM 144, Mojave installed if that helps.

 

[tsialex]

It’s in Slot 1 right now which is why I’m super confused as to the low speeds.

I’m running a Mac Pro 5,1 on Boot ROM 144, Mojave installed if that helps.

Did you changed the BlackMagic to the correct mount point of the array? Your results are what is expected for an already used/full of data single 970PRO.

 

[dorianclive]

Did you changed the BlackMagic to the correct mount point of the array? Your results are what is expected for an already used/full of data single 970PRO.

Yea I selected the array as target drive in Black Magic - not sure what the issue is now

 

[joevt]

Yea I selected the array as target drive in Black Magic - not sure what the issue is now

Check PCIe link width and link rate in System Information.app.

For a complete picture, install pciutils and post result of pcitree.sh.

It's not likely that they would be incorrectly set to anything other than PCIe 2.0 x16 for upstream and PCIe 3.0 x4 for downstream but you should rule that out anyway.

 

[dorianclive]

Check PCIe link width and link rate in System Information.app.

For a complete picture, install pciutils and post result of pcitree.sh.

It's not likely that they would be incorrectly set to anything other than PCIe 2.0 x16 for upstream and PCIe 3.0 x4 for downstream but you should rule that out anyway.

That may be the issue. This is what I’m seeing for each controller.

 

[w1z]

That may be the issue. This is what I’m seeing for each controller.

Are you using system drivers or HighPoint's drivers?

 

[tsialex]

That may be the issue. This is what I’m seeing for each controller.

Nothing out of normal here.

All M.2 devices are x4 or less and 8.0GT/s link speed is the internal PCIe v3.0 connection from the PCIe switch to the M.2 device.

 

[dorianclive]

Are you using system drivers or HighPoint's drivers?

System drivers