Monday, February 7th 2022

ASUS Outs IPMI Expansion Card to Give Your Workstation Remote Management Capabilities

by
btarunr
 Discuss (17 Comments)
ASUS this week rolled out the IPMI Expansion Card, an add-on card that lends your PC or workstation remote-management capabilities on par with servers or HPC units in a data-center. The half-height add-on card is essentially an ASPEED AST2600A3-GP multi-function remote-management chip on a stick. On the I/O side, it puts out a 1 GbE remote-management network interface, and a VGA connector for some very basic display.

It connects to your machine over a PCI-Express 3.0 x1 host interface, along a BMC, PM-bus, and SPI headers. and relies on a 6-pin PCIe power connector for its power needs. Quite a few of ASUS's workstation-class motherboards feature these headers. It also puts out eight 4-pin PWM fan headers. The card lets you perform remote management, including remote BMC firmware updates, over a web-browser based control panel. The company didn't reveal pricing or availability information.

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17 Comments on ASUS Outs IPMI Expansion Card to Give Your Workstation Remote Management Capabilities

#1
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
Need to be used in a LAN, not a WAN.
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#2
Camm
Niche but you know what, props, depending on price might give options for repurposing some consumer grade hardware for server duties.
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#3
comtek
So this will turn any pc into something like Dell Servers with iDrac?
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#4
Tomorrow
This is pretty nifty. Tho im suprised it needs 6pin power. Considering (if these are final images) the card lacks any heatsinks yet consumes over 25W? Makes no sense.
Maybe this is the reason:
  • ×1 cards are limited to 0.5 A at +12 V (6 W) and 10 W combined.
  • ×4 and wider cards are limited to 2.1 A at +12 V (25 W) and 25 W combined.
  • A full-sized ×1 card may draw up to the 25 W limits after initialization and software configuration as a "high power device".
  • A full-sized ×16 graphics card may draw up to 5.5 A at +12 V (66 W) and 75 W combined after initialization and software configuration as a "high power device".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#Power

Thats better than buying a feature limited workstation board. This way a user can buy their preferred board and use this card the get IPMI.
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#5
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
TomorrowThis is pretty nifty. Tho im suprised it needs 6pin power. Considering (if these are final images) the card lacks any heatsinks yet consumes over 25W? Makes no sense.
Maybe this is the reason:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express#Power

Thats better than buying a feature limited workstation board. This way a user can buy their preferred board and use this card the get IPMI.
1x slots dont provide anywhere near us much power as 16x slots, probably a safety feature in the design for compatibility, the less comes from the slot the better (doubly so if riser cables get used)
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#6
Ferrum Master
Tomorrowheatsinks yet consumes over 25W? Makes no sense.
You make no sense. You design a device keeping in mind all the possible peripherals.

Count the amount of possible fans. It is a server, thus high RPM Deltas are a common sight, each of them consuming way over 20W.
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#7
Tomorrow
Ferrum MasterYou make no sense. You design a device keeping in mind all the possible peripherals.

Count the amount of possible fans. It is a server, thus high RPM Deltas are a common sight, each of them consuming way over 20W.
Did you miss the fact that this is not intended for servers?
Servers already have IPMI onboard the motherboard. The design and black PCB points towards consumer release.
And in this case one cannot assume high airflow.

X570 used less than 15W and had a fan. This thing needs extra 6pin power because it exceeds 25W and gets no heatsinks, much less a small fan?. I stand by my statement that it makes no sense. The only way this would make sense is if the images are from a preproduction unit that does not have heatsink and/or fan attached.
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#8
Ferrum Master
TomorrowDid you miss the fact that this is not intended for servers?
Servers already have IPMI onboard the motherboard. The design and black PCB points towards consumer release.
And in this case one cannot assume high airflow.

X570 used less than 15W and had a fan. This thing needs extra 6pin power because it exceeds 25W and gets no heatsinks, much less a small fan?. I stand by my statement that it makes no sense. The only way this would make sense is if the images are from a preproduction unit that does not have heatsink and/or fan attached.
Count.

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#9
Jism
TomorrowDid you miss the fact that this is not intended for servers?
Servers already have IPMI onboard the motherboard. The design and black PCB points towards consumer release.
And in this case one cannot assume high airflow.

X570 used less than 15W and had a fan. This thing needs extra 6pin power because it exceeds 25W and gets no heatsinks, much less a small fan?. I stand by my statement that it makes no sense. The only way this would make sense is if the images are from a preproduction unit that does not have heatsink and/or fan attached.
This is just power passing through. Not to be mistaken by power consumption done by the chip.

The idea of remote access is when a server locks up, or a BSOD / kernel panic occurs, you dont have to head out to where your server is located at. You just login remotely and perform basic things.
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#11
Ferrum Master
TomorrowCount.
You don't get it? How a 10W 12V pcie line feed 8 custom fan headers, that specifically are made programmable for this device?

Who makes no sense?
Posted on Reply
#12
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
I mean 120mm deltas can use almost 40W, so yeah seeing a fan hub... it needs that cord
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#13
Tomorrow
Ferrum MasterYou don't get it? How a 10W 12V pcie line feed 8 custom fan headers, that specifically are made programmable for this device?

Who makes no sense?
So the 6pin is optional. Good to know. Too bad ASUS neglected to mention this in their press release.
Posted on Reply
#14
Ferrum Master
MusselsI mean 120mm deltas can use almost 40W, so yeah seeing a fan hub... it needs that cord
Bionic Blade Delta120mm fan = 106W, I think you would like the fan...

It is a custom card for custom needs. Those headers can be utilized for what you wish.

I really amuses me that some fail to understand, that if you design the device you have to calculate all scenarios. A whacky Aussie hooking couple of 20-40W Deltas. Because why not.

It could be added, to repurposed blade servers, that have expansion slots, the heck even a NAS. Some of them have propertiary management ports and broken features. This could be as a band aid, as investing into a new server node costs way more, especially now.

You can increase redundancy adding one of those for super mission critical places in case of the built in solutions bugs out.
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#15
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
Ferrum MasterBionic Blade Delta120mm fan = 106W, I think you would like the fan...

It is a custom card for custom needs. Those headers can be utilized for what you wish.

I really amuses me that some fail to understand, that if you design the device you have to calculate all scenarios. A whacky Aussie hooking couple of 20-40W Deltas. Because why not.

It could be added, to repurposed blade servers, that have expansion slots, the heck even a NAS. Some of them have propertiary management ports and broken features. This could be as a band aid, as investing into a new server node costs way more, especially now.

You can increase redundancy adding one of those for super mission critical places in case of the built in solutions bugs out.
That thing scares me. regular deltas can take off a finger.
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