New Build SUPERMICRO MBD-X9SCM-F-O no power

[Hugo Ochoa]

After building the server using a Corsair TX750w power supply and the parts list in my signature, I see the fan's try to start spining and then nothing happens. The system does not start at all. If I push the power button again, the fans try to start but not even the power suply fan starts. The standby and PMI LEDs turn on (PMI blinks slowly as it should) and the onboard battery is doing 3V. I've disconnected all but CPU, one stick of RAM on DIMM 2A, and power switch and still nothing. I've tried swapping the RAM sticks arround and even re-seated the CPU. The power supply is the only part that is not brand new as it was removed from a system that was working fine hours before and it is 80+ certified within the specs for the motherboard. I'm now thinking that the motherboard is DOA and will need replacement.

Does anyone have a clue what could be wrong here? This is not my first buid and as always I followed strict anti-static/clean-room procedures while putting it together. This is however, my first SuperMicro build and I have to say I'm not very impressed with the looks of the board. It just doesn't look as well built as other boards I've used by diferent manufactures such as Asus or Asrock.

 

[ser_rhaegar]

This might sound like an odd suggestion, or something you want to dismiss right away, but double check that there are no screws behind the motherboard or metal standoffs where they shouldn't be. This was a common occurrence when I worked at a PC repair shop 10+ years ago.

If that doesn't work, pull the board from the case and bench with just a PSU, RAM, CPU.

If that doesn't work and you have no secondary parts in the PSU/CPU department, you might find a local PC repair shop that will let you bring in the board and test with their parts.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

This might sound like an odd suggestion, or something you want to dismiss right away, but double check that there are no screws behind the motherboard or metal standoffs where they shouldn't be. This was a common occurrence when I worked at a PC repair shop 10+ years ago.

If that doesn't work, pull the board from the case and bench with just a PSU, RAM, CPU.

If that doesn't work and you have no secondary parts in the PSU/CPU department, you might find a local PC repair shop that will let you bring in the board and test with their parts.

I'll double check that but I'm 99% sure there are no extra stands in the wrong place. I do have access to other power suplies and my next test was to put the PSU back in the system it was working on to make sure it still working. I'm almost certain that the board is bad and will need to be RMA. Thankfully I just got it from NewEgg last week so it should be an easy process.

Thanks for your quick response ser!

 

[cyberjock]

The fans starting to spin and then stopping is usually a sign of a bad signal from the motherboard to the PSU to power on or the PSU is tripping itself off to protect the hardware. Usually this is a sign of a bad PSU or a short between 2 voltages or a voltage and ground. In short, don't keep trying to test it. Stop and examine your hardware closely. A friend had this problem and I solved it by turning his computer upside-down and shaking the case. A tiny screw fell out. Whoops!

Plugged his computer back in and hit the power button. Worked like a champ ever since.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

The fans starting to spin and then stopping is usually a sign of a bad signal from the motherboard to the PSU to power on or the PSU is tripping itself off to protect the hardware. Usually this is a sign of a bad PSU or a short between 2 voltages or a voltage and ground. In short, don't keep trying to test it. Stop and examine your hardware closely. A friend had this problem and I solved it by turning his computer upside-down and shaking the case. A tiny screw fell out. Whoops!

Plugged his computer back in and hit the power button. Worked like a champ ever since.

That made a lot is sense Cyberjock! However, after removing the motherboard and triple checking the position of the stands and making sure there were no screws loose anywhere in the case, I'm still not getting the system to start. If I disconnect all the case fans, and push the power button on the case, the PSU fan starts spinning for a few seconds and then stops. It does this in an endless cycle until I switch off the PSU. The scary part is that the CPU fan doesn't start!!! So after a few seconds of this behavior, I removed the PSU and tested it with other system. There's no problem with the PSU as it works just fine in the other system. Unless, I hear from anyone here who knows what to do to fix this other than RMA the motherboard, I'm sending it back later on today. Thanks for your response!

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

It took almost two weeks but finally I got a replacement MB back from Newegg. The system now boots as I was able to install it in the Rosewill RSV-L4411 chassis. I was very happy about being able to get in the BIOS and also see that all 32 GB of RAM were detected. However, my happiness didn't last. Long story short the first HDD I installed in the Rosewill drive cage had its board toasted once I turned on the system. Thankfully, I was watching the HDD closely and noticed an orange glow and smoke coming out of the drive cage! I immediately turned off the PSU and pulled the drive out. This had never happen to me before and I'm pretty sure it was the backplane on the Rosewill chassis that caused the overload. I've sent back the case to Newegg at a painful $65 shipping charge and after several hours of work lost on it.

I'm now using an Antec case I had laying around for testing the system and it seems to work fine. No hot-swap feature but I may get a couple of hot-swap cages for the 5.25” drive bays and be done with it for now. The Antec case has a 4x5.25” drive bay so I’m thinking about getting a couple of iStarUSA BPN-DE230SS-BLACK 2 x 5.25" to 3 x 3.5" SAS/SATA Trayless Hot-Swap Cages (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16816215240) to have 6 hot swappable hard drives that would be my main pool and have 6 more in the inside (6x3.5”) bays for a backup of my main pool that would not be hot-swappable. How does that sound?

I'm a little worried about the temperature of the hard drives since there's no active cooling on them in the Antec case but the case has 2x80mm fans pulling air out and the PSU has its own awesome 140mm fan. The iStarUSA cages have each a 70mm fan.


Is there a way to know monitor the temperature of the HDDs in FreeNAS?

 

[ser_rhaegar]

If you configure SMART, you can have it email you when the HDDs reach certain threshold temps.
http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/S.M.A.R.T.

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

Has anyone used the IBM ServeRAID M1115/LSI SAS9223-8i PCI-E SAS+SATA 46C8928? Is it possible to flash to IT mode as the M1015?

 

[Hugo Ochoa]

I found in the comments here: http://www.servethehome.com/ibm-serveraid-m1015-part-4/ that the M1115 can be cross-flashed to IT mode. Anyway, after the nightmarish experience with the Rosewill RSV-L4411 chassis, I searched ebay for a Supermicro SC826 and bought the SuperChassis 826TQ-R800LPB for $199! It's on its way to me now and hopefully I'll get it Wednesday.

I'm still puzzled by what happened to the drive that shorted in the Rosewill case. Newegg refused to replace it and now I’m trying to get an RMA from WD. I hope they don’t refuse it as well otherwise I’ll have to figure out how to change the PCB on it to try to fix it.

 

[ser_rhaegar]

Nice deal on the SM chassis!

 

[Faluzure]

Glad I found this post. Makes me feel better knowing another person had a similar issue.

The fans starting to spin and then stopping is usually a sign of a bad signal from the motherboard to the PSU to power on or the PSU is tripping itself off to protect the hardware. Usually this is a sign of a bad PSU or a short between 2 voltages or a voltage and ground. In short, don't keep trying to test it. Stop and examine your hardware closely. A friend had this problem and I solved it by turning his computer upside-down and shaking the case. A tiny screw fell out. Whoops!

Plugged his computer back in and hit the power button. Worked like a champ ever since.

This is EXACTLY what my motherboard is doing. The case fans spin up for fraction of a second then stop (however the CPU fan never spins). Motherboard lights stay lit. The case fans are attached directly to the PSU. Doing basic troubleshooting, I tried a different PSU from my gaming rig with the same result. I even went one step further in troubleshooting and removed the entire motherboard and placed it onto a cardboard box just in case there was some kind of short from the metal case. Same result.

However, between both PSUs tested and powering on the motherboard in the case and on a cardboard box, I found that an LE6 LED was solid red in all scenarios. The manual doesn't list anything about it. A search on the SuperMicro support page for my specific motherboard (and a Google search including other X10 motherboards) lists the code for the LE6 LED as:

"System Power has a problem (Power Failure). Normal operation is green."

At the very least, even if there's a CPU or memory issue, the fans should spin up when a power button is pressed.

It's my luck that I get a DOA motherboard. *sigh*

It took almost two weeks but finally I got a replacement MB back from Newegg. The system now boots as I was able to install it in the Rosewill RSV-L4411 chassis. ...

I shipped mine back Saturday, but with Newegg replacements being shipped via their Super Saver method, I probably won't be able to work on it until next next weekend. :( I wish Amazon would have had the motherboard. Their return policy is awesome (they ship you a replacement immediately.) Oh well... I got a good deal on the Newegg.

 

[andrewjs18]

gosh, I hope I don't have this issue. I have the same motherboard, but haven't completed my build yet and haven't powered it up yet..still changing out some parts (I should have posted my parts list here for scrutiny before buying them - you live and learn)..

 

[Faluzure]

gosh, I hope I don't have this issue. I have the same motherboard, but haven't completed my build yet and haven't powered it up yet..still changing out some parts (I should have posted my parts list here for scrutiny before buying them - you live and learn)..

Yeah... it was DEFINITELY a disappointment, as I slated my entire weekend to building the server & getting it up & running. I had all my parts in hand on Tuesday of last week, except UPS showed my case would be delivered last Friday. So had I known, I would have tested the motherboard then. Now I have to wait 2 weeks (5 days to send back, 5 days for replacement) to get started on it again.

Anyway, I don't have this exact motherboard, but I have an X10SLM+-F. But seeing his symptoms, it's doing what mine did. I also found another forum where another guy had the same brand (SuperMicro) and was getting the same issue.

Definitely sucks.

If I were you, I'd at least put the core components (motherboard/cpu/memory) and connected the PSU to it and power that sucker on to make sure it boots.

 

[andrewjs18]

Yeah... it was DEFINITELY a disappointment, as I slated my entire weekend to building the server & getting it up & running. I had all my parts in hand on Tuesday of last week, except UPS showed my case would be delivered last Friday. So had I known, I would have tested the motherboard then. Now I have to wait 2 weeks (5 days to send back, 5 days for replacement) to get started on it again.

Anyway, I don't have this exact motherboard, but I have an X10SLM+-F. But seeing his symptoms, it's doing what mine did. I also found another forum where another guy had the same brand (SuperMicro) and was getting the same issue.

Definitely sucks.

If I were you, I'd at least put the core components (motherboard/cpu/memory) and connected the PSU to it and power that sucker on to make sure it boots.

that's not a bad idea. maybe I'll do that on my day off on Wednesday.

 

[Faluzure]

that's not a bad idea. maybe I'll do that on my day off on Wednesday.

Nothing is worse than trying it on a Friday. :( You can't call anyone (Supermicro's tech support is Monday - Friday). Unless you don't mind waiting & taking your time. I just the type of guy that wants to be sure all the parts are 100% working. Afterall, the Newegg return policy is 30 days. In my case, simply waiting on the motherboard (shipped back/fixed/return shipping) is half that time. I'm 99.9% sure it's the motherboard though...