SOLVED SuperMicro X10 Motherboards + i3 4th Gen Proc Boot Issues?

For those that have SuperMicro X10 Motherboards w/ 4th Gen i3 CPUs, did you have to flash the BIOS?


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Faluzure

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Ericloewe/cyberjock/Fraoch: Thanks your your input. I completely understand their stance on it. I did take Eric's advice and call personally and the guy on the phone had a much different stance than the guy I was emailing. After explaining everything, he said if I tried 2 different power supplies & verified they are working and double-checked the memory & CPU, he thinks it must be a motherboard issue.

Then I asked him, even with a CPU incompatibility with the 1.X version of BIOS, shouldn't the fans at least spin to indicate power when the power button is pressed? He agreed with me and just said to either RMA through them or return the motherboard to the reseller. I've already returned it to Newegg for an exchange, but if the replacement acts the same, I'll just RMA it back to SuperMicro.

Will keep you guys posted.
 

Faluzure

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Well. I got my new motherboard today... and now I get an ORANGE LE6 LED. According to Supermicro's page, it's: Orange means standby power is OK but not power on yet.

http://www.supermicro.com/support/faqs/faq.cfm?faq=17122

Now that I have the motherboard connected to the PSU & the IPMI on the network, I can verify I can access IPMI but it can't power on the motherboard. I get this message: "Performing power action failed. Please check The feature connector cables."

On the Summary section, I verified I have the 2.00 firmware:

Firmware Revision : 01.42IP address : 192.168.001.107
Firmware Build Time : 04/18/2014BMC MAC address : 0c:c4:7a:0c:d4:40
BIOS Version : 2.00System LAN1 MAC address : 0c:c4:7a:0c:d6:d0
BIOS Build Time : 04/24/2014System LAN2 MAC address : 0c:c4:7a:0c:d6:d1

I'm kind of at a loss now... Now the only things left is the PSU/CPU/Memory. But if the CPU/memory was bad, it should still power up. Now I'm wondering if the Seasonic is bad. I'm using the SSR-550RM that Ericloewe is using.

Any suggestions?

 

Faluzure

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FML. I just tried my PSU from my gaming PC and it powers up just fine via the power switch and in IPMI. via IPMI, I saw the Supermicro splash screen in the console preview.

When I tried that with the 1st motherboard, it had a red LED with both PSUs. Now it's orange on both but the Seasonic is bad. I even did the PSU paperclip fan test failed. Fan won't even spin.

What the heck are the chances that I ended up with a bad motherboard AND a PSU?! I should buy a lottery ticket tonight.

Sheesh... RMA'ing the PSU now.
 

Ericloewe

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FML. I just tried my PSU from my gaming PC and it powers up just fine via the power switch and in IPMI. via IPMI, I saw the Supermicro splash screen in the console preview.

When I tried that with the 1st motherboard, it had a red LED with both PSUs. Now it's orange on both but the Seasonic is bad. I even did the PSU paperclip fan test failed. Fan won't even spin.

What the heck are the chances that I ended up with a bad motherboard AND a PSU?! I should buy a lottery ticket tonight.

Sheesh... RMA'ing the PSU now.

Damn, that's unlucky. And a Seasonic at that.

Fortunately, it should be smooth sailing from now on, since Seasonic should just rubber stamp your RMA.

Glad the motherboard got fixed.
 

Fraoch

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Wow, this certainly hasn't been easy for you. Hope things get better.
 

Starpulkka

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What the heck are the chances that I ended up with a bad motherboard AND a PSU?! I should buy a lottery ticket tonight.
Actually im not wondering at all, first intel decided move pins to motherboard makers to handle so broken pins are no longer intel cpu broblem. (dont tell me about opteron) And then intel decided change power stuff to FIVR (Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator) and single VCCIN.(Some may say this allows better power handling but in reality its better costs handling) Also intel changed some cheap thermal paste on cpu die, it used to be solid good stuff..
And on next year.. i dont even want to think at all what is coming on next year. =(
 

cyberjock

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Also intel changed some cheap thermal paste on cpu die, it used to be solid good stuff..

Not trying to defend Intel's decisions, but if you are familiar with heat transfer equations and such you would realize that as the CPU temp (which is a function of power usage and I2R losses) the thermal paste doesn't need to be as efficient to achieve a more than adequate goal.
 

Starpulkka

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Not trying to defend Intel's decisions, but if you are familiar with heat transfer equations and such you would realize that as the CPU temp (which is a function of power usage and I2R losses) the thermal paste doesn't need to be as efficient to achieve a more than adequate goal.
Yes you are right, and i can agree with that, theres even a test that you can even use womens pink lipstick and heat transfer effecienty is lost only 5 celcius degree. http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=38728
Many "normal" people didnt know this and actually dont even need to know, but it just was one of my argument of my personal opinion, what way intel is going. End of discussion.http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/imageview.php?image=38728
 

pschatz100

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I had a similar situation with a bad power supply. I went through two motherboards and two cpu's before identifying the power supply as my problem. In my case, the power supply had not failed completely, so it was difficult to diagnose. On an older motherboard with the same power supply, the board would boot.

I didn't RMA the boards or cpu's as I feel it is inappropriate to RMA equipment that is not failing. However, next time I troubleshoot a system, when the problem does not have an obvious cause, I'll check out the power supply a lot sooner.

By the way, you do have a UPS. Right?
 

Faluzure

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Just wanted to come back here and give everyone a big thanks for helping me out. I got the replacement PSU on Saturday. Just to be 100% safe, I cardboard boxed it and powered it up. No issues whatsoever. Still hard to believe that both the motherboard & the PSU were faulty. I know it's more common nowadays with the architecture, but that's some pretty bad luck.

I spent all day Saturday & Sunday to get FreeNAS set up and running based on the documentation & other people's recommendations. All hardware testing turned out fine and I spent Sunday night setting up FreeNAS. Got the cron job for backing up the DB going, got periodic snapshots se tup, got email alerting set up, LACP setup for the NAS, and just got my UPS cable this morning (it works)!

To pschatz100, yeah... i was quick to RMA both parts. I just hate the process, because it costs you money & time. Had that not happened, the NAS would have been set up over 2 weeks ago. I do have a UPS... it was one of the things I had in the closet (no battery) when my work decided to dump a ton of hardware at the electronics recycling dump. I got a Cisco router & a gig C3750 on my network.


Again, thanks for all the help and the forums/documentation are an excellent resource.
 

Fraoch

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Very good to hear that!

Make sure to test your server fully before committing data to it:

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/building-burn-in-and-testing-your-freenas-system.17750/

https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/checking-new-hdds-in-raid.12082/

Try the SMART conveyance, short and long tests, the dd tests, the badblocks tests and the iozone tests. Also make sure to disable periodic snapshots while doing the tests that produce large files - I found this out.:D

Hopefully your bad luck is behind you, but if the gremlin has made its way onto your hard drives this will find it.;)

I have read 1000 hours quoted as a conservative testing time. Yeah, that's a lot and you'll be tempted to start using it right away. I'm only at 788 hours on my drives, and I'm in the third week. But you want to find this out now rather than later.
 

pschatz100

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Glad to hear you got it working! Definitely burn in the system before you commit important data!
 

Faluzure

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Oh definitely. It's burning in now since I got it setup how I like it.
 
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