Well, their profile picture states “TechWaste Recycling”.
But I get what you mean, eBay Sellers usually make it very clear in the item descriptions.
Have you tried Power Cycling and clearing the CMOS?
Which is what I’m used to but again, hindsight.
Yes. I even replaced the CMOS battery. The one it came with still tickled with the tongue test so wasn’t bad. Power button doesn’t do anything now. I removed everything i had added even though it made it further than now with the new stuff.
I had a similar situation with the poweredge 710 of mine. PSU was going bad, but it didn’t quite behave like this or just stop working.
I guess you can only test with a different PSU if you have one available. If the board is fried, it won’t work; of it’s the PSU, you don’t have to send back the entire thing.
Yeah. I’m hoping it’s just the power supplies. It to have two faulty ones is interesting if it’s the case. The replacement I ordered will be here probably mid/end of the week. You don’t need both working to POST thankfully so didn’t grab two. You can get a brand new mobo for 100 bucks which is likely what I will have to do or might skimp and get a used one for 50-60 bucks that states its been thoroughly tested by actual professionals.
My main concern now is did I do damage to any other hardware like my drives. Won’t know till I get a working server 
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Seller agreed and refunded me half the cost. Will grab a new motherboard and continue messing with the build.
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I think I’ve decided to attempt TN on esxi 8 (since it still supports E5-2600v4 cpus). Use my pci-e nvme cards/sata ssds as datastores for VMs. Also install the exsi boot on that sata-dom I got
Passthrough the HBA330 mono to TN VM to control the disks. Since I will be using esxi to run VMs, do I really need scale over core? I haven’t looked at the GUI differences or QoL changes between the two. But since I’ll need less frills I suspect core will be best?
Now this isn’t to say I won’t try TN bare metal. It’s a fresh system so I can play around with configurations. I was reading the guide on esxi 6 that I found on the old forum but wasn’t quite understanding the networked storage step unless that is to do with the block access?
I’m also replacing the 8gb ram sticks and filling the empty slots with 16gb ECC. Already have 8 sticks on their way from an auction for $120. Few more auctions I’m watching. Which will bring me to 384gb when done. Figured might as well since this will be the last server I build for some time and TN apparently can use all you throw at it.
Power supply will be here tomorrow so will be great if it’s not the motherboard but have a feeling. So I have a MB on the way too. Best case it’s a spare.
So I need to flash a bought HBA model with a different firmware like i would have with the megasas FW model that came with the machine?
No, you need to update the firmware to the latest version.
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Guess I’ll have to figure out how to do this since its not a pcie.
It is PCIe. I guess you mean it’s not in the traditional, standard PCIe card form factor - the answer to that is:
- Open iDRAC
- Make sure the iDRAC network settings are correct
- Go to system/updates or something to that effect
- Manual HTTPS update → downloads.dell.com
- Update everything.
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After digging from your recommendation I found that dell has a neat thing called Dell Repository Manager. It’s an installable software and you select the server model you are wanting to update. It creates a bootable iso containing all FW/BIOS updates for that machine. Of course the server being updated might not have all the different hardware included so will get skipped. Created a 3gb bootable ISO and used rufus to burn it to flashdrive. Wish I had known about this a long time ago for my older server.
For those who might also want to use it
https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/drivers/driversdetails?driverid=ym3xn
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For Gen13 (x30) servers and up, it’s even easier, and pretty much as Eric suggested, other than that you enter the Lifecycle Controller from the boot sequence.
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Ok, I’ll try the way Eric suggested and do the iso boot way if for some reason it doesn’t work,
Well, the used PSU I ordered seems stable. Able to setup idrac, but unfortunately the lifecycle controller was never updated so has no HTTPS option so can’t go that route. Unless I installed an OS, and use it to flash a bin file to update it.
No power fault lights on the motherboard but there is a power indicator on the front panel. I’m going to assume that is because I only have one PSU installed. If I try slotting either of the original PSU’s in slot 2 it faults out. I have not tested the working PSU in slot 2.
Going to se how the DRM iso works on updating things. Would be nice if it updates the lifecycle.
I am getting via the idrac webUI “RAC0690: The iDRAC Service Module is not installed on the operating system of the server. Install the Service Module and retry the operation.” When I click Host OS. Maybe because there isn’t one?
So it’s missing a software module that needs to be installed via an OS like esxi or linux. I guess people just don’t update servers prior to or when they are in deployment.
It’s has detected the one SAS drive I’ve inserted. Not going to install them all yet till I get things updated.
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Download the latest iDRAC firmware from Dell’s site, do a manual update with the file (you need the Windows self-extracting installer, yeah, it’s silly, but it’s just how Dell wrote iDRAC) from the DRAC webGUI. Then you can do the rest of the updates semi-automatically from the webGUI.
The offline updater seems to be working. It’s updating the idrac atm. For a while I thought it was looping as it disconnects the USB a few times between changing what it’s updating. Going to let it finish. Then I will grab the windows installer. I probably should have installed my flexbay board for the rear 2 SAS/SATA drive bays so if that needed updated.
So the boot updater updated the lifecycle version and was able to connect using https.
I want to say the BIOS was 2.89 now is 2.19. Also says the HBA330 is on the most current FW. Wish the darn fans would idle down they have been running full speed since I started these updates. It’s updating a few things like the NIC with the LCC.
Going to try installing ESXi and see how it goes. The dashboard was all Blue now its amber so who knows what’s going on. But at least tt’s booting and working now.
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Welp back to not booting. idrac responds. Ran a hardware diagnostic before this and everything was in the green. I know the flexbay worked before but maybe see if its the issue now. I guess this is what you get when you go for a used system. But tinkering is fun… to an extent. I wish they had better documentation on motherboard light readouts. I magically found someone who had the same power fault lights but as for any other lights i have no idea.
Break time till tomorrow.
EDIT:
Back to the power fault lights on the MB. I removed everything riser cards, satadom, etc. So it’s the MB or 3 PSU failures. MB will be here tomorrow or Friday.
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This is the only post I’ve been able to find that describes to lights I have. I’ve made sure all cables and everything are seated well. So mainboard it is.
Though I did get one error during diagnosis. Doesn’t specify anything though. Unless there is a password jumper cable… /s
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