SuperMicro X7DAE Help needed...

[jimmarch]

I bought pretty much all new Hardware.

Here is the list of items that stay the same.

• SUPERMICRO X7DAE
• 2 x Intel Xeon 5130
• 4 x Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM

The problem I'm having is that once I have everything hooked up, and power on the PC, the only fan that fires up is the Power Supply fan.

Occasionaly, the CPU fans and case fans will start to fire up, then just stop.

And even less frequently all fans fire up and I hear a single beep.

And even less frequently then the less frequent, everthing fires up, the monitor comes to life and I can enter the BIOS and poke around. It shows all the installed RAM. Hardware Monitor shows that the voltages are good, tempatures are good, and it detects both CPU's and all CPU cores... However, it will not load Windows Setup for either Vista RC1, or Windows XP. Both fail with an obscure error saying that it can not read from the disk.

Now, at first I thought it was a power supply issue. I started with a Antec TITAN550 Server Case that uses a Antec TruePower 2.0 TP2-550 EPS12V ATX12V 550W Power Supply. I went out and purchased a Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 ATX12V 650W Power Supply and still had the same results.

I chatted a bit with SuperMicro tec support who suggested it's probably the Antec Power Supply or maybe my video card.

Against my better judgement I ordered a SUPERMICRO CSE-743i-650B Black 4U Server Chassis 650W. Again, same problem....

So back to the store again. The original video card I was testing with was a XFX Geforce 7900GT, but I also purchased a BFG Tech Geforce 7600GT PCI-E and even an old school PCI eVGA Geforce FX5200.

So that's 3 different Power Supplies, and 3 different video cards. I can't imagine what I could possibly be doing wrong? I'm not looking forward to the long RMA process of sending the Motherboard back, so if anyone can think of something I might be missing, I'd love to hear it.....

 

[Agit]

"So that's 3 different Power Supplies, and 3 different video cards. I can't imagine what I could possibly be doing wrong? I'm not looking forward to the long RMA process of sending the Motherboard back, so if anyone can think of something I might be missing, I'd love to hear it....."

1 thing that I thought of with your issue in regards to the OS install issue is that this most likely needs an "F6" Driver to be installed at the start of the install process, that is ususally indicative of XP/Vista/2K3, not having a built in driver for the drive controller..........

In regards to the instability, inconsistencies, I feel for you...... I have been attempting to talk to them about an issue that I am having with an X6DHP-TG board. I honestly have to say that in 10 years of contacting technical support for various issues, they have been the most unprofessional I have had the misfortune to deal with.

Which makes me sad, because one of the labs I support has 300+ supermicro systems, and I think this will be affecting buying decisions in the future.

 

[jimmarch]

1 thing that I thought of with your issue in regards to the OS install issue is that this most likely needs an "F6" Driver to be installed at the start of the install process, that is ususally indicative of XP/Vista/2K3, not having a built in driver for the drive controller..........

Yeah, it doesn't even get that far. It fails while "loading setup".

I honestly have to say that in 10 years of contacting technical support for various issues, they have been the most unprofessional I have had the misfortune to deal with.

I would be embarrased to post the responses I got from their tech support.

I sent the Mobo back, and now I guess I just have to wait and see.....