SuperMicro X7DVL-E Motherboard Will Not Post

[JonnyAlpha]

Hi all,

First post, always a fan of forums over Facebook, simply because its easier to find and follow threads

I have a DIY NAS that has had an old server motherboard board in it that all of a sudden stopped booting.
The board is a SuperMicro X7DVL-E Motherboard.

After doing lots of diagnosis I now think the CPU has fried?

Symptoms:
CPU Cooler Fan not working
No display output
Onboard LED’s suggest that it is stuck in CPU initialisation mode - LE5 is yellow LE4 is green.
No post beeps however I can’t remember whether I used to hear a post beep (Don’t believe there is an onboard speaker)?

[ATTACH type=“full” width=“435px” alt=“Screenshot 2024-12-10 at 20.01.57.webp”]14774[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH type=“full” width=“554px” alt=“Screenshot 2024-12-10 at 20.02.06.webp”]14775[/ATTACH]

Tried removing all memory and any peripherals.
Tried another like for like CPU - however I cannot recall if it is any good?

Iv’e also just spotted this in the manual, so I could try testing the power output of the PSU.

[ATTACH type=“full” width=“559px” size=“1586x1050”]14776[/ATTACH]

Any ideas on anything else to test?

Thanks

[PeterOz]

CPU Cooler Fan not working

First thing to fix.
Can you test the fan either on another system or by direct power - do not overload.
It could be hat because the cpu fan is not working it will not post to protect the cpu.
If the fan test ok then reset cmos and test. Page 2-24

[PeterOz]

Is the cpu cooler fan not working on both cup’s

[JonnyAlpha]

Is the cpu cooler fan not working on both cup’s

Only one CPU in this machine.

[JonnyAlpha]

First thing to fix.
Can you test the fan either on another system or by direct power - do not overload.
It could be hat because the cpu fan is not working it will not post to protect the cpu.
If the fan test ok then reset cmos and test. Page 2-24

So I tested the fan using the 12v output from another ATX PSU. Had to try and work out the pinout first.
Found this on Toms Hardware:
[ATTACH type=“full” width=“316px” size=“664x282”]14784[/ATTACH]
Here is the fan connector:
[ATTACH type=“full” width=“364px” size=“3024x4032”]14785[/ATTACH]

Didn’t work.
I tested another fan using the same AXT PSU connection and it span up fine.
I have also tested a case fan in all of the FAN headers on the SuperMicro motherboard and they all spin the fan.

[PeterOz]

So broken cpu fan can be the reason for it not booting.

[JonnyAlpha]

So the pinout for the four pin fan is as follows:
Black = GND
Yellow = +12V
Green = Sensor
Blue = Control
If the sensor on the fan header is not picking up the existance of a woking fan and that is causing the motherboard not to boot, is there anyway to bypass this?

I have searched through my PC spares and do not have any more 4 pin fans. The part number on the top of the CPU fan is:
Intel E30325-001
Searching this brings up a complete CPU cooler, however these seem to range from £40 to £140 on ebay!!
I have tried to find just the fan and plastic shroud, but with no luck.
I suppose I could try and find a four pin fan and hack it onto the Heatsink?

[JonnyAlpha]

Well, I had another look in my garage and low and behold I found an old Elitegroup 915-M5 Motherboard with a heatsink that has a 4 pin fan on it.
Once the fan was off the circular heatsink it slotted over the rectangular heatsink on the SuperMicro board quite nicely. Plugged in the fan, power, USB keyboard and onboard video and switched it on.
Fan works fine but same issue with the CPU initialisation LEDs and no post and no video output.
Maybe the CPU is toasted, so I tried a second CPU that I have, but no joy. But I have no idea if the second CPU is any good.

So last chance with this old board, is to buy a replacement CPU, the question is what to buy?
The existing CPU is a L5335 SLAEN, but I have no clue about CPUs, all I know is this is an LGA771 socket and the LIST OF CPUs in the SuperMicro Manual which says:

"Dual Intel® 64-bit Xeon LGA 771 quad core/ dual core processors at a frontside bus speed of 1333 MHz/1067 MHz/667MHz"

After dowing some more research reading on this page all of the following 5000 series CPUs should compatible:
[ul]
[li]Xeon (Woodcrest)[/li][li]Xeon (Dempsey)[/li][li]Xeon (Clovertown)[/li][li]Xeon (Harpertown)[/li][li]Xeon (Wolfdale-DP)[/li][/ul]
With the Clovertown and Harpertown being quad core variants.
Iv’e also read that the lower nm figure the better.
Using this Wikipedia page as a reference, I can see tha the existing CPU (L5335 SLAEN), is a low voltage CPU with 2 x 4MB L2 Cache.
So I could look for a similar or maybe go for a Harpertown low voltage, such as a L5408, L5410, L5420 or L5430?

[PeterOz]

Maybe Try the cpu in the second slot.

[JonnyAlpha]

Maybe Try the cpu in the second slot.

Didn’t know you could use the second slot without a working CPU in the first slot? I’ll give it a go.

[PeterOz]

Can’t say for certain that that it will work.
I know that on a server I had with 2 CPU’s you could.
You may have fried the cpu if the fan was dead.
Did you have the cpu overheat warning turned on in the BIOS.

https://www.cpu-world.com/Related_CP...0771_Core.html

[JonnyAlpha]

Can’t say for certain that that it will work.
I know that on a server I had with 2 CPU’s you could.
You may have fried the cpu if the fan was dead.
Did you have the cpu overheat warning turned on in the BIOS.

https://www.cpu-world.com/Related_CP...0771_Core.html

Can’t access the BIOS, so no idea ???

[JonnyAlpha]

2 x L5420 Xeon CPUs ordered from
EBay for less than a tenner ???

[PeterOz]

Can’t access the BIOS, so no idea

I was thinking you may have set it up from start.

2 x L5420 Xeon CPUs ordered from
EBay for less than a tenner

BARGIN
Let’s hope they are good.
Do you have 2 fans.

With cpu in second place
Remove power cord from computer
Short CMOS reset pads
Test
Or wait for cpu’s

[JonnyAlpha]

I was thinking you may have set it up from start.

BARGIN
Let’s hope they are good.
Do you have 2 fans.

With cpu in second place
Remove power cord from computer
Short CMOS reset pads
Test
Or wait for cpu’s

The seller was accepting returns in case they are bad. I do only have one heat sink, so I’ll have to source another. They seem hard to get or very expensive.