Motherboard will only boot after a CMOS reset?

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Evan Zolman

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Aug 20, 2017
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I've visited this site a bit recently, but I haven't made an account and posted until now. In the last few weeks, I have gotten the parts for and breadboarded a custom Workstation PC. The PCPartPicker list is at Extreme Workstation Build - evanzolman's Saved Part List - Xeon E5-269... - PCPartPicker. As of now, the essential parts of the build are an Engineering Sample E5-2690 V4 (QHV5), ASUS X99-E WS/USB 3.1 Motherboard, Kingston ValueRAM 64GB (4 x 16GB) DDR4 2400 RAM (Server Memory) ECC Reg DIMM (288-Pin), Samsung - 960 EVO 500GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive, and Seasonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply. I have more parts, like the case, CPU cooler, HDDs, and GPU, but I'm not using those right now and they're in the PCPartPicker list if anyone's curious. A few weeks ago, I opened the motherboard box and installed the CPU. Before I installed it, I noticed a few bent pins on the motherboard. I bought the board "Manufacturer Refurbished" from a seller on eBay, so I suspected the board should run anyways. I looked up the pins that were bent, and there was 1 pin that was for VCC (there are 200+ of these on the board), and 3 for the first channel of ram (including the RAM's clock pin). I decided that, if it boots, it should be good enough to keep. I installed 1 stick of RAM in the first channel, installed a cheap GPU, connected the PSU, and tried to boot the system. it booted into the UEFI BIOS just fine, but when I clicked the "save and close" button to reboot, it failed to boot. The ASUS Q-code LED display showed code "19", which means "pre-memory PCH initialization started". I tried other sticks of RAM in the same (and other) memory channels, to no avail. I messed with the PSU, clicked the "MemOK!" button (as some people online suggested for similar issues), and a lot of other things, without success. At last, I decided I should try to reset the CMOS, so I clicked the button for that. Low and behold, it boots into the BIOS again! I set some settings and rebooted. Then error 19 again. I reset CMOS, and it went back to the BIOS (with the reset settings). I decided I should try to boot off my flash drive straight through the Setup screen, without saving the settings. It actually booted Ubuntu Desktop, without ANY issues whatsoever. I did tests and diagnostics, with no issues showing up. Then I rebooted, and error 19... Then I wondered, "would Windows still install and operate even if the BIOS is reset at every reboot?" I tried my theory (By installing it to the SSD), and it worked! Windows 10 Pro works, and never crashes or has any lag. The biggest problem is that I can't enable virtualization, so the primary purpose of the workstation (to run VMs) isn't possible right now. Also, because I can't enable RAID mode on the chipset, I can't attach my HDDs in RAID 5, so I don't have any mass storage. I think the issue might be that the ASUS board rejects the CPU once it configures itself (by saving the BIOS settings). While it's unconfigured, it boots fine. I decided I should try to update the BIOS, which I did (to the latest version). It still didn't fix it. I'll attach a CPU-Z image so you guys can check if the processor is compatible. I think I might get an ASRock board because I have read on this site that those work on pretty much anything. My only major concern is the M.2 Port because my SSD runs at 3.2GBps (Not Gbps), so with overhead, it's near 28Gbps. The ASRock boards I've looked at only have PCIe Gen2 c4 (instead of Gen3), so the SSD would be limited to 20Gbps (2/3 the speed the SSD actually uses in practice). I know it'll bottleneck, but it's much better than the original board I bought and returned (ASUS X99-WS/IPMI) because it only had PCIe 2.0 x2 (10Gbps). I would love to get 10GB ethernet, but I'm not sure if I have the money... My current board cost $350 and has a 20% restocking fee, so I'll be short quite a bit. I only have a couple hundred dollars left over, and I need some of it for when I start college in a couple days (Tuesday). My original plan was to have everything built and transferred before school started, but obviously, that won't happen... I'm also wondering what the maximum memory speed is for my ES CPU... My Motherboard was bought from ASUS X99-E WS/USB 3.1 Intel X99 LGA 2011-v3 SATA 6Gb/s CEB Intel Motherboard, and my CPU was from Intel Xeon E5 2690 V4 ES 2.4Ghz 35MB 14Core LGA2011 14nm 135W QHV5 Processor CPU | eBay. I need to know if I should return the motherboard before the 30 day return period is over, which will be on July 29, 2017.Screenshot_1.png Screenshot_2.png
 
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Evan Zolman

New Member
Aug 20, 2017
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Btw, I'm really sorry about the huge block of text... I think it's just a very complex problem, and I didn't want to miss anything.
TLDR: The motherboard only boots right after the CMOS is reset. When it does boot, it works perfectly fine (except things like VT-x and X99 RAID are disabled). I think it's a compatibility problem between my ES CPU and my ASUS Motherboard.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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The link you sent says "This purchased item information is no longer available."

And "I need to know if I should return the motherboard before the 30 day return period is over, which will be on July 29, 2017."

This was almost a month ago.
 

Evan Zolman

New Member
Aug 20, 2017
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The link you sent says "This purchased item information is no longer available."

And "I need to know if I should return the motherboard before the 30 day return period is over, which will be on July 29, 2017."

This was almost a month ago.
Sorry, I put the wrong month... I meant August 29, 2017. The seller apparently changed the listing for the CPU (according to eBay. I don't see anything different about the edited version...), so I'll change it to the new one. I'll edit the original post.
 

Evan Zolman

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Aug 20, 2017
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The problem isn't necessarily the motherboard but the processor that you purchased. You are using an ASUS X99 motherboard which are known to be very picky about steppings and also whether the processor is at least a QS or OEM/production processor. You have an ES2 processor from this listing:

Intel Xeon E5 2690 V4 ES 2.4Ghz 35MB 14Core LGA2011 14nm 135W QHV5 Processor CPU | eBay

The problem in my opinion is the processor not being at least a QS (and as such a different CPUID). For better compatibility with this processor you will need either an ASUS or ASRock X99 motherboard which work with ES2 V4 Xeons. GIGABYTE and ASUS X99 require either QS or production processors to work properly with V4 Xeons.
I thought it was because it wasn't a QS or above... Do all ASRock X99 boards work with ES2 V4 Xeons? Also, which ones would support my ECC RAM? Thanks!
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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Sorry, I put the wrong month... I meant August 29, 2017. The seller apparently changed the listing for the CPU (according to eBay. I don't see anything different about the edited version...), so I'll change it to the new one. I'll edit the original post.
Oooh ok :) that makes more sense ha ha.