Dell PowerEdge C8220 Build and Questions

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drabadue

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Sep 15, 2016
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Have you tried to connect to the motherboard via power distibution board? Or you can not do this, because you have atx power supply? My problem is that I can not find + 12v sb contact with a multimeter. My power supply has only one contact +12v, although at the scheme on the top is written "Output +12V 114.17a; +12V sb 2.5A".

@Wictar - Can you post a picture of the terminals on the Dell Power Supply? There are more than one contacts on the board that sticks out, correct? My "Power Distribution Board" has 8 gold plated contacts that will slide into the "Power Management Board".
 

drabadue

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Sep 15, 2016
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Great news! I did it! Look at my video
Dropbox - VID_20160921_014348.mp4
Just connect front panel pins like at the picture below.

AMAZING! I will have to try that on my board tonight! That is excellent! How do you have your fans wired currently? Are they running 100% off the power supply? Also, do you happen to know if those 2 pins need to be jumped at all times to get it to power up?
 

Wictar

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Sep 19, 2016
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@Wictar - Can you post a picture of the terminals on the Dell Power Supply? There are more than one contacts on the board that sticks out, correct? My "Power Distribution Board" has 8 gold plated contacts that will slide into the "Power Management Board".
See photos. But for connection I used standard ATX power supply and it was success.
 

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Wictar

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Sep 19, 2016
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AMAZING! I will have to try that on my board tonight! That is excellent! How do you have your fans wired currently? Are they running 100% off the power supply? Also, do you happen to know if those 2 pins need to be jumped at all times to get it to power up?
Fans are working directly from power supply 12v, 100%. And 2 pins need to be jumped all time, yes!
 
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drabadue

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Awesome! Great job @Wictar! Thank you so much for your help and for continuing to try and get he board running.

Are you going to attempt to install a Windows operating system on it? That will be my next challenge.
 
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drabadue

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I am from Indiana USA. How about you?

I went ahead and jumped the board the same way you did and got into the BIOS settings. I will upload pictures of that later tonight. I tried to hook a SSD with windows 10 installed on it, plugged into SATA4 or SATA5 that are adjacent to the PCIe ports. Unfortunately the SSD wasn't recognized. I tried changing the settings in the BIOS to get it to work, but had no luck. At first I thought it was because it was trying to boot over network. Changing the Advanced settings -> Embedded Network Devices -> and changing both NIC1 and NIC2 to Enabled without PXE. I also changed the SATA settings to AHCI and Auto. Still no luck. I am currently trying to hook the stock HDD midplane up and see if I can get it to boot that way. Unfortunately this will be too long to go into my case this way, so I will have to find another way to make it work even if I can get it to boot this way. Perhaps a PCIe to SATA card.
 

Wictar

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Sep 19, 2016
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I am from Indiana USA. How about you?

I went ahead and jumped the board the same way you did and got into the BIOS settings. I will upload pictures of that later tonight. I tried to hook a SSD with windows 10 installed on it, plugged into SATA4 or SATA5 that are adjacent to the PCIe ports. Unfortunately the SSD wasn't recognized. I tried changing the settings in the BIOS to get it to work, but had no luck. At first I thought it was because it was trying to boot over network. Changing the Advanced settings -> Embedded Network Devices -> and changing both NIC1 and NIC2 to Enabled without PXE. I also changed the SATA settings to AHCI and Auto. Still no luck. I am currently trying to hook the stock HDD midplane up and see if I can get it to boot that way. Unfortunately this will be too long to go into my case this way, so I will have to find another way to make it work even if I can get it to boot this way. Perhaps a PCIe to SATA card.
Perhaps SSD is not working because of front panel. Maybe even needed some combination of closed contacts connected. Today I cannot try this. I will write after check it.
I`m from Minsk, Belarus, excuse my terrible English)
 

drabadue

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This is the stock configuration. Trying to boot over PXE.



Here is where I turned that off:




This is as I enabled the Embedded SATA Controller. Unfortunately, even with my SSD plugged into the board, it didn't show up in this list. That is why I am going to try it with the mid plane HDD board.




Currently I am getting "No Bootable Device - please restart system or press F11 to enter boot manager."

I have my bios set to boot via Hard Disk -> USB -> DVD -> Network
 

Wictar

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Sep 19, 2016
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This is the stock configuration. Trying to boot over PXE.



Here is where I turned that off:




This is as I enabled the Embedded SATA Controller. Unfortunately, even with my SSD plugged into the board, it didn't show up in this list. That is why I am going to try it with the mid plane HDD board.




Currently I am getting "No Bootable Device - please restart system or press F11 to enter boot manager."

I have my bios set to boot via Hard Disk -> USB -> DVD -> Network
You can try to use external HDD with portable windows to try the system.
 

drabadue

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Sep 15, 2016
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I thought about that as well. A portable version of Windows or Linux. I am going to try and power the hard drive mid plane and see if I can get it to boot windows.

There has to be more to the front panel for sure. We will need to find a way for the standby line to work so the power supply isn't running when the machine is "off."

Your English is very easy to understand. No worries.
 

drabadue

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Sep 15, 2016
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SUCCESS!!!! I got it to boot Windows 10! I had to make a jumper harness to power the HDD mid plane off the ATX power supply.



I used the 4 pin molex connexctor and repinned it so that I could power the board with +5v. I used 5v because the wires going from the Power Distribution Board were red and black. Since they weren't yellow, I assumed it was 5v.

Ignore the fact that the wire going into the board is yellow. It is pinned to the RED 5v line from the power supply.








I am SUPER EXCITED right now!!! I know that it works!
 
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Wictar

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Sep 19, 2016
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Сongratulations!!! Unfortunately, I do not have SATA panel like you. I will experiment with the integrated connectors.
 

drabadue

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Сongratulations!!! Unfortunately, I do not have SATA panel like you. I will experiment with the integrated connectors.
Thank you! I would like to find a way to use the integrated SATA connectors on the board as well. I will keep trying also. If not, I will look into a PCIe to sata card or else a way to move the sata board via a riser cable (if such a thing exists). I cant have it extending the board out this long.

If we can not get it figured out, this should be the correct part.

BRAND NEW GENUINE Dell Poweredge C8220X Blade Backplane Hdd Sas/Sata 2X2.5 3W8K4

Since they offer Best Offer, you can probably get it cheap as most people would probably never buy these boards.
 

drabadue

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I have also confirmed that the microSD 10-1 header will in fact work as a USB header. I have plugged my case wiring that splits to 2 USB ports and plugged a flash drive into both. I got them to read in both drives.







 

Wictar

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Sep 19, 2016
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Amazing job! I was hoping we could figure it out! In your video, it looks like your SATA jumper is in the same row as the power jumper. The picture you posted is showing the opposite row. Can you take a picture of it so it will hopefully be clearer?

Have you tried both SATA ports this way to make sure they both work?
Has sent you a photo. I tried only one sata connector.
Interesting to know for what you`ll need 16 core Computer.
 

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drabadue

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Sep 15, 2016
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Has sent you a photo. I tried only one sata connector.
Interesting to know for what you`ll need 16 core Computer.
Thank you. The picture is way more clear. I will try that in a little bit. Do you just experiment by jumping pins together to see which ones work? Haha.

I don't "need" a 16 core computer. Haha. Just doing it to see how well it performs. The new gaming API's like DirectX12 and Vulkan are supposed to better utilize multi-core CPU systems. So I would like to test this machine against my normal computer (i5-3750k) to see how much of a difference it makes. I also want to test to see how much better video editing and cad software do.

Are you building yours for a specific purpose?