Dell PowerEdge C8220 Build and Questions

[Gitrooman]

@arcaster

Were you able to use the onboard SATA connectors? Is there any chance you can take some pictures of your board? I want to see all your jumper configs.

 

[drabadue]

1.Now that you mention it the NPDB wire was connected from the power distribution board which i removed before attempting to power on. I should mention that although my board did power on as soon as I plugged it in, I didnt get video until I placed the jumper you see in the video at the end of the post.

I'm tempted to mess with the front panel pins, but I'm afraid i'm going to burn out the board, do you think its possible to burn out the board through those pins?

2. Please let me know how that works out for you. I bet we just have to jump one of these pairs of pins thats on this board that we have no clue what their function is.

3. I did find one case that might just fit. It will be a very tight squeeze, but it measures up exactly according to the specs. I would love to get my hands on one just to measure the inside. I might pass by micro center and see if they have one and measure it.
Thermaltake Core X5
Thermaltake Core X5 CA-1E8-00M1WN-00 Black SPCC E-ATX Cube Case E-ATX Stackable Tt LCS Certified Cube Chassis - Newegg.com

4.Thanks for the tip about the corsair. Do those plug into the USB headers or the USB port? I hope its the ports, because i only see 1 usb header. Ideally the least expensive solution is the best solution, if we are shelling out $100 for each cooler then we were better off buying a premade workstation

5. See pictures 3 and 4 attached. I noticed I have a set of headers that weren't shown in your system board v1 picture you posted on the first page. I wonder what they are for.

My graphics card barely fit. It is literally resting on the ram latch. It really all depends on the card. I also tested a GTX 570 before I stuck my 970 to make sure it was safe and it worked too. Heres a video on the board i'm working with.

The 10-1 pin header is for standard USB hookup. I have tested that one and know for a fact that it works. The other one, I am not quite sure, but the board says something about debug, so I assume it has something to do with diagnostics.

Refer to this post on the 10-1 header.
Dell PowerEdge C8220 Build and Questions

Can't seem to get my nVidia Titan X to show up even with the proper linux drivers installed?

When I run "lspci -vnn | grep VGA" this is the response:

06:00.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: ASPEED Technology, Inc. ASPEED Graphics Family [1a03:2000] (rev 21) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])

The port appears to be enabled and running at pci-e gen3 speeds in bios, yet the card is still not visible to ubuntu server. Do I have to disable the integrated video adapter or change other bios settings to get the GPU to show up? To clarify I've installed the nVidia 367.57 64-bit linux driver on ubuntu server 16.04LTS.

Are you sure that Linux supports Dual CPU configuration? I am not familiar with it, so forgive me if this is a dumb question.

Come to think of it, I did disable the onboard graphics before sticking in my video card. That might help, but be careful, if you don't get video from your graphics card, you'll have to find a way to reset the bios. I thought I had that problem and tried resetting bios and couldn't. It turns out I just had to be patient as the board takes a minute or two to boot up.

That is good info to have. I too tried to disable my onboard graphics, but I still had no luck with mine. Hoping I am able to get back to it here soon and try the things we have talked about.

Would it be possible to get a link to these powered risers? The build quality of these risers appears to be much better than what I can find on Amazon.

I am using one for the GPGPU setup on the stock sled C8220. Here is a link to what I bought. They are quality and biult by 3M and much cheaper on eBay than buying new.

*NEW/BULK* 3M XP-2000-2254-7 / DELL XPW47 GPGPU V2 ZEUS PCIE CABLE ASSEMBLY 8KD2 | eBay

This link has a better picture.

Dell PowerEdge C8220X PCI-e GPGPU Bridge Cable New DJC89 | eBay

Keep in mind, this is a card edge adapter and slides into the back of the board near CPU2. IT IS NOT A PCIe TO PCIe riser. It is specifically only for the rear CPU2 PCIe card edge slot. This will run the graphics card off CPU2. Perhaps this is the reason I couldn't get mine to work, as this is the way I was trying to do it. Maybe it has to be in the PCIe slot for CPU1? It did for sure work with a wifi adapter though. So I know the slot works as a standard PCIe slot.

Refer to this post:
Dell PowerEdge C8220 Build and Questions

 

[drabadue]

1.Now that you mention it the NPDB wire was connected from the power distribution board which i removed before attempting to power on. I should mention that although my board did power on as soon as I plugged it in, I didnt get video until I placed the jumper you see in the video at the end of the post.

I'm tempted to mess with the front panel pins, but I'm afraid i'm going to burn out the board, do you think its possible to burn out the board through those pins?

2. Please let me know how that works out for you. I bet we just have to jump one of these pairs of pins thats on this board that we have no clue what their function is.

3. I did find one case that might just fit. It will be a very tight squeeze, but it measures up exactly according to the specs. I would love to get my hands on one just to measure the inside. I might pass by micro center and see if they have one and measure it.
Thermaltake Core X5
Thermaltake Core X5 CA-1E8-00M1WN-00 Black SPCC E-ATX Cube Case E-ATX Stackable Tt LCS Certified Cube Chassis - Newegg.com

4.Thanks for the tip about the corsair. Do those plug into the USB headers or the USB port? I hope its the ports, because i only see 1 usb header. Ideally the least expensive solution is the best solution, if we are shelling out $100 for each cooler then we were better off buying a premade workstation

5. See pictures 3 and 4 attached. I noticed I have a set of headers that weren't shown in your system board v1 picture you posted on the first page. I wonder what they are for.

My graphics card barely fit. It is literally resting on the ram latch. It really all depends on the card. I also tested a GTX 570 before I stuck my 970 to make sure it was safe and it worked too. Heres a video on the board i'm working with.

It would definitely be possible to burn the board through the front panel connectors. Some of them provide voltages and some of them are grounds. So be very careful in your experimentation.

Also, that case looks like the board will physically fit. I know mine is right at 20" long without the SATA panel on the end.

 

[Gitrooman]

It would definitely be possible to burn the board through the front panel connectors. Some of them provide voltages and some of them are grounds. So be very careful in your experimentation.

Also, that case looks like the board will physically fit. I know mine is right at 20" long without the SATA panel on the end.

I tried the Mini-SAS cable- no dice. I couldn't get the drive to boot or detect in bios. We're running out of ideas.

Why wouldn't the sata ports on the motherboard work. Could it be that the 24+4 pin to 18 pin has the voltage wrong on one or more of the pins related to the SATA ports? I'm guessing thats the case based on @Wictar's power pin setup and @drabadue's post showing that a DC-DC volt amp is needed to get the power switch working. I'm guessing we need to use another one of those amps on another one of those pins. I wish I had more experience with electrical engineering..

How I test how much voltage should go to every main power connector pin? Looking at @Wictar's pin picture on post #13 in this thread, I see different color wires going to the top row of pins. Do the different colors represent different voltages? I'm pretty sure the purple is 12v, but what are the rest?

 

[Gitrooman]

Another solution we can try is use an M.2 PCIe to PCIe 3.0 x4 Adapter and try a M.2 SSD.

Anyone have one of those to test laying around before I shell out a heap of cash?

 

[drabadue]

I tried the Mini-SAS cable- no dice. I couldn't get the drive to boot or detect in bios. We're running out of ideas.

Why wouldn't the sata ports on the motherboard work. Could it be that the 24+4 pin to 18 pin has the voltage wrong on one or more of the pins related to the SATA ports? I'm guessing thats the case based on @Wictar's power pin setup and @drabadue's post showing that a DC-DC volt amp is needed to get the power switch working. I'm guessing we need to use another one of those amps on another one of those pins. I wish I had more experience with electrical engineering..

How I test how much voltage should go to every main power connector pin? Looking at @Wictar's pin picture on post #13 in this thread, I see different color wires going to the top row of pins. Do the different colors represent different voltages? I'm pretty sure the purple is 12v, but what are the rest?

Thats unfortunate that the mini SAS cable didn't work. Do you know if it was a forward or revers cable that you tried? My understanding is that they are different depending on the application.

If you look at the first picture in Wictar's post, he is branching the wires off of the 12v sources in the power supply. So I am pretty sure he ran all 12v to one row, and ground to the other.

The purpose of the DC-DC booster on the Stand By line, is to up the voltage to the boards requirements. The power supply for these dell boards state that they output a 12v stand by. The standard ATX power supply is only 5v. So I use the booster to get the voltage up to 12v so i can shut the board off via windows, and have the power supply shut off as well. That way I don't have to manually kill the system each time.

If you look closely at Wictar's board, he doesnt have the edge card connectors like we do at the back, that allow us to plug in the SATA panel. I think that may be how he got his to work.

A cheaper solution than the M.2 is to just get a PCI to SATA card. Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...t_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=51KN78F2A05DPW25B61R

Which is probably the route I will go if we cant get the on board ports to work.

 

[Gitrooman]

Sorry I dont know which it is. See screenshots for packaging and connector, hopefully you can figure it out and let me know.

Sorry for the newbie questions. But if we're only providing 5v though our power supply, could that be the root of the issue? Maybe we need to figure out which pin/pins on the power connector is associated with the sata board and use a dc-dc booster to boost that/those pins?

Thanks for the tip on the sata raid adapter, i don't know why my mind jumped to m.2 sata adapter first considering I dont have any spare m.2 drives laying around while I have plenty of sata driver.

EDIT

nevermind.

 

[drabadue]

Sorry I dont know which it is. See screenshots for packaging and connector, hopefully you can figure it out and let me know.

Sorry for the newbie questions. But if we're only providing 5v though our power supply, could that be the root of the issue? Maybe we need to figure out which pin/pins on the power connector is associated with the sata board and use a dc-dc booster to boost that/those pins?

Thanks for the tip on the sata raid adapter, i don't know why my mind jumped to m.2 sata adapter first considering I dont have any spare m.2 drives laying around while I have plenty of sata driver.

EDIT

nevermind.

I am not sure how to tell if that one is forward or reverse. Looking up the part number, it just says "fan out."

Here is a link that I used to understand the differences:

SAS to SATA cables: Forward or Reverse Which, Where, Why

From what I understand we want a "Forward" cable.


The only reason we are needing to boost the 5v supply to 12v is for the standby line. That is the purple wire on the stock wiring harness. I am ASSUMING with the rest of the wires being yellow, that they are 12V. I say this because the factory dell power supply is a 12V supply. Its actually a Delta D1200E.

As seen in the pictures in this listing.
J8HPV DELL POWEREDGE C8220 1400W 80 PLUS POWER SUPPLY | eBay


Now, if the power distribution board is changing the voltages to certain pins, an then dell using all the same color wiring (yellow) for its positive voltages, is very possible, but I would think not likely.

I suppose we could try and use a 12V power supply to power the power distribution board, then power the motherboard via the power distribution board (trying to mimic the way dell intended), but the issues that arise is that I have no idea if we would need to figure out the other terminals on the power distribution board. There are about 8-10 terminals that slide into the back plane connector when these units are in their chassis, and I have not been able to locate a back plane connector.

 

[drabadue]

At the bottom right of this board are 3 "nubs" that have gold contacts on them. The far far bottom right "nub" has a group of terminals that I am not sure what they do (presumably BMC communication) (which should run to the fan controller in the very back of the chassis) (so maybe the fans are controlled via the front panel connector)? The next two "nubs" up are solid contacts and are presumably one positive 12 volts and one negative.

At that point, we could possibly find more information about the front panel connector since the whole connector is connected to this board via a wire harness. Perhaps that would shed some light on the SATA issue as well? I'm not sure.

 

[Gitrooman]

A cheaper solution than the M.2 is to just get a PCI to SATA card. Something like this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...t_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=51KN78F2A05DPW25B61R

Which is probably the route I will go if we cant get the on board ports to work.

That raid card you posted is a PCI raid card, I dont think i'll fit anywhere on the board, correct me if I'm wrong though but a PCIe Sata raid card like this one should work right?

Micro Center - Computers and Electronics

Also, I've decided to go for the Thermaltake Core X2 case for the build. It has just as much clearance as the X5, not as much as the x9 though.

 

[drabadue]

That raid card you posted is a PCI raid card, I dont think i'll fit anywhere on the board, correct me if I'm wrong though but a PCIe Sata raid card like this one should work right?

Micro Center - Computers and Electronics

Also, I've decided to go for the Thermaltake Core X2 case for the build. It has just as much clearance as the X5, not as much as the x9 though.

I could be wrong, but I am fairly certain both of those cards that you and I posted will work in an open PCI slot. And the C8220 should have 2 PCI slots (you could use the open one next to your graphics card if there is room.

I just threw it up there as an example. I am sure if you search for PCI SATA card you will find plenty of options.

Here is a cheap one that gives you two mini SAS ports, so with the forward mini SAS to SATA cables, a potential for 8 SATA ports.

 

[Jon Massey]

C8220 should have 2 PCI slots (you could use the open one next to your graphics card if there is room.

Pretty darn sure they're PCI-E slots, not PCI

 

[drabadue]

Pretty darn sure they're PCI-E slots, not PCI

Correct. Sorry, I got lazy while I was typing.

 

[Jon Massey]

Wouldn't normally pick up on it, but the card linked on amazon is actually an PCI card, not a PCI-E card. Look at the spacing of the pins on the edge connector!

 

[drabadue]

Wouldn't normally pick up on it, but the card linked on amazon is actually an PCI card, not a PCI-E card. Look at the spacing of the pins on the edge connector!

Good catch. I was at work when I posted that, so I didn't look as closely as I should. My mistake.

 

[thomasz]

Hi @drabadue @Wictar @Gitrooman, I used to be able to boot the board up, but recently it doesn't work any more. I suspect that I burnt the board.

I did follow this thread and set up the front panel jumpers and the 5VSB to 12VSB DC-DC booster correctly. I used the XL6009 module, and verified the 12V output by multimeter.

The symptom is: When everything is connected, the two green LEDs by the PCI are stably on (not blinking), the blue LED by the USB port (system information indicator) is blinking, the power button LED is off, and pressing the power button triggers nothing. The PSU is off. When I jump the PSU power-on cable (green) to a ground cable (black) I can turn on the PSU, but not the board.

I tried to increase / decrease the voltage of the stand-by. I noticed that this symptom persists above 8.5V. Between around 7.5-8.5V, the blue LED became stable but the board still won't boot. Below 7.5V, the PSU will be triggered on, and the two green LEDs will blink at the same pace. But the board still won't boot.

Have any of you experiencd similar symptom? Shall I just consider that the board is burnt, or is there something I can do? Thanks!

 

[Wictar]

Hi @drabadue @Wictar @Gitrooman, I used to be able to boot the board up, but recently it doesn't work any more. I suspect that I burnt the board.

I did follow this thread and set up the front panel jumpers and the 5VSB to 12VSB DC-DC booster correctly. I used the XL6009 module, and verified the 12V output by multimeter.

The symptom is: When everything is connected, the two green LEDs by the PCI are stably on (not blinking), the blue LED by the USB port (system information indicator) is blinking, the power button LED is off, and pressing the power button triggers nothing. The PSU is off. When I jump the PSU power-on cable (green) to a ground cable (black) I can turn on the PSU, but not the board.

I tried to increase / decrease the voltage of the stand-by. I noticed that this symptom persists above 8.5V. Between around 7.5-8.5V, the blue LED became stable but the board still won't boot. Below 7.5V, the PSU will be triggered on, and the two green LEDs will blink at the same pace. But the board still won't boot.

Have any of you experiencd similar symptom? Shall I just consider that the board is burnt, or is there something I can do? Thanks!

Hi, Thomasz! I have read your message. I think I have the same problem. The difference is that the blue LED lights up for a short time when the power is turned off. Green LEDs are lit when the power is on. I decided to look for the cause of breakage. I will write to you, if I can find it.

 

[thomasz]

Hi, Thomasz! I have read your message. I think I have the same problem. The difference is that the blue LED lights up for a short time when the power is turned off. Green LEDs are lit when the power is on. I decided to look for the cause of breakage. I will write to you, if I can find it.

Hi @Wictar, thanks you!! It is reliefing to know that this isn't an orfan issue. I parted out the test system yesterday. One thing I just recalled that I didn't try is to discharge / reset the motherboard by pulling off the battery. Maybe worth trying, though I don't have much anticipation on it.

Please keep me updated!

 

[thomasz]

Look at the pictures of my rig. It is such an elegant device. I named it "WarpDrv". I cannot believe that it is broken. No it won't. This is not real. I am not going to leave it. I am going to rescure it anyhow. If all fail, I will even consider purchasing a new board.



Based on a summary of people's opinion, the current issues of this board are: 1) it burns occassionally. 2) on-board SATA / mini SAS doesn't work for someone. 3) external graphics cards don't work for someone. 4) v1.0 and v1.1 do not seem to support Xeon E5-2600 v2 (maybe flashing v1.2 BIOS will help?). It is bit tricky to pick the best board to buy.

 

[Wictar]

Hi @Wictar, thanks you!! It is reliefing to know that this isn't an orfan issue. I parted out the test system yesterday. One thing I just recalled that I didn't try is to discharge / reset the motherboard by pulling off the battery. Maybe worth trying, though I don't have much anticipation on it.

Please keep me updated!

This will not affect the power button, I tried.