EU ebay: Supermicro X10SLE-F (Micro-Cloud node) usually under 10 Euro

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DanAnd

Member
Jul 25, 2016
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Dortmund, Germany
www.danand.de
Hi,
everybody loves happy ends ...

I tried to follow the lines of the data cable to get an idea what the purpose of the pins is. I didn't figure out so much, except for the Red-Line (Pin 2) is GND.

However, I where I am looking around, I thought: Ok, figuring out the IPMI Password may be taked 3-4 years, lets try the GND line to check if that helps.
So I connected everything again and plugged in the power connection and it boots up!

But wait - I din't started poking around with the connector!

What I did was simply unplugging the SATA cables (which were not connected to any harddrive anyway) and removing the datacable from the little daughter board which is basically a physical adapter to the back plane.

What I saw on the VGA is "SUPERMICRO" and System initializing. At the bottom right, there was this Status "1". However, it stays there.

I removed the power, waited at least a minute (That was a hint from the supermicro support) and tried it again.

Again just the Boot-Up Logo, but hey! At least something :)

...

Then: smoke!

I have basically no idea why that happened! I double checked the power connections: All fine ( +12V and +5Vsb), No circuit shortages ...

So ... there is the little guy how gone smoke ... IMG_20190712_223509.jpg

:-(

Update: Macro-Shot of it:
blown-chip.jpg
 
Last edited:

DanAnd

Member
Jul 25, 2016
58
47
18
48
Dortmund, Germany
www.danand.de
Hey nerdalertdk,

There is not so much to show. It's basically Yellow ATX cable to Yellow cables (+12V) of the supermicro power connector. Black to Black (GND). The only exception: There is a voilet cable which is 5Vsb (+5V Standby) which is also voilet on the ATX side.
To power up an ATX power supply you need to connect the green ATX cable to GND.

Some ATX power supplies need some basic load. You can also use something like that: http://www.seeedstudio.com/ATX-breakout-board-bench-power-supply-p-1222.html

Good luck!

Daniel
 

DanAnd

Member
Jul 25, 2016
58
47
18
48
Dortmund, Germany
www.danand.de
Hey Guys,

first of all: I got another board, but haven't had time to give it a test.

On my previous test, I was just stupid! I used Registered ECC Ram instead of Unbuffered ECC, so it is clear that I wasn't able to boot it up.
I am hunting for 12800E (instead of 12800R) memory right now and give it another try.

Cheers,
Daniel
 
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RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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So, i managed to get one of those too.
Sadly the seller threw it in a box with those foam ball like things and without a socketcover. Just two Pins bent, but still not what i bought or signed up for, buying it.
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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My first observations just powering it with a lab PSU are that 5Vsb pulled about 600mA to drop and stay at 270mA after a while.
Even powercycling now has just 270mA flowing and the BMC won't Start booting. The BMC Hartbeat led is mit up dim which tells me that the BMC is currently disabled.

The BMC Nic is also not doing anything.


Supplying only 12V from the PSU has no current flowing since 12V is gated by a fet right by the connector.

It will be a Moment until i'll be able to supply both at once.
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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Same behaviour with 5vsb and 12V on it at the same time.

I don't have a CPU installed, that might be needed for the 12V Gate to open and power everything.
 

hmartin

Active Member
Sep 20, 2017
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Did anyone ever get anywhere with this board? I just got one for 27,50€ including shipping (too much, I know... :rolleyes:)
 

pif43

New Member
Jun 30, 2019
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Did anyone ever get anywhere with this board? I just got one for 27,50€ including shipping (too much, I know... :rolleyes:)
I got to boot, but hadn't cpu heatsink. Next time it won't even boot.
These are cursed somehow, i believe.
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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I don't think they are cursed. But yea, they are currently not that well understood.
The heatsink is standard Narro ILM, tested it with my Noctua i4 Narrow ILM coolers.

I currently have two since the seller didn't cover the socket and shipping bent a few pins. Got a replacement unit from him.
Beside the bent pins, ipmi was not working on the first, intil i noticed that bending the PCB made it work. The hartbeat led didn't start blinking.
A bit of investigating further, the solder joints of the Multi IO SPI Rom for the BMC were bad and pushing on it, or rather resoldering it fixed that.
That ipmi is also accessible to me via DHCP and ADMIN ADMIN.
Trying to power on with a CPU results in nothing and an error message that i should check the cable.
The system is also not getting 12V from the power connector. On that later once i have investigated that further.

The replacement on the other hand won't get an IP on the BMC. So that's not good.
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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Had a look at the PCB and some traces.
This chip handles the 12V input and makes Hotplugging the hole thing possible.
https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm25066.pdf

The ULV/EN pin is 0V on mine, and i followed a few traces through some transistors and stuff to pin 5 on JP17 and pin 1 on JP18.
Now the question is what needs to be put on there to get it to turn on and not fry the connected logic.

If anyone is willing to take a look at my tracing, pm me.
 
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RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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small update. Pin 1 of JP18 is 5V on mine. thinking about the circuit on the back behind the 8pin powerblug with Q130, Q131 and Q126, i came to the conclusion that THAT pin needs to be connected to ground.
JP17 pin 5 on the other hand seems to need some voltage to then pull Q130 down and allow the Enable pin to not be pulled low.
Tryed a few voltages with a lab psu and it turns out that with like 2V on pin 5, the red LED5 lights up, indicating some fault, and the big push button lights up green.
With 3.3V on pin 5, led5 turns off.

I have a postcode-card on the TPM-header and when i now press the green big button, it starts posting. The big green button seems to be a power button, holding it for the usual 6 seconds turns it off.
No magic smoke jet, the ipmi takes a moment to display something but when it eventually does, i'm greeted by the usual Supermicro screen, printing system is initializing and a postcode 15 on the screen and 2B on the postcode card.

It did go further then that, to like 79 and beyond to then reset and stay stuck at 2B again, after i updated the bios.
So that was just the initial "test everything Post" to then reset and still have something missing.

What, no idea jet.
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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Possibly the Ram or the CPU, a G3258 and some 4GB generic Gskill udimm.

interestingly, there is once 5V on the mentioned pin, and then twice 3.3V on JP18, pin 6 and 4 to be precise. JP17 Pin2 is GND to have at least mentioned where or how i wired it up.
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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doesn't look to be ram to me. Its a known good stick that i test every ddr3 system with ..
I noticed a "screeching" noise, high pitched coilwhine to be precise, and U11 is getting rather Warm over time.
Maybe I / we aren't still not powering it up correctly.
 

Markess

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May 19, 2018
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doesn't look to be ram to me. Its a known good stick that i test every ddr3 system with ..
I noticed a "screeching" noise, high pitched coilwhine to be precise, and U11 is getting rather Warm over time.
Maybe I / we aren't still not powering it up correctly.
As far as I know, Gskill didn't make ECC Unbuffered DIMMs. If its not an ECC UDIMM, the board won't boot. With non-ECC RAM in the board, it might not give a memory error either, it just won't boot.
 

RageBone

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Jul 11, 2017
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indeed, non ecc unbuffered dimms. I have the impression that Ecc is a option, not a must have. I mean X9DR 2011-0 boards work with that.
Ok. X10DR only take reg ecc so maybe that was a general move ...
 

RageBone

Active Member
Jul 11, 2017
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Well, thanks. That would explain that.

And mean that doing what I wrote is everything needed to "get it working" ...

Now where to get cheap ecc ram?