HELP! - SM X9DRE-LN4F won't power on after power fluctuations

[jwdw5006]

Obligatory long time lurker, first time poster and full force member of the STH effect.

TLDR: Had utility power issues today, server is down, IPMI is up. Powering server up from IPMI fails with "Performing Power Action Failed: Please check the feature connector cables".

So I've had this system running for years now with no issues. It is behind an APC Smart-UPS but we had some power issues today and it seems to be toast even thought the UPS is fine. I thought I'd reach out since the STH forums have helped me fix quite a few odd problems as a lurker.

The board shows no signs of life when using the power button or jumping the pins directly. No fan bump, drives don't spin up. I have access to the IPMI and everything looks normal, however trying to power up from IPMI fails stating "Performing Power Action Failed: Please check the feature connector cables".

I have removed all add-in cards and reseated all power cables, fans, RAM, etc. The power supply voltages look good on a basic PSU tester and the system acts like it will power up if I leave the CPU power plugged into the motherboard while the 24 pin is plugged into the PSU tester. It's almost like the board is not sending the power good signal to the PSU.

Anyone have any ideas before I go to ebay and order another board?

Thanks in advance

 

[EffrafaxOfWug]

Have you tried unplugging/removing/replacing the BIOS battery? I had an ASRock C226 board that refused to power on in a similar fashion; unplugged and took out the battery and it powered on fine.

 

[herby]

Inspect the capacitors on the board. I've got an old mobo that was killed in a power surge, a bunch of bulging caps were a dead give away.

 

[jwdw5006]

So after trying the CMOS tricks and visual inspections I yanked the power supply and hooked it up to another known working system. This system would POST but wouldn't fully boot, hanging on "checking NVRAM..." shortly after the POST beeps. Similarly I could enter the BIOS but could not navigate once the screen loaded. New PSU in original system and all is well other than the OS array (RAID 1) was rebuilding

I took the PSU to a local PC shop that has a oscilloscope and some better testing equipment and they agreed that it looked ok at first glance but the power good signal was "slow" at almost 400ms, so I left it with them for a few days. Come back and they said it was ok with the lightest of loads on it but as soon as it gets above about 100w the voltages start going to crap.

I'm pretty sure that the system in the OP pulls well over 100w at boot, the system I tested it on is smaller but still dual proc and several AOCs, so it makes sense that OP wouldn't even boot but the second system tried.

Either way thanks for the suggestions!