Hoping for Help- Supermicro 846 Won't Power On

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

monk

New Member
Dec 6, 2019
7
3
3
*I’ve been lurking here for a while and hoping to lean on some of the expertise I’ve been reading through.

I recently decided to take the plunge from consumer hardware into the server realm to get the 13 spinning disks I have in a tower into a dedicated rack mount NAS/VM machine. After a lot of research, I went with a used Supermicro 846 chassis and X9 combo. I received it, checked that it was in good physical shape, installed it in my rack, connected power, and everything spun right up. It was late at that point, so I stopped before connecting anything else (IMPI, etc) and never tried to log in or check the bios. When I came back to it the next day after work, it was powered off and would not power back up.

Specs of the build:
  • Chassis: CSE-846E16-R1200B
  • Motherboard: X9DRi-F
  • Processor: 2x Intel Xeon E5-2695 V2 12 Core 2.4GHz
  • Memory: 128GB DDR3 (8 x 16GB - DDR3 - ECC REG)
  • Controller: 1x LSI 9211-4i HBA JBOD 6GB/S (set to IT Mode)
  • Backplane: BPN-SAS2-846EL1 24-port 4U SAS2 6Gbps single-expander backplane
  • Power Supplies: 2x PWS-920P-SQ Super Quiet

Troubleshooting and Symptoms:
  • I did cable up the IPMI and NIC1 Ethernet connections now. The NIC1 front panel LED is flashing.
  • There are no other front panel LED’s lit. This includes the Power LED. If I’m reading the manual correctly it should be lit whether the system is online or not, but the phrasing has me second guessing.
  • The power supply LED’s are both solid Amber. The manual was not super helpful here either stating this is either off+normal or off+abnormal.
  • The BMC/IMPI Heartbeat LED is blinking green, which the manual is telling me is normal.
  • I have tried removing and reseating both power cables, removing and reseating both PSU’s, leaving the chassis unplugged for over 12 hours, etc with no change in symptoms.
  • When I initially plugged the first PSU in, the PSU alarm went off as expected. When I got the second PSU connected it turned off as expected. The fans came on at full speed and came down within a minute or two as expected.

Any guidance or troubleshooting suggestions would be appreciated.
 
Last edited:

m-jeri

Member
Aug 5, 2017
67
22
8
38
> The power supply LED’s are both solid Amber. The manual was not super helpful here either stating this is either off+normal or off+abnormal.

Solid Amber means there is a fault somewhere. (when you push the power button, can you hear a faint tick sound?)Can you take out all the drive bays and try turning it on. Perhaps a short of some kind.
 

monk

New Member
Dec 6, 2019
7
3
3
> The power supply LED’s are both solid Amber. The manual was not super helpful here either stating this is either off+normal or off+abnormal.

Solid Amber means there is a fault somewhere. (when you push the power button, can you hear a faint tick sound?)Can you take out all the drive bays and try turning it on. Perhaps a short of some kind.
Thanks for the clarification. I'll check for the click sound. I do hear a click when I plug in each PSU. I'm assuming it has something to do with the power distribution system.

Right now all of the drive bays are empty, but I'll pull them and see if anything changes.
 

m-jeri

Member
Aug 5, 2017
67
22
8
38
I do hear a click when I plug in each PSU.
.
Once all the PSUs are seated in, cables are connected to PDU/UPS, power is flowing, the amber or yellow lights will be on.

Push the power button to turn the machine on. The click sound should be then. It is very faint.

Yes, remove all the drive trays out.
 

monk

New Member
Dec 6, 2019
7
3
3
Once all the PSUs are seated in, cables are connected to PDU/UPS, power is flowing, the amber or yellow lights will be on.

Push the power button to turn the machine on. The click sound should be then. It is very faint.

Yes, remove all the drive trays out.
Alright, I removed all of drive sleds and no change.

Regarding the click, the power button/switch seems to be a little clicky, but I do not hear any clicks inside the case.
 

StevenDTX

Active Member
Aug 17, 2016
493
173
43
You do have the 16 pin cable from the front panel on the correct way, right? It can be installed backward.

Can you power it up via IPMI?
 

mmo

Well-Known Member
Sep 17, 2016
558
357
63
44
You might want to try taking out the MB of the chassis and see if you are able to power it on with other PSU and login thru IPMI.
 

monk

New Member
Dec 6, 2019
7
3
3
You do have the 16 pin cable from the front panel on the correct way, right? It can be installed backward.

Can you power it up via IPMI?
Fair question, but I haven't adjusted it. This was a pre-built, used system that was supposed to be pre-tested. Since it fired up the first time I plugged it in I am assuming the cabling is correct.

You might want to try taking out the MB of the chassis and see if you are able to power it on with other PSU and login thru IPMI.
I don't have a spare power supply on hand currently, but I did go out and grab a PSU tester. Both power supplies looked good and powered up fine.

On the IPMI front, with the BMC heartbeat LED going, does that confirm that the IPMI is up? Based on the documentation I was provided, the IPMI address is 10.10.1.250 and of course my home network is 192.168.x.x. I'm not a networking pro, but spent a few minutes with a laptop connected directly and IP address set to 10.10.1.1 and .249, but wasn't able to connect with a browser. I wasn't sure IPMI was actually working, so I through in the towel instead of chasing ghosts.

If the LED is saying IPMI is definitely working, I can mess with getting connected again.
 

mmo

Well-Known Member
Sep 17, 2016
558
357
63
44
If I remember correctly, you can reset the IPMI address by updating the bios using bootable DOS USB (you can update/overwrite it even you're on the latest bios already). Also read the Readme txt, i think you need to flash the IPMI firmware first, then bios. Someone also mentioned reset CMOS will work, but i tried before and no luck, but updating bios works fine for me.
 

pricklypunter

Well-Known Member
Nov 10, 2015
1,708
515
113
Canada
Have a look at your switch port to see if the BMC MAC address is shown (it should be listed on the sticker on the board). Try setting up IPMI with a DHCP server, see if it pulls an IP address. If it does, it should be reachable. Make sure you only have the dedicated IPMI Lan port connected, just in case it's fails over to the primary Lan port. You can also use the IPMIcfg tool from Supermicro to reset the MAC address etc if it has been changed from the defaults :)
 

laserpaddy

Active Member
Jul 17, 2017
197
61
28
out there
Ive always had luck re-seating everything-ram...ETC- and use the IPMI tool to reset to factory defaults- go into bios set IPMI to a static address-plug Ethernet cable into dedicated port and to your computer- on your computer -set to static...I recently had solid Amber on both supplies and had to remove and reinstall them then plug in power cord
 

monk

New Member
Dec 6, 2019
7
3
3
Thanks all. I had to head out of town for work, but I did give the board a thorough once over before I left.

This IC seems to have some burn damage. Based on a quick google it looks to be power regulation related.

BF18385C-BD77-428E-904B-E678CDD06204.jpeg

There also looks to be something partially broken off on the backplane.
A98C6814-C257-4680-A1BC-9716541E37F3.jpeg
 

monk

New Member
Dec 6, 2019
7
3
3
Just an update- the vendor agrees there is a hardware problem and is shipping me a new case and motherboard.
 

monk

New Member
Dec 6, 2019
7
3
3
Closing the loop- the vendor sent over a replacement chassis and motherboard. I swapped the CPU, RAM, etc over and everything is working as expected now. Basically I spent of ton of time trying to figure out what I was doing wrong and it was just a bad motherboard and potentially backplane.


Thanks all.