RMM4 Connector Damaged on an Intel S2600BP

[notlogic]

I bought two S2600BPB compute sleds and frankensteined them into pretty good shape without any chassis or bridge boards. I had one going perfectly and the other at 60% when I messed up and bent the RMM4 Lite 4 Connector. Now I don't know any way to remote in to work with the BIOS. I can get it running and SSH into the command line with a few hours of pulling my hair out, but then I'm back at 60% and find myself wishing I could use remote KVM. I suppose I could solve the remaining 40% eventually and get it to 100%, but any time in the future I want to do anything else before POST I'm going to be back to pulling my hair out.

For clarity:

• RMM4
  • Both have RMM4 Lite Connectors and keys.
  • I can swap keys between the two and verify they both keys work.
  • Prior to my clumsiness, remote KVM via RMM4 was functional on both.
  • I bent the RMM4 Connector on one slightly, but it made a sound in the moment that made my heart drop into my shoes.
• Intel S2600BP Compute Modules
  • I can access the web UI for the BMC on both boards.
  • These are Intel S2600BP Compute boards with CPUs, RAM and, if needed, risers #1 and #2.
  • These boards have no PCIe slots, but riser 1 provides an x16 slot for video and riser 2 provides a general x16 slot + x8 NVMe slot.
  • I do not have the 1x12 pin VGA Header to VGA bracket adapter/ribbon cable, nor do I have a VGA monitor.
• When I say it was at 60%, I mean it ran software and networked fine with both CPUs, but four DIMM banks for CPU2 weren't recognized -- in other words, it was running, but its 40% issues are unrelated to the current issue.
• It seems like Intel has all remote KVM routes available pretty well locked down without RMM4, including SOL.

If anyone has any tips on how I should proceed, I'd greatly appreciate any that lead to the following:

• Alternate remote (or local) KVM methods to access BIOS
• Tips on repairing or replacing RMM4 Connector (basic soldering experience & gear)
• Advice on getting a head on this thing (convincing it to send BIOS video output to a GPU via riser #1 or riser #2)

I've been a lurker here for a bit, but this is my first post. I apologize if this isn't the place to ask this. Buying the onboard VGA bracket and a VGA monitor (or VGA adapter for one of my monitors) would certainly solve this locally, but there's a reason I'm frankensteining $75 compute modules rather than buying true dual-CPU motherboards... I'm trying to self-fund some CPU-heavy research with very limited funds.

 

[RolloZ170]

I do not have the 1x12 pin VGA Header to VGA bracket adapter/ribbon cable, nor do I have a VGA monitor.

Molex 151341206 + 15pin D-Sub HD
build adapter, pinout is available at intel pdf's.
buy active VGA->HDMI/SP cable ( Amazon )

 

[notlogic]

I eventually got it to work. I only had one channel of SOL enabled in the BMC. Once I enabled the other channels I was able to get a terminal view via SOL.

The RMM4 Lite header has 3 contacts on one side, 4 on the other. After closer inspection I saw that the 4 on one side were all pulled loose from the board. I carefully removed the entire header and, after the SOL success above, I have the machine purring again.

"Unfortunately," when I went looking for a VGA bracket for the 1x12 pin onboard header, I saw it was about $40. Assuming I'd spend at least $50 to get that access, I decided to order a third S2600BP board since they're only $75. Well, now that the first two are running, I suppose I'll be able to get a pure-S2600BP quorum on a cluster if I want.

I wasn't able to find the female connectors RolloZ170 recommended on Amazon, but Mouser had them iirc. After telling my story to the seller of this third board they told me they built a connector with a 10-pin and that they'd send it to me since they didn't need it anymore.