SOLVED (OLD Servers) - Two SuperMicro servers died without reason

[Deleted member 36422]

There is an 'Update Firmware' option in the Maintenance/Options section of ipmi.
This is the system info I can see.

System Information
Firmware Revision : 2.03
Firmware Build Time : Dec 7 2010 20:12:42

Any chance someone might know where I can get the correct version and what that might be so I don't further damage this thing?

 

[Deleted member 36422]

I was thinking, there are a bunch of directories on that server that never got backed up. I don't think they were too important but I'd like to get at them to check.

The server has a satadom drive for its OS and the 12 drives for storage. My initial reaction was to simply buy a replacement on ebay but then I'm just replacing old with old. Since I'll have to deal with removing it from the rack no matter what, maybe it's worth buying a motherboard since the last time, I replaced everything but that.

 

[Sean Ho]

I don't think I'd buy an X8DTL at this point, but an X9DR or similar 2011-0 board could reuse the DDR3. FreeNAS should not have an issue reassembling the pools even with drives attached differently.

There is a BMC 3.03 update: Super Micro Computer, Inc. - Products | Motherboards | Xeon Boards | X8DT3-LN4F

 

[Deleted member 36422]

I had not enough thought about using a newer board. That's a good idea. Just seems a shame to junk hardware sometimes if all it takes is some effort. After all, the memory, drives, CPU's, power supplies, fans, all good so hate to junk it.

While I don't have the time to take it apart right now, I could buy a newer board and do it a little at a time.
I suppose I need to find a more specific model number now, one that fits into this case, re-using the same connectors, etc.

 

[Fritz]

Some times old HW just refuses to die. I have an old X7 based SM 1U server with 4 10k SAS HD's, X7DWU MB, 2 x E5472's, 32GB of DDR2, an addin IPMI card and a Dell Perc 310 HBA. I'm not really using it for anything, just fire it up 2 or 3 times a year to make sure it's still alive. It works perfectgly and always has so I don't have the heart to dump it. It's a power hog so I doubt I'll ever find a practical use for it. Maybe some day after I'm gone it will end up in a museum, LOL.

 

[Sean Ho]

X9DRH-iF is the same size (SSI-EEB) and should work with the same PDB. Not sure if the front panel header pinout is identical. E5-2600 v2 series chips are super cheap nowadays.

You could also move up to X10DR series if you have DDR4 lying around.

Our community over at ServerBuilds has a build guide and spreadsheeet comparing boards of this vintage: "SNAFU" 2011-0 build guide

 

[webjunkie]

Pretty common with X8 boards to just stop posting with the IPMI reporting "check feature cables" when trying to power on the board from IPMI. We've seen similar behavior from some Dell C6100 too, which are from the same era. It is likely that some component on the board failed.

 

[Deleted member 36422]

I think I'll bite the bullet and give up on this hardware. It served me well for a very long time and mainly, I just have some doubts about a few things I might not have backed up that's on there. I'd love to get at it but only if I could do it in a cheap way as once recovered, it would never be used again I think. Too iffy at this point.