FF means is not even started, there will be none if you cannot power on
Extend, Hardware Info: CPU from ipmi when powered on,
You can check IF CPU is recognized, if not there will be some default entries
Did you check CMOS battery voltage? (you cannot perform power on with dead battery , also you cannot update bios , this is checked)
You do not need monitor attached , you can even disable ipmi and VGA on jumpers and try with this set up to power on.
Also check the SP3 socket very closely, if you short some pins by mistake and put CPU the results may be catastrophic , but most of the pins are power distribution so it's not so easy.
IPMI is comlpletely seperate system that will be working if enabled ( jumpers on motherboard) for easy administer the server remotely.
I'll check if the CPU is recognized, I don't think it was though. I'll double check.
How can we check the CMOS battery voltage? These were brand new motherboards when they were sent, but I'll check those if I can find a reliable way to do so, or swap them out with a motherboard 'that is working'.
I have no clue if the pins were shorted by mistake, or how I could validate that/prove that. Here's the tests we've done so far:
The broken 2 motherboards:
BROKEN MOBO #1
1) With a WORKING CPU from the system that works: Heartbeat + the CPU fan seems to be getting power and spinning. No power on the Motherboard LED1. Tried to jump it as well - no luck. Strange that the fan is working though. IPMI works.
2) With the 'broken' CPU it came with: Heartbeat only, no fan power. No power on the Motherboard LED1. Tried to jump it as well - no luck.
3) With the OTHER 'broken' CPU from mobo #2: Heartbeat only, no fan power. No power on the Motherboard LED1. Tried to jump it as well - no luck.
BROKEN MOBO #2
1) With a WORKING CPU from the system that works: Heartbeat ONLY, NO FAN POWER. No power on the Motherboard LED1. Tried to jump it as well - no luck.
2) With the 'broken' CPU it came with: Heartbeat only, no fan power. No power on the Motherboard LED1. Tried to jump it as well - no luck.
3) With the OTHER 'broken' CPU from mobo #2: Heartbeat only, no fan power. No power on the Motherboard LED1. Tried to jump it as well - no luck.
WORKING MOBO (#3):
1) With working CPU - of course it works fine.
2) With the 2 'BROKEN' CPUs: Heartbeat only, no motherboard power (I need to double this but pretty sure they didn't get any motherboard power LED1).
I find it's VERY Strange that the WORKING CPU on the broken motherboard is giving it power to the CPU Fan (it spins at full speed too it looks like), but still, no motherboard power... It's hard to tell if this is a motherboard problem, CPU problem, or BOTH. The issue I have here is a WORKING CPU on the 'broken' motherboard didnt work.... and the 'BROKEN CPUs' (2 of them) didn't WORK on the WORKING motherboard... At the end, we plugged in the 'working cpu' back into the 'working motherboard' and it works fine again...
I'm not 100% sure what im looking for as far as the pins go or what pictures could show any visible damage... if we can't get any "motherboard LED1" light, i dont think we can get any CPU error codes right? So we're stuck here.
Any ideas?
Next we'll swap the CMOS batteries from the working motherboard to the 'broken' motherboard.