Supermicro X9DRi-F BMC woun't enable

[RageBone]

SB = Stand By, or "always on"

Every power-supply provides 5V to the board on a single pin in the 24pin ATX connector. the 5VSB pin.
This rail is always on, as long as the psu is physically switched on and connected to the mains. This rail is essential for the board since all the logic and components needed for the board to turn on the PSU is powered somehow from that rail.

And yes, in case you can figure out what broke, you can most likely fix it with reasonable effort.
But if it isn't your fault, i'd RMA it.

 

[Sergei]

SB = Stand By, or "always on"

Every power-supply provides 5V to the board on a single pin in the 24pin ATX connector. the 5VSB pin.
This rail is always on, as long as the psu is physically switched on and connected to the mains. This rail is essential for the board since all the logic and components needed for the board to turn on the PSU is powered somehow from that rail.

And yes, in case you can figure out what broke, you can most likely fix it with reasonable effort.
But if it isn't your fault, i'd RMA it.

I think "reasonable effort" for you isn't the same as "reasonable effort" for me as I don't have experience and equipment.

Can you please tell me, what does RMA mean?

 

[RageBone]

RMA something something, "to return to the Vendor / Manufracturer for Repair or Replacement"
Officially apparently Returned Materials Authorisation. I don't know, i don't care, i'm not a native speaker either.



In case the shop where you got it sais "nope" or "screw you", send it to me : ) or try to fix it yourself.
Or find someone who does, there are many talented people out there.

 

[Sergei]

RMA something something, "to return to the Vendor / Manufracturer for Repair or Replacement"
Officially apparently Returned Materials Authorisation. I don't know, i don't care, i'm not a native speaker either.



In case the shop where you got it sais "nope" or "screw you", send it to me : ) or try to fix it yourself.
Or find someone who does, there are many talented people out there.

Sure. I'll write here about what happen next.

 

[RageBone]

well, i can now confirm what i have said:

Counter-clock-wise
pin1 at the triangle, 3.3V.
then beside rm66 0V / GND
top left corner, 1.59V aka clock.
botom left is under a layer of glue on mine. probably GND

The pads are actually hard to measure, don't know how to describe it.

 

[Sergei]

well, i can now confirm what i have said:

Counter-clock-wise
pin1 at the triangle, 3.3V.
then beside rm66 0V / GND
top left corner, 1.59V aka clock.
botom left is under a layer of glue on mine. probably GND

The pads are actually hard to measure, don't know how to describe it.

Maybe you know, is there a way to get this unit schematics (I mean BMC)? Maybe the problem is with only 1 broken element. I checked capacitors - no one of them look like near to blow, but other elements may be checked with proper tools only.

I'll try to re-mesure their voltages with proper light and attention, maybe I just didn't do this right. But later.

 

[RageBone]

If you are sure that all pads around UM2 are 0V, you have a problem on the 3.3V-SB rail, which would be a serious problem.

Well, i guess, since we now know that it isn't your user error, get a replacement.
If that isn't an option, we can, if you like proceed with figuring out what went on.

 

[Sergei]

If you are sure that all pads around UM2 are 0V, you have a problem on the 3.3V-SB rail, which would be a serious problem.

Well, i guess, since we now know that it isn't your user error, get a replacement.
If that isn't an option, we can, if you like proceed with figuring out what went on.

I am currently working on that PC, so I can't replace the motherboard right now. I suppose it would be possible in 1-2 months. I agree, that there is no need to fix it by myself as I may just replace it. It was just interest.

 

[RageBone]

Well, glad to hear that i'm not the only one interested in such stuff.

Here have some bad quality images : D

Orange Color means 3.3V in this case 3.3V-Standby
White are Markings in general.
Black is always GND
Yellow is not 12V, it is 1.23 near the BMCC, didn't have any other color.
Purple is 5V Standby on the input side of the 3.3V SB Supply.
Red is the BMC Clock. Not 5V what it normally is used for.

You can see that all LDOs around the BMC use 3.3VSB as main power.

Looking back at your pictures, you routed the cables right above the 3.3V SB supply.
I just realized taht it might be hard to see where that supply is.
It is right beside the bottom by16 pcie slot, and the USB Port.

EDIT: BMC Clock isn't touching CM30 or JM1

 

[Sergei]

Well, glad to hear that i'm not the only one interested in such stuff.

Here have some bad quality images : D

Orange Color means 3.3V in this case 3.3V-Standby
White are Markings in general.
Black is always GND
Yellow is not 12V, it is 1.23 near the BMCC, didn't have any other color.
Purple is 5V Standby on the input side of the 3.3V SB Supply.
Red is the BMC Clock. Not 5V what it normally is used for.

You can see that all LDOs around the BMC use 3.3VSB as main power.

Looking back at your pictures, you routed the cables right above the 3.3V SB supply.
I just realized taht it might be hard to see where that supply is.
It is right beside the bottom by16 pcie slot, and the USB Port.

EDIT: BMC Clock isn't touching CM30 or JM1

About my interest. My grandfather was working as engineer and tester of various electronics. I was watching him, fixing some devices for all my childhood. After school I was studying "computer hardware engineering", but then realized, that software engineering has much more opportunities so when I went to institute I choose software engineering. But hardware/software/vehicle engineering is still engineering and I'd be very glad to find out the reason of failure and fix it. But now I have to prepare myself for the job interview and can't check out the voltages on my motherboard, because my graphics card is connected to lower PCI slot and covers access to the UM2. I have to disassembly my PC every time I measure some UM2. I'll do this and answer you later, thank you for your help)

BTW, I rotated my HDD as in this position he vibrates much much lesser)

 

[RageBone]

About my interest. My grandfather was working as engineer and tester of various electronics. I was watching him, fixing some devices for all my childhood. After school I was studying "computer hardware engineering", but then realized, that software engineering has much more opportunities so when I went to institute I choose software engineering. But hardware/software/vehicle engineering is still engineering and I'd be very glad to find out the reason of failure and fix it. But now I have to prepare myself for the job interview and can't check out the voltages on my motherboard, because my graphics card is connected to lower PCI slot and covers access to the UM2. I have to disassembly my PC every time I measure some UM2. I'll do this and answer you later, thank you for your help)

BTW, I rotated my HDD as in this position he vibrates much much lesser)

Nice, good luck with your job interview!

Very nice Rig, I see what you did there with the CPU-cooler mounts.
If it works, it works i guess : D

Well, you don't need to measure UM2 this time, but still the general area is correct : )
No reason that it can't wait a bit, so once you proceed and find something out, please let me / us know here.

 

[Sergei]

Nice, good luck with your job interview!

Very nice Rig, I see what you did there with the CPU-cooler mounts.
If it works, it works i guess : D

Well, you don't need to measure UM2 this time, but still the general area is correct : )
No reason that it can't wait a bit, so once you proceed and find something out, please let me / us know here.

Thank you!
CPU waterblock does not have mount for narrow-ILM intel so i took AMD mount and it fits ok ahahahah)
With BMC not working i get 71 celsius under full load for each E5-2690, it looks good. I'd like to design my own watercooling system driven by microcontroller in order to control pump and radiator cooling and make it more quiet and effective but it's just my plans.
Yeah, i tried to optimize airflow in order to make my PC cooling more efficient and quiet. I was going to buy referenced version of Radeon graphics card so it's turbine just blows air out of chasis (and does not create 'turbulents'), but it wasn't at stock.

of course i will, no doubt

 

[Sergei]

Well, glad to hear that i'm not the only one interested in such stuff.

Here have some bad quality images : D

Orange Color means 3.3V in this case 3.3V-Standby
White are Markings in general.
Black is always GND
Yellow is not 12V, it is 1.23 near the BMCC, didn't have any other color.
Purple is 5V Standby on the input side of the 3.3V SB Supply.
Red is the BMC Clock. Not 5V what it normally is used for.

You can see that all LDOs around the BMC use 3.3VSB as main power.

Looking back at your pictures, you routed the cables right above the 3.3V SB supply.
I just realized taht it might be hard to see where that supply is.
It is right beside the bottom by16 pcie slot, and the USB Port.

EDIT: BMC Clock isn't touching CM30 or JM1

First of all, I thought that I might broke some components with cables, but they look ok. You may check out the image if I haven't noticed something.
Second of all - there are 3.3 SB supply on all areas you marked with orange, but there is 5V standby on only 1 point of 3 you marked with purple (on C1010).
Neither of R909/R919 GND and 5V "pins" have GND or 5V.
Any ideas? I may put 3.3V directly to BMC's clock generator
May you also measure JPB1 voltages? I'm not 100% sure, but maybe it's pin 2 is connected to 3.3V "rail" (did I say correct?) and pin1 - to UM2's 3.3V input so shorting 1-2 pins of JPB1 enables BMC in hardware way?

I also noticed, that I have no jumper on JBR1 but you have. May it cause this issue? Can you check this out on yours hardware?

 

[RageBone]

@Sergei i will try the JBR1 Jumper this evening, but i rather suspect that you didn't measure correctly.
I mean even i happen to measure crap more often then i'd like to admit.
sometimes you really have to dig into the solder to get a good probe-connection to actually measure something.
I guess because the solder slightly corrodes on the surface.
Or the probe tip is dirty or what ever.

But be careful not rip parts off of the pcb : )

 

[Sergei]

@Sergei i will try the JBR1 Jumper this evening, but i rather suspect that you didn't measure correctly.
I mean even i happen to measure crap more often then i'd like to admit.
sometimes you really have to dig into the solder to get a good probe-connection to actually measure something.
I guess because the solder slightly corrodes on the surface.
Or the probe tip is dirty or what ever.

But be careful not rip parts off of the pcb : )

If you say so - I'll try to measure UM2 voltages as accurate as possible and provide you with the video so you will see that I do it right
But I cannot tell you when I'd be able to do this.

 

[RageBone]

Well, the corners of um2 are really hard to measure.

Instead, you can measure RM7 roght beide it.
If you take a look at the picture with the color markings, the clock signal passes right through it, and into the BMC.

That should be easyer to reach and to measure.

 

[Sergei]

Well, the corners of um2 are really hard to measure.

Instead, you can measure RM7 roght beide it.
If you take a look at the picture with the color markings, the clock signal passes right through it, and into the BMC.

That should be easyer to reach and to measure.

I've contacted to the seller and he told me, that warranty repair for commercial hardware may take up to 90 days, so I didn't pass it to them.

I'm thinking about bying used ASUS Z9-PE, it cost near $200 in Moscow. I don't actually have any experience in server motherboards, but this one appears to be more "qualitive". First of all, I believe that there is an opportunity to control FAN's from an OS. It also has 4 Ethernet slots which suits my needs much better (I use my PC to maintain virtual cluster as my job is related to distributed computations).

But the only problem with this MB is that CPU fans (I actually have liquid cooling, so i mean liquid cooling radiator fan) speed is managed by BMC for now and it's out of my control as BMC interface doesn't work).

Does ASUS motherborad worth that money and for how long will this rig fit my needs? These are the questions I have to answer for myself.

 

[Sergei]

If anyone is interested in this story conclusion, we’ve found the cause of BMC failure, thanks to RageBone.
So LM1 inductor, providing filtering for BMC clock generator power supply was broken and clock generator has no power.
Temporarily fixed this with a wire.

 

[chrisdev]

Had exactly the same problem with my x9dri.
Wouldn't have found it without your guys info, thanks!

 

[CQComber]

This is wierd, that everyone is having the same issue around the same time. Can anyone tell me what cm1's values are? mine arrived with both cm1 and lm1 off the board. glad the pads are still there though