Supermicro X9SCM-F weirdness

[tomsliwowski]

So I just got this board/cpu/ram in order to build an unRAID server. Upon power up things looked good for a second (got the Supermicro logo) then things started to look....screwy.

Going into the BIOS or the UEFI shell text and everything look fine. But as soon as I try to boot to USB FreeDOS or network boot my screen becomes just jumbled.

I took a video linked below:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/4NqYaUeSX2UnuHA97

Any ideas would really help. Otherwise I may have to try and return or exchange the components on eBay.

Thanks!

 

[pricklypunter]

I would run a BIOS/ BMC firmware update and if that didn't work, then a downgrade to an earlier version. Seeing that reminds me of bad ram chip on the ZX Spectrum

 

[tomsliwowski]

I would run a BIOS/ BMC firmware update and if that didn't work, then a downgrade to an earlier version. Seeing that reminds me of bad ram chip on the ZX Spectrum

I actually upgraded the BIOS from 2.1 to 2.3 by putting the update files on USB and adding the command to update in AUTOEXEC.BAT. While it was upgrading the screen did clear up a bit and I saw progress but the text was all gibberish (or in some weird language, but most likely just gibberish).

Updating the BMC seems much more prone to breaking so I'd rather not do that.

I'm just wondering if it's bad RAM, Mobo or if maybe chip/socket?

 

[pricklypunter]

If it's not a bad VGA cable, then it's bad BMC Graphics, assuming that's what you are using. That could be because either the chip itself is shot, or it could be corrupt firmware. More likely the chip, or a bad solder joint around the BMC, I suspect, given what I see on screen, but it's worth a shot refreshing the BMC firmware. The board appears to be booting fine otherwise, so you could just add an external graphics card and use that.

 

[tomsliwowski]

Are you saying that all video passes through the BMC before being displayed? If that's the case then it very well could be the issue. The board only has x8 PCI-E slots so none of the video cards I have can even fit. Do you know how I could force a flash of the BMC to the latest version and verify that it's the problem? I figure I could put in the command into AUTOEXEC.BAT to just run upon boot but I have no idea what the command is or the switches would be to just force a flash of the latest firmware.

 

[pricklypunter]

If you have access to the onboard IPMI interface, then you can use IPMIview or similar to update the BMC firmware, probably the easiest route to take. It can also be done from a command line in DOS or Linux also. While on the subject of IPMIview, you can also pull up an iKVM console and run commands from there. Have you tried a different screen on it? Just in case...