The Hardware:
Supermicro Workstation Motherboard X10SRA - 2011-3 [no on-board graphics] Intel C612 Chipset
Intel Xeon E5 1650 Ver 3 Single processor, 32 GB Samsung 2133 Mhz ECC Memory
Intel 750 PCIe 400 GB NVMe SSD, Phanteks Evolv ATX Case.
EVGA Supernova 1200 watts P2 PSU [a rebranded Superflower 1200w Active PCF Leadex internally]
Noctua NH-D15 Cooler with 2 x 150mm PMW 1500 rpm fans. Plus 6 additional Noctua 140 PMW 1500 rpm case fans. Intel AC x1 PCIe Wif fi Card. Asus PCIe to M.2 Adapter card - currently empty]. MSI 970 Gaming G4 4GB Twin fan GPU.
Plus A Samsung 850 EVO SSD and a WD 2 TB 7,200 Black drive [both with power connected but the SATA data cables disconnected until I got the Intel 750 set-up as the boot drive for WIndows 10 Home ....never got that far.
Maybe this was a hill too far for a total novice - as they say.
The current position, a blank screen on power up!
5 short bleebs - the Supermicro manual says this is a Error message "Display Error" = "System DIsplay error"
Just prior to this, it started and by pressing DEL it went into the BIOS where one could see things like Hardware Maintenance, I/O, System Temps etc.
All the fans were running at about 350 rpm at 45C CPU and 37C PCH. This rose to about 50C CPU 40C PCH as I looked around the graphical BIOS for 20 mins. Then all the fans went to 1500 rpm, and the temp dropped back down to 40C CPU 36 PCH and stayed there for an hour.
I changed a load of settings like I/O SATA 0-3 to AHIC and SSD or HDD respectively
.
Maybe switched off 15 times, as I changed things and it came back as good as gold. Other than it was so blindingly fast, that it was impossible to read even the first two or three words in the Bios instructions splash screen. One could just pump the DEL key and the Bios screen and menu were there instantly. I was impressed
I could see the Chipset, CPU, all 32GB RAM and the individual memory sticks and there speed 2133.etc It could not as xpected see the 2 other drives as their SATA connectors were physically disconnected..
It all looked really good, other than TBH I think I put on too much Thermal Paste, as I was hoping for a lower temp once the fans ran at 1,500 rpm for say 15 mins. All 6 case fans and the additional 2 on the Cooler were working.
On the Motherboard the Power On green LED was on - and so was the red illuminated stripe on the Power on button. The 2 Led lED panel said A9 all the time. I changed a few settings to EFI, by now I was getting well confused. But the Workstation powered down and up perfectly.
Then I changed the settings in the PCIe menu for the No 6 slot of the Intel 750 NVME SSD from Legacy to UEFI as instructed. And the Boot Mode to UEFI, and disabled all the other boot options apart from Boot from 1 and then Boot from USB. It shut down and powered up as instructed after that.
Then the problem started after I am pretty sure I changed the No 4 x16 Slot hosting the MSI GPU.
ON powering it up, there was a beep beep, then a reasonable pause and 5 distinct short bleeps = per the code list "System Display Error."
I have this horrible feeling I changed the setting on the GPU PCIe slot, to something wrong and now it cant make the display work - which is where I need to go to change it back. But as this PC has no on board graphics I an totally stuffed.
In the manual it talks about :
1 UEFI BIOS Recovery [the main BIOS Image]
2. and a higher level or last ditch recovery process "when the BIOS boot block crashes" called Dual Boot Block.
when I read those last three words , I think I remembered disabling something like dual boot, I thought it was for 2 operationg systems. But bu=y now I was totally confused and may have looked at it and not actually changed it.
Just hope I didn't kill my last chance!
So that is where it is ............ dead useless
You are allowed to laugh.
Any ideas what one does now???
I need to go to bed as its 3.30 but it would be lovely to wake up to find a few options / solutions.
Or do I need another Motherboard! £255
Re the highish temperatures, effectively when idling - eg "cruising the BIOS menu", the front case side door wont shut as the EVGA Sata power cable has a cople of additional sockets in daisy chain that are too bulky! But I think its doen to thermal paste - I did try to measure the PEA size accurately as per Noctua's Thermal Paste instructions between 4 to 5 mm diameter. I aimed at 4.5mm diameter as the Xeon CPUs are apparently bigger than and i5 CPU.
I didn't see any ecess TPM coming out of the sides of the cooler to cpu's IHS joint. But then it was virtually impossible to see anything as that cooler is so encroaching.
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