[Solved] Can you help me get this server board to POST? -CMOS battery was dead

Zii

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Feb 22, 2013
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Here's my board's manual. It's the HP Z800. I've never tried booting a server board before, so I'm sure with my inexperience I made a simple error which is why it won't post. (Skip to the PDF's page 82, or to the actual page number 70 where the mobo's diagram is)

What I have tried, none of which give me beep codes
-booting with 4GB of ram above each CPU
-booting without ram at all
-moving the little external speaker to different parts of the mobo
-booting with GPU, and without (took it out because it smelled more burnt than I felt comfortable with) but otherwise, I can 100% confirm it works in another PC
-moved the GPU from bottom pcie, to the top pcie
-tried another speaker (I think I'm plugging them into the wrong spot on the mobo??)
-pressing the clear scmos button

I don't know about POST at the moment, as I want to get beep codes working so I know what's actually wrong

What I have not tried yet
-booting with only 1 CPU, which one do I remove?
-trying another GPU
-trying other RAM
-using heatsinks/fans on the CPU's

NOTE: The PSU is 850w and it's fan spins up. The GPU fans spin up about 3 seconds after the PSU does. The CPU's warm up, and the left Xeon is about twice as hot as the right one. I don't have any heatsink fans that plug into the board because the connectors will not fit, so I just hold the HS's down manually. I do not leave the board on for more than 30 seconds because I don't want to fry the CPU's but 30 seconds should be long enough to get the beep codes. Nope. No beeping even if the board has no GPU or RAM in it.

Here's a pic of the board right now, yes, I know the PSU power adapter is not ideal, but there's no other way to get a 24pin to fit this unique HP power slot.

I don't think the fault is due to ram or gpu, The PSU is fairly new, but I guess it could be the CPU's or mobo. I really really hope it's not the mobo. Could it be the weird power adapter I'm using? How do I rule this out?