Howdy all,
I recently assembled a workstation with the following pertinent components:
- Supermicro X9DAi dual LGA 2011 E-ATX motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182260)
- 2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W Sandy Bridge-EP 3.1GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 20MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 150W 8-Core Server Processors (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117272&name=Processors-Servers)
- 16x Kingston 16GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1600 Server Memory DR x4 1.5V (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239275)
- COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold Series RSA00-80GAD3-US 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171056)
- 1x EVGA 04G-P4-3685-KR GeForce GTX 680 FTW Standard 4GB GPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130798)
When testing the setup on my workbench, with the power-button cable from the case properly connected, I found that the motherboard would turn on automatically once: (i) the 20+4 pin and two 4+4 pin 12V connectors were attached to the motherboard, (ii) the PSU switch was flipped to on, and (iii) without pressing the case's power button. Further, all of the other components, except the GPU, e.g., the HDDs, the optical drive, the CPU fans, and the PSU fan, would also start up with the motherboard, which is, suffice to say, very odd behavior.
In an attempt to see if, perhaps, some of the components were faulty, I placed the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 in an ATX-based system and found that it worked perfectly. Further, I verified that the PSU worked on two different ATX-based systems.
Since these two tests demonstrated that the GPU and PSU were seemingly fine, I set about trying to diagnose if the motherboard was at fault. To this end, I ran the following tests, all of which led to the same behavior, i.e., the motherboard would turn on by itself and (where appropriate) without powering the GPU fan/GPU:
- Removed the case's power-on cable
- Ensured that the motherboard was properly grounded with nothing, save for the riser studs in the appropriate places, touching the underside
- Removed the I/O shield
- Put the motherboard in the case and attached the I/O shield
- Disconnected all drives
- Inserted, one at a time, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, 580, and 280, all of which are known to work, into the various PCIe x16 slots
- Removed the GPU entirely
- Removed and reseated the RAM
- Removed CPU2 and left 8 sticks of RAM for CPU1, all of which were in valid slots, according to the motherboard manual
- Removed CPU2 and left 1 stick of RAM for CPU1, which was in a valid slot, according to the motherboard manual
- Removed CPU2 and replaced CPU1 with a spare Intel Xeon E5-2630 Sandy Bridge-EP 2.3GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Boost) 15MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 95W Six-Core Server Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117268). Further, I swapped out the DDR3 1600 stick for one stick of Kingston 16GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1333 Server Memory DR x4 1.35V (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239159)
- Left the Intel Xeon E5-2630 in place and removed the RAM entirely, which did not produce any beep codes
- Removed the battery and reset the board, according to the motherboard manual
Since the penultimate step, i.e., removing the RAM entirely, did not produce any beep codes, according to the manual, the motherboard is flawed. Consequently, I sent it back for a refund and ordered a Supermicro MBD-X9DA7-O dual LGA 2011 E-ATX motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182363), as the X9DAi has been discontinued.
In any event, given all of this, my questions for the community are twofold. First, has anyone encountered this kind of behavior before, and, if so, how was it resolved? Further, is it possible that my PSU is to blame for these troubles? (The PSU is EPS compliant.)
I recently assembled a workstation with the following pertinent components:
- Supermicro X9DAi dual LGA 2011 E-ATX motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182260)
- 2x Intel Xeon E5-2687W Sandy Bridge-EP 3.1GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) 20MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 150W 8-Core Server Processors (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117272&name=Processors-Servers)
- 16x Kingston 16GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1600 Server Memory DR x4 1.5V (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239275)
- COOLER MASTER Silent Pro Gold Series RSA00-80GAD3-US 1000W ATX 12V v2.3 / EPS 12V v2.92 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171056)
- 1x EVGA 04G-P4-3685-KR GeForce GTX 680 FTW Standard 4GB GPU (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130798)
When testing the setup on my workbench, with the power-button cable from the case properly connected, I found that the motherboard would turn on automatically once: (i) the 20+4 pin and two 4+4 pin 12V connectors were attached to the motherboard, (ii) the PSU switch was flipped to on, and (iii) without pressing the case's power button. Further, all of the other components, except the GPU, e.g., the HDDs, the optical drive, the CPU fans, and the PSU fan, would also start up with the motherboard, which is, suffice to say, very odd behavior.
In an attempt to see if, perhaps, some of the components were faulty, I placed the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 in an ATX-based system and found that it worked perfectly. Further, I verified that the PSU worked on two different ATX-based systems.
Since these two tests demonstrated that the GPU and PSU were seemingly fine, I set about trying to diagnose if the motherboard was at fault. To this end, I ran the following tests, all of which led to the same behavior, i.e., the motherboard would turn on by itself and (where appropriate) without powering the GPU fan/GPU:
- Removed the case's power-on cable
- Ensured that the motherboard was properly grounded with nothing, save for the riser studs in the appropriate places, touching the underside
- Removed the I/O shield
- Put the motherboard in the case and attached the I/O shield
- Disconnected all drives
- Inserted, one at a time, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 690, 580, and 280, all of which are known to work, into the various PCIe x16 slots
- Removed the GPU entirely
- Removed and reseated the RAM
- Removed CPU2 and left 8 sticks of RAM for CPU1, all of which were in valid slots, according to the motherboard manual
- Removed CPU2 and left 1 stick of RAM for CPU1, which was in a valid slot, according to the motherboard manual
- Removed CPU2 and replaced CPU1 with a spare Intel Xeon E5-2630 Sandy Bridge-EP 2.3GHz (2.8GHz Turbo Boost) 15MB L3 Cache LGA 2011 95W Six-Core Server Processor (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117268). Further, I swapped out the DDR3 1600 stick for one stick of Kingston 16GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM ECC Registered DDR3 1333 Server Memory DR x4 1.35V (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239159)
- Left the Intel Xeon E5-2630 in place and removed the RAM entirely, which did not produce any beep codes
- Removed the battery and reset the board, according to the motherboard manual
Since the penultimate step, i.e., removing the RAM entirely, did not produce any beep codes, according to the manual, the motherboard is flawed. Consequently, I sent it back for a refund and ordered a Supermicro MBD-X9DA7-O dual LGA 2011 E-ATX motherboard (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813182363), as the X9DAi has been discontinued.
In any event, given all of this, my questions for the community are twofold. First, has anyone encountered this kind of behavior before, and, if so, how was it resolved? Further, is it possible that my PSU is to blame for these troubles? (The PSU is EPS compliant.)