Intel® Server Board S1200SPSR Troubleshooting

[Awaces]

Hi

This is my first time really getting into physical servers.

I am in my possession of an Intel S1200SPSR C232 Server Motherboard DA0S6EMB6C1

Unfortunately, this motherboard/system has weird syndromes. It starts extremely slow, every action takes hours. So my first idea was to flasheh the bios.

I extracted the following ZIP (s1200spo_spl_sps_efi_biosr03015049_me040104400_bmc0118r12306_frusdr028) onto a USB stick.

Next, these are the actions I do:
connect power cables to both power supplies, connect VGA cable to the motherboard's VGA port and connect a mouse and keyboard

on the front i/o panel the light of the triangle with the exclamation mark is on.

I press the power button
As soon as I press the on button, the power button lights up and the server starts running. after 30 seconds the computer beeps 3 times and shows the bios version

after 2-3 minutes I finally get to see the page inter havanah & server. I press F6 and 'Entering Boot Manager' comes up.
After 1 min and 15 seconds the screen comes black.
After 2 minutes I get the blue screen please select boot device.
Suddenly the server starts blowing hard and the system status symbol pinks. A few seconds later the pc beeps once and goes back to normal. The light now goes back to normal instead of pinging.
I plug in the USB and click on launch efi shell.

The screen goes black
After 40 seconds I get to see the screen to update the firmware. I press a random key and the flash procedure is started.

The same as just happened, the computer starts blowing hard and the status indicater starts blinking.
After 4 minutes the transfer BMC firmware image is at 12%.

After 2 hours, this still has not changed.
In this interim, the computer has started blowing hard several times, the status indicator started to blink, and a beep came.

I have tried playing with the ram memory myself. Different ram slots, 1 ram bar out. Unfortunately without success.

My Specs:

Intel® Xeon® Processor E3-1270

Intel S1200SPSR C232 Server Motherboard DA0S6EMB6C1

2 * Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME - 16Gb

Intel® Server Chassis P4000XXSFDR

[Awaces]

Update.

After a lot of patience, I managed to install Windows Server successfully.

However, clearly there are still problems getting the system to boot. It takes me about 5 - 10min to boot successfully.

Once booted, the system runs smooth.

I already tried with another CMOS battery, but no success

Another update:

I managed to update the BIOS by using the BMC Force Update jumper.

I feel like the machine starts up a little smoother now but it still has trouble with a few things in my opinion. Hopefully you guys know some advice.

I briefly timed how much time it takes to fully boot the server up to the operating system.

1. press the button

2. The server runs for 2 minutes and seconds just idle with a black screen.

I noticed that the system status icon is now suddenly on orange 

3. after a few seconds the fans start spinning faster and the status icon shines yellow

4. The led turns yellow and I get a VGA signal in.

5. The boot menu becomes visible after 3:30

6. The system status led goes out

7. After 5:30 I get to see the windows symbol and the OS starts.

Once the OS is started, the fans periodically go harder and the system led starts blinking. After a couple seconds, everything is normal again. (over and over again)

So the system status icons clearly indicate that something is wrong.

I installed CORE TEMP and it looks like the cpu is running on a 30C stable... So that shouldnt be the cause 

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

Thank you for joining the community

Thank you for the detailed description of the system behavior. Can you tell what BIOS version you were able to install?

About the fan reving up issue you want to take a look at the following article:

Noisy Fans Issue on Intel® Server Board or System for...

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

Hi

While doing the BIOS update I took some pictures.

These tell me the following:

BMC image version 01.18.12306

Firmware and PIA flash update utility version 13.1 Build 18

When I go into the BIOS it tells me the following:

BIOS VERSION: S1200SP.86B.03.01.5049.111220210556

Regarding the noisy fans:

How to fix it.

• Ensure that memory modules are supported  or validated and meet the requirements for the Intel® Server Board S1200SP.
  • Check the list of validated memory modules for Intel® Server Board S1200SP Family. Refer to the THOL Builder section.

2 * Kingston KSM26ED8/16ME - 16Gb is supported

• Download the latest BIOS or software update package and review the step-by-step instructions and demo on how to run the update.
  • If the Sensor Data Record (SDR) isn't  properly updated, the system usually doesn't know which fans and components to detect at which header. Not running this update causes alerts that raise the fan speed, especially on first system integrations. Applying the latest firmware usually quiets fans.

BIOS VERSION: S1200SP.86B.03.01.5049.111220210556 is installed

• Ensure that:
  • The power supply is firmly seated into the power supply bay.

Confirmed

• The connector to the power supply is secured.

Confirmed

• The power cords are properly attached to the AC outlet.

Confirmed

• In case of using pedestal chassis, make sure the top cover is properly seated.

Confirmed

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

Thank you for the updates. Did you noticed any improvement after performing the steps?

Also could you try to boot the system on minimal configuration (board, PSU, 1 DIMM only)?

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

Hi

I did notice improvements. However, there is still something wrong in my opinion. It takes way too long to go through the full startup cycle.

Also could you try to boot the system on minimal configuration (board, PSU, 1 DIMM only)?

Which cables/stuff should I remove? Can you please edit/mark my uploaden image?

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

I am just following up to double check if you were able to gather the requested information. Otherwise let us know if you require more time to accomplish this.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

Thanks for the feedback. Looking at the image of your setup there is no need to remove any cabling. You can take out 1 memory DIMM though, and boot up on 1 HDD only plugged to the backplane. Something else to take into consideration is that this board is not particularly fast. Boot up times of around 2 mins are considered normal.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

Hi Jose 

The test with 1 ram slat and only the boot SSD unfortunately didn't yield anything either.

I understand that this board is not the fastest but a full boot cycle on an SSD requires 5:30 which I think is a bit on the high side.

Furthermore, the 'fan overdrive' phenomenon I mentioned earlier is also something that may not be normal.

I have recorded the complete boot cycle. 

Since I am limited to 71 MB here, I uploaded the video on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rBj4Lo4ra4

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

Thank you for taking the time to attach a video. Let me do some comparison and I will get back to you with the results.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

Let me share our findings:

Fan behavior in the video is normal during the initialization boot of the server

Could you confirm if the fast boot option is enabled in BIOS?

Is the server having any type of issues besides this situation?

When did you notice this situation? Is this a new situation being caused by something he change or performed in the system?

Please provided a Sysinfo log to check the status of the server.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download/17949/system-information-retrieval-utility-sysinfo-for-intel-server-boards-and-intel-server-systems-based-on-intel-61x-chipset.html?wapkw=sysinfo

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

Hi Jose

Thanks a lot for your time!

I searched for the fast boot option in my legacy bios but couldn't find it.

The server runs smooth once windows is started, however, the fan behavior from before keeps randomly popping up.

Once the machine was booted, I now also noticed that the system status led turned to orange randomly. 

https://youtu.be/vy00_QDtDNk

I bought this server over from a friend. There have been no modifications geberut so I don't know how long the problem has been there.

To dump the syslogs, I followed the following guide for 2:25:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000032842/server-products.html

When trying to execute sysinfo.exe I got the warning that my KCS policy is on Deny All.

I did some research and found out I have to change it with IPMItool or with a BMC Web console...

However I did not manage to get ipmitool or BMC. 

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

The BMC setup process it pretty straight forward. You can follow this article to setup the BMC. It is pretty convenient to monitor the system and extract logs.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000007913/server-products.html

For the full BMC guide you can go here: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/server-products/intel-rmm4-ibmc-userguide.pdf

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

I tried to reproduce the steps but the BMC settings keeps resetting when I use a static IP.

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

In that case the very last resource will be to try the opensource IPMI tool. You can follow this article for some of the commonly used commands:

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000055688/server-products.html

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

It takes ages to get this stuff up and running.

I finally managed to enable the BMC Web console. However the settings keep changing/reverting.

Since setting up a static IP failed I tried the dynamic mode.

After a couple reboots I finally recieved the IP address of the BMC Console. I managed to login with admin credentials and had a short period of connection. However, the BMC server is failing to receive data from the machine. (couldn't connect to IP). When I try to re login, I get the message 'Login failed. Please try again.'. There is clearly so much wrong with this server and it's driving me nuts lol.

The ipmitools option is my next 'journey' but since it's not a built in command, I will probably have to install cygwin on the windows machine first... 

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

This kind of weird issues are usually corrected updating the BIOS. In your case, since you already did it, you can try a BIOS recovery procedure. BIOS Recovery Procedure for Current Intel® Server Boards

Also, looking carefully at the boot video, I see it shows something like a JBOD device. By any chance are you booting from a JBOD or RAID array? As a test, could you do a stand alone OS installation to a drive directly attached to any of the board internal ports? this to take any RAID setups out of the equation

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

Alright,

So I tried to do the recovery procedure but stumbbled on some beeping after putting the jumper on pin 2 and 3:

https://1drv.ms/v/s!AmgjCPrKIW-UlOMOekgXP3lPH9Ssgg

I'm booting the OS from a simple SSD that's connected to a SATA port.

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

I am just following up to double-check if you were able to gather the requested information. Otherwise let us know if you require more time to accomplish this. I will try to reach you back on next Tuesday 12th.

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios

[Awaces]

I'm still working on it! I will post an update soon

[JoseH_Intel]

Hello Awaces,

Did you get the beeping code only when setting the jumper to pins 2 and 3? That particular beeping code 1-5-4-2 is related to a power supply fault.

1-5-4-2

Power fault

DC power unexpectedly lost (power good dropout) – Power unit sensors report power unit failure offset

Regards

Jose A.

Intel Customer Support Technician

For firmware updates and troubleshooting tips, visit:

https://intel.com/support/serverbios