Dead HS Server

[sparkman]

Hi all,

My HS server died this afternoon. I think it's the motherboard (Quanmax kemx-2130), but wanted to run it by the experts here to make sure. Here's what I tried so far:

- system does not boot, does not display anything on a monitor and no beeps either.
- removed hard drive and installed in another pc. I can boot of it and access it without any problems.
- hooked up another power supply and system still does not boot, nothing on monitor.
- removed memory and booted. Hear long beeps, but nothing on screen.
- reinstalled memory and boot. No beeps, nothing on the screen.

Motherboard has a couple of bulging caps near the processor. Can't find the exact board online any more. Any thoughts before I take out the soldering iron to try to swap the caps? Any thoughts on a new system? I still have quite a few serial connected devices so looking with a motherboard with 4+ serial ports and 6+ usb ports and ideally something with a PCI slot so that I can use the HS PCI modem. If there's nothing around with a PCI slot, does anyone have any experience with a PCIe to PCI adapter?

Thanks
Al

[S-F]

Have you tried a new GPU?

[sparkman]

Have you tried a new GPU?

It's embedded on the motherboard, not a separate card.

Cheers
Al

[sparkman]

Well, being the impatient kind, I replaced the capacitors and am back in business (for now). My mom is visiting for Easter and she thought I was being very patient with no swearing :-) She should have heard my inside voice .

Would still like input on a new system though, so please let me know your thoughts about a replacement.

Cheers
Al

[S-F]

I would either re cap that entire board or move on. I'm assuming you're on XP with the PCI modem so you're honestly limited. I run my server on a Nehalem SuperMicro board (X8SILF) and it does have a PCI slot. You might want to look into similar.

[sparkman]

I would either re cap that entire board or move on. I'm assuming you're on XP with the PCI modem so you're honestly limited. I run my server on a Nehalem SuperMicro board (X8SILF) and it does have a PCI slot. You might want to look into similar.

Thanks, yes, plan to replace it right away. The other caps still look perfect, so hopefully it will last a little while longer. Yes, still on XP, but looking to go to W7 or W10. I thought the PCI modem was still supported on W7, but that appears not to be case, so will have to move to the used Way2Call that I bought a year or so ago. Will check out the X8SILF. Been looking at this one as well: http://www.jetwaycomputer.com/NF9G.html.

Cheers
Al

[S-F]

That board actually looks pretty appealing, but I have personally made a commitment to never use anything other than server grade parts again. Remember 10 years ago when people were saying that using non ECC memory for more than 8 GB or so was nuts? Well here we are. As far as I'm concerned non ECC memory shouldn't exist. Trying to find a serve/workstation grade board like the one you've got there is probably impossible.

[Automated]

Look into the Supermicro boards. I have multiple, and they all run ECC memory. I have also tried a PCIE to PCI board. It works fine. Run a separate serial card, USB to multiple serial, or a serial IP server device for the serial port needs.

[Wadenut]

Glad to hear the caps fixed your problem. I recently had a similar failure; no boot, no vid, etc. I've been waiting for the weather to warm up slightly so I can wok in my garage without the heat on to do anything with it. Same deal I think, bulging caps.

Meantime, I did replace the MB with another mini-ITX board (D2550) and bought a second identical board to avoid any more extended downtime. These boards are cheap, reasonably fast, and do the job of running HS quite nicely. It has six USB ports but no serial ports on board (there is a header onboard to add two however), but I do have a couple of Edgeport-8's (one spare) and four Quatech serial interfaces (three spare) to make up for that.

If I do manage to revive the old board, a D525 mini-ITX, I may just repurpose it for use in the garage. I have an old machine out there which has had issues for several years. I only use that one for some light browsing and an interface to my oscilloscope & logic analyser. If not, then there are many other options for that purpose.


Curious however: All of the affected caps on my board are really odd values. Did you use exact replacements or just something close. Since they're all electrolytics I'd assume their purpose is mainly filtering.

[sparkman]

Thanks for all the input and advise everyone. I do have a couple of unused Quatech 4 port device servers, so may use those for additional ports or go with a Digiboard or something like that. Those Supermicro boards look good, but it looks like you pay for a lot of capacity that the HS server won't take advantage of.

The capacitors that failed on my board were a couple of 1000uF 6.3v ones. I didn't have those exact ones in my parts pins (I had some 1000uf ones, but they were physically too big), so I salvaged some from some other electronics that were the same. I suspect other values would have worked too.

Cheers
Al

That board actually looks pretty appealing, but I have personally made a commitment to never use anything other than server grade parts again. Remember 10 years ago when people were saying that using non ECC memory for more than 8 GB or so was nuts? Well here we are. As far as I'm concerned non ECC memory shouldn't exist. Trying to find a serve/workstation grade board like the one you've got there is probably impossible.

Look into the Supermicro boards. I have multiple, and they all run ECC memory. I have also tried a PCIE to PCI board. It works fine. Run a separate serial card, USB to multiple serial, or a serial IP server device for the serial port needs.

Glad to hear the caps fixed your problem. I recently had a similar failure; no boot, no vid, etc. I've been waiting for the weather to warm up slightly so I can wok in my garage without the heat on to do anything with it. Same deal I think, bulging caps.

Meantime, I did replace the MB with another mini-ITX board (D2550) and bought a second identical board to avoid any more extended downtime. These boards are cheap, reasonably fast, and do the job of running HS quite nicely. It has six USB ports but no serial ports on board (there is a header onboard to add two however), but I do have a couple of Edgeport-8's (one spare) and four Quatech serial interfaces (three spare) to make up for that.

If I do manage to revive the old board, a D525 mini-ITX, I may just repurpose it for use in the garage. I have an old machine out there which has had issues for several years. I only use that one for some light browsing and an interface to my oscilloscope & logic analyser. If not, then there are many other options for that purpose.


Curious however: All of the affected caps on my board are really odd values. Did you use exact replacements or just something close. Since they're all electrolytics I'd assume their purpose is mainly filtering.

[Wadenut]

The capacitors that failed on my board were a couple of 1000uF 6.3v ones. I didn't have those exact ones in my parts pins (I had some 1000uf ones, but they were physically too big), so I salvaged some from some other electronics that were the same. I suspect other values would have worked too.

Me, the master of salvage and it didn't occur to me to cannibalize an old board from the garage before I spent $5 on eBay for the replacements. Well, plenty of spares now.
Mine are mainly 820mfd (4) and one each 1500 and 1800. None of which I had on hand otherwise.

[Pete]

Looks like a solid board there Al.



What are all of those jumpers for on the right side of the board?

In the Homeseer 2 days lost an Intel motherboard (dual core CPU) to blown caps. Here replaced the caps and purchased a second same motherboard. I did build it to duplicate the first one then never used it. Updated HS2 computers one more time before going to Homeseer 3.

Current old Homeseer 2 boxes are running on a Foxconn D525 and a commercial style BCM motherboard which I think is really an MSI?

New HS3 boxes are RPi2 and a Gigabyte Haswell iSeries board.

So Greg are you up and running now on your fixed old computer or your new motherboard?

[Wadenut]

So Greg are you up and running now on your fixed old computer or your new motherboard?

Been up nearly 12 days now. Thinking of building up the spare, duplicate MB into a box to make it a slide in replacement c/w cloned SSD. Even without doing that, it'd be less than an hours job to throw the new board in.
I've always found that if you have spare parts on hand, you never use them; but if you don't invest in spares, you're bound to have a failure. The likelihood of this happening is directly proportional to your dependence on the system. It's just the way the universe works.

Correction: 12 Days 3 Hours 3 Minutes 38 Seconds

[sparkman]

Looks like a solid board there Al.



What are all of those jumpers for on the right side of the board?

In the Homeseer 2 days lost an Intel motherboard (dual core CPU) to blown caps. Here replaced the caps and purchased a second same motherboard. I did build it to duplicate the first one then never used it. Updated HS2 computers one more time before going to Homeseer 3.

Current old Homeseer 2 boxes are running on a Foxconn D525 and a commercial style BCM motherboard which I think is really an MSI?

New HS3 boxes are RPi2 and a Gigabyte Haswell iSeries board.

Thanks Pete, all those headers are for the com ports. The portion close to the edge is the actual headers for the serial ports and the portion that's to the inside are for jumpers to configure the com ports.

Cheers
Al

[Pete]

Thanks guys!