Yes, I have the full PSU connection and the +12v (4 Pin connector) which sits at the top.

I've just removed the second processor and placed the blank in, still the same. No beeps or nothing.

Can you try it with only one of the memory modules installed? (and switch to the other if that fails)

Have you tried clearing the CMOS? Flashing to the newest BIOS? With only one CPU or the other?

obobskivich wrote:

Can you try it with only one of the memory modules installed? (and switch to the other if that fails)

Have you tried clearing the CMOS? Flashing to the newest BIOS? With only one CPU or the other?

FYI, this board REQUIRES 2 dimms for it to post. You also need to fill it in numerical order.

My understanding was that the DIMM sockets need to be populated with pairs of Registered ECC ram. I've tried with 1 stick, then the other still the same.

Yes, swapped out the CPUs and tried them on their own. Also reset the CMOS. Still the same 😒

Edit - Just tried without any RAM and no beeps, does exactly the same thing.

luckybob wrote:

FYI, this board REQUIRES 2 dimms for it to post. You also need to fill it in numerical order.

Was afraid that might be the case. I'd say either try new memory or write the board off as failed if you can confirm the CPUs working in another board (even if individually). If you have another board that will take the ECC Registered RAM you could test it there and see if it works (e.g. memtest); if it's AOK then blame the dual 370 board, if it has problems then buy new RAM.

I've ordered some more memory today, different brand...

1GB 2X 512MB Infineon HYS72V64300GR-7.5-C2 PC133 133MHZ CL3 ECC SERVER RAM

Since I've tested the processors on their own, I can't see me having two dead processors. So its either RAM (Fingers crossed) or motherboard.

Reminds me of the death of my HE-SL-based motherboard. I never found the cause. I even re-capped it, but this did not help. Some HE-SL-based boards do say in the manual that all memory slots must be populated.

To respond to an inquiry here about the PCI-X Parhelia, I did try the card in a ServerWorks III LE board (dual Tualatin) and WinXP was unable to assign resources to the graphic card's onboard HiNT PCI-PCI bridge. Screen turns blank after trying to boot into XP after driver installation. I eventually gave up on it. I got the PCI-X Parhelia for around $50, so the loss was not so bad compared to what people are trying to get for this card now on eBay.

You should still be able to use PCI graphics cards in the PCI-X slots for 66 MHz bandwidth.

Well I recieved my new memory today, made no difference. Exactly the same.

When plugging in the PSU, LED1 blinks blue for less than a second. I hit the power button, the power light lights for a second then goes off. Screen remains black.

I left the battery out for a couple of days whilst I was waiting for my memory just to be sure.

😢 It appears to be dead.

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

do you have one of these? http://www.ebay.com/itm/171324268039

No I don't have one of those 😢

I'll try and strip the whole thing out this weekend, but don't hold out much hope. Does anyone know when LED1 (On the rear of the board) comes on? All it does it flicker for me when the PSU is switched on.

Its a shame as when it was running it was rock solid, didn't have one issue and was very quick.

Shame to hear about the board dying - can you get it replaced from wherever you bought it? (honestly it isn't *that* surprising seeing a NOS board die on usage after whatever a decade of storage, so that's why I'd expect a retailer to be willing to swap it)

I bought it from a private ebay seller. It only cost me £6 so not the end of the world.

I've just dropped him a e-mail, just after a little more information to why the board was new and never used and if he has any experience with them e.t.c.

foey wrote:

Does anyone know when LED1 (On the rear of the board) comes on? All it does it flicker for me when the PSU is switched on.

The only LED being referenced in the attached manual is the Power LED. This might be irrelevant as the system works normally most of the time, but just to be sure, are the Tualatins - server version ones?

Thanks gandhig,

They both are :- Intel SL5XL Pentium 3-S Tualatin 1.4GHz Socket 370 Processor - 512K Cache, 133MHz FSB, 1.45V (06B1h)

When the board booted, they were picked up without any issues, Screenshot on the first page.

Stripped it all down last night, the power light is now lighting up but still fails to boot.

I tried both processors in a spare Intel board which supports Tualatin, both boot up without any issues. I also tried fitting a Celeron Tualatin 1Ghz which was in my spare board, still fails to boot. Everything gets warm though.

On inserting one of the P3s back in, I received a processor failure beep code, swapped processors no beep but fails to boot again.

Its dead 🙁 Any suggestions to finding a dual processor board which does not cost the earth 😀

I also tried my Voodoo 3 PCI which made no difference.

I had a dual p3 board that required the system to be turned on while the clear c mos jumper was on. Give that a shot.

I'm a month late. But if you can, I suggest measuring the voltage rails with a multimeter while it's powered up. Maybe it's just not getting acceptable voltage. Put the negative on a safe ground (like the PSU case), and carefully backprobe the positive into the ATX connector. The plastic shrouding of the connector makes it pretty safe, it would be hard to short anything.
Also check the Intel manual for their procedures on doing a full reset of the CMOS. Those manuals are insanely detailed, it's something I love about Intel boards but they also are pretty strict. If one thing isn't exactly to spec, they will refuse to run. They're the polar opposite of an enthusiast overclocking board, which will try to play along with anything.
On that point, I think it's possible that a terminator is required to run a single CPU (not recommended, but mandatory), but I'm not sure on that model.

I can't quite read the ratings, but modern power supplies tend to be relatively weak on the 3.3v+5v rails which older motherboards draw most of their consumption from. So although that PSU is rated 500W total, it might not match up well with that board. I'm just speaking generally, I don't have any experience with that particular PSU or motherboard.
I had a situation once where an older motherboard gradually killed the 3.3v rail on a newer 550W PSU. It took about 1 or 2 weeks for that to happen. It turned out the rails that actually mattered were weaker than my 300W PSU, which went on to run that system perfectly.

There's a beep code for CPU failure? That's weird - normally the CPU has to be running for the BIOS to do anything at all, so the failure must not have been absolute. Unless that board has some other processor on board for doing those type of checks.

The SDS2 is pretty much the ultimate P3 server board. I remember looking for one of those about a year ago and giving up. That price was a steal! My guess would be that it was stocked somewhere as a backup for other servers, and never needed to be deployed. Obsolete server gear has a way of hitting the 2nd hand market very cheap sometimes - cheaper than the consumer equivalent, very often.

I'm a bit superstitious about powering up something that's been asleep for that long. I think it might be better to wake them with a minimal configuration (single low end CPU, little RAM) and just let it sit in the BIOS for a while, before ramping up the load with added hardware. I don't know if it really makes any difference though.

foey wrote:

I've been looking at graphics cards this morning. […]
Show full quote

I've been looking at graphics cards this morning.

It would be fantastic getting a Voodoo 5, however they are hard to come by now and don't fancy spending a fortune on one. Back in 2007 I had one of them which a friend gave me. I think used it to upgrade someones machine 😒

The Matrox cards look like a bit of a mixed bag for games. All of the cards on the PCI-X interface are very expensive

I'm tempted to get the following to see how quick games can run. I think this is probably the quickest PCI card?

Zotac GT 610 512MB GDDR3 DVI VGA HDMI PCI Graphics Card

- Nvidia GeForce GT 610 GPU
- 512MB GDDR3 Memory
- DVI VGA HDMI Outputs
- PCI Interface

Your thoughts guys?

Sorry for being noob, but if i got it right you are planing to put pci-e card into pci-x slot ?! Did anyone did that before? Any real cases of working cards ?!

No, the card I listed is actually a PCI card and not a PCI-E. A number of people have put PCI graphics cards in the PCI-X slot (Found on Server boards) which runs at 66mhz instead of the standard 33mhz.

I'm still unable to get this board to boot 🙁

I might try another PSU as suggested by shamino. Like I said the board was quite hard to getting running, normally after a couple of boot it posted. But once it was running it was rock solid, quick and very stable.

Edit - Might try to get this out of the box tonight and have another go. Last time I tried to boot it up in Bios Recovery mode. I made a floppy disk, changed the jumped and switched it on. It looks at the floppy disc instantly, then the light either stays on throughout the duration - does nothing or looks at the disk drive then disk seek goes off.

foey wrote:

No, the card I listed is actually a PCI card and not a PCI-E. A number of people have put PCI graphics cards in the PCI-X slot ( […]
Show full quote

No, the card I listed is actually a PCI card and not a PCI-E. A number of people have put PCI graphics cards in the PCI-X slot (Found on Server boards) which runs at 66mhz instead of the standard 33mhz.

I'm still unable to get this board to boot 🙁

I might try another PSU as suggested by shamino. Like I said the board was quite hard to getting running, normally after a couple of boot it posted. But once it was running it was rock solid, quick and very stable.

Edit - Might try to get this out of the box tonight and have another go. Last time I tried to boot it up in Bios Recovery mode. I made a floppy disk, changed the jumped and switched it on. It looks at the floppy disc instantly, then the light either stays on throughout the duration - does nothing or looks at the disk drive then disk seek goes off.

Ohh, ok ! didn't search details about the cards... I had same problem with boot on dual socket 370 board..Im not really sure what i did but somehow it did start towork normally...Wild guess ; check for bad caps on the mb?