I’m looking for some help troubleshooting a build. I’ve got a Xeon E5-2683 v4 in ASRock X99 Extreme4 which should* be running the latest bios. I’m testing with 2x8Gb corsair DDR4 2400 MHz DIMMs. I’ve tried it with a Zotac gtx1060 and an aged gts250.
When I power up I get no outputs from either over DVI or HDMI and I’m getting no beeps or flashes from the motherboard. The fans spin up and the system stays on with the 1060 but with no outputs, with the gts250 the power cycles on and off after just under a minute.
I have no storage devices attached, but If I plug in a linux live usb and power on it cycles on an off again almost immediately with either GPU or no GPU.
I know the RAM and the 1060 work as I’m borrowing them form a working system to test with.
The PSU is an old fsp epsilon eightyplus 700 (The fan only spins up when I have the 1060 installed)
I’m a bit stumped in the absence of any post codes to interpret what to try next - any suggestions would be welcome.
*seller said it was and I’ve not done CMOS clear yet, I think the original bios should support the Xeon E5-2683 v4 but I need to double check before I reset.
That board was originally released in 2014, but to support the E5-2683 v4 it requires BIOS v3.80 which wasn’t released until 2018. Unfortunately there isn’t a way to check the BIOS version or update it without the computer posting (unless you have an eeprom programmer… but guessing you’d already told us if you did).
To make things even more difficult that motherboard doesn’t have an integrated speaker. So there is no way for it to give you audible beep codes. The user manual shows a 4 pin chassis speaker header in the bottom right of the board but makes no mention of whether it will provide diagnostic beep codes.
The only helpful thing I can suggest would be to toggle the BIOS selection jumper to the backup BIOS. This could be helpful if the currently selected BIOS chip is corrupt/failed but I’m doubtful this will solve you problem.
Check out “BIOS Selection Jumper” in the user guide
Forgot to add to my first post… Go ahead and clear CMOS if you haven’t already. There is nothing you need to double check or worry about hurting. Not sure why your seller is somehow tying clearing CMOS to a specific BIOS revision. There two are unrelated.
Thanks, I’ll try the bios toggle just in case. I’ve got a case speaker plugged into that header i’d assumed that it would be giving me beep codes if there were any to be had. No sadly I don’t have an eeprom programmer - I suppose I could try using my raspberry pi but that might take me a while and I don’t think I have any bread boards with me atm. I suppose the simplest thing would be to try and get my hands on a cpu it supported at launch and see if that works.
OK I think I may have been conflating CMOS clear with the dual bios thing I though using the cmos clear might reset the updateable bios with the one you can flashback if you have a problem with your main one.
Clearing CMOS just resets all user defined settings to default in the BIOS. It doesn’t actually erase anything that was flashed to the BIOS update. It would be the same as unplugging the PC from power and removing the CMOS battery.
You have dual BIOS’s on the board as mean of recovering from a failed chip/BIOS update. But it’s not the same as the flashback feature on modern boards which allow you to update the BIOS version with an unsupported CPU. Likely the backup BIOS (side B) will be an old version that has never been updated and less likely to support your v4 CPU, so this is why I think it won’t help.
Personally I’d be pissed if the seller said “I think the original bios should support the Xeon E5-2683 v4 but I need to double check before I reset.” which means he probably didn’t even tested it. I’d ask him to ship a supported CPU for troubleshooting or accept a return as DOA if he can’t definitively say he updated the BIOS. Short of it being an amazing deal, I’d lean on him to make it right. Just my opinion.
Edit: Opinion above applies if seller sold you both the board and CPU as a combo.
To be fair to the seller of the motherboard I think my phrasing was unclear they just said it had the “latest bios”. All erroneous thoughts about the CMOS / bios were my own, Thanks for the clarification on that. I bought the board and CPU separately. I’d checked that the CPU should be compatible with the newer bios which is why I expected it to work with what the seller listed as the “latest” one. I’ve asked if they can confirm the actual bios version they shipped it to me with, I’ll see if they get back to me, though if they say it’s >= v3.80 assuming they are correct about that then I’m not sure what else could be the issue.
