Super Micro X13SAE-F won't post – incompatible ram?

[yucko]

my build:

• supermicro X13SAE-F
• i9 13900k
• 4x 32GB ECC kingston KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM

the darn thing won’t post.

on power on, it eventually makes a few beeps/chirps, and the chirps seem to depend on what kind of periphs are connected (usb keyboard plugged in or not, hdmi vs dvi, etc). it also makes a beep when you plug in or disconnect a usb device, heh.

i tried with all dimms installed. also tried with only one dimm installed in DIMMA2.

i reseated the memory and the cpu, no luck. also tried with them uninstalled to see if the behavior was different. with no cpu, nothing happens when you try to power it on (dead). with no memory, it gives the ‘no memory’ error beeps as described in the manual (5 short, 1 long – on loop).

i had heard that early mobos shipped with a bios that doesn’t support 13th gen cpu. i found an anecdote online on the unraid forum that indicated that my mobo rev (1.02) shipped with a new enough bios…

@spamalam

Finally got round to buying this a few weeks back and just assembled it:

• i9 13900k
• 128GB ECC memory - 4x KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM (gets clocked down)
• Supermicro X13SAE-F , Version 1.02
  …

The motherboard shipped with version 2.0 of the bios, so no need to flash or mess around

Everything worked out of the box

so i called supermicro tech support. the guy didn’t know what i was talking about re: earlier bios not supporting 13th gen, but i gave him my serial number, and he said i had bios 2.02. he looked at the release notes, and it indicated 13th gen support.

tech support guy blamed the kingston memory, lol. his answer was basically buy their stupid ram instead

it kills me because the aforementioned post shared a build with the same mobo and kingston ram, and it was apparently working fine for that guy. the kingston website also indicates compatibility between my ram and mobo – not that kingston’s the authority on that i guess…

i wish i only opened one stick of this kingston to test with as unfortunately all four are used goods now.

i thought i’d save a few bucks, but i guess i should have gone with the supermicro ram instead: MEM-DR532MD-EU48 (hynix HMCG88MEBEA). i’ll buy 4 sticks of that now and try just one at first.

anyone have any suggestions? i tried clearing cmos and made sure the eps8 power cable was well connected.

@coffeeoops

Datapoint:

I bought a Super Micro X13SAE-F board, and 2x32GB DDR5 ECC UDIMMs (Kingston Technology 32GB 4800MT/S DDR5 ECC CL40 DIMM2RX8 Hynix M - P/N: KSM48E40BD8KM-32HM).

CPU (12600k) is known to be good. Worked before and after being installed in the X13SAE board. System will not post with the ECC RAM installed. Tried each DIMM in each slot, individually. I’ve opened a ticket with Super Micro, and am awaiting their response. The only ECC RAM on their QVL is for a DDR4 product, which is obviously wrong. Latest BIOS is installed. I wouldn’t be surprised if the product doesn’t actually support DDR5 ECC UDIMMs.

i found this post, but the author has since told me that he ended up returning the board and ram, so it’s inconclusive.

[diizzy]

Have you tried updating BIOS using BMC/IPMI?

[yucko]

i don’t think it is technically possible to do bios update over ipmi for this cpu and/or chipset, hence it’s not implemented by supermicro.

however, trying ipmi was a good suggestion. to my surprise, i was able to connect, and the thing actually was posting.

no idea why a monitor wasn’t working with the cpu’s iGPU, but i played around in the bios:

chipset > system agent > graphics

and enabled ‘skip scaning of external gfx card’

and now the hdmi port works. uhhh…

ok, all’s well that ends well. to anyone buying this ram, i guess it does work. i’m running memtest86 on it now, and it seems fine so far, but you might be able to get 4000MT/s instead of 3600MT/s if you get the supermicro-branded hynix ram instead. i think this kingston might be rank 2? i need to read up on memory to understand all this stuff.

from the x13sa-f manual:

the datasheet says 2Rx8, so i guess i’m stuck at 3600MT/s

[yucko]

also, i updated the bios over usb and the bmc over ipmi, and it was straightforward. i just did a factory reset both of them after the updates to be safe. also, i unchecked the ‘preserve’ options on the bmc update:

PS: some of the documentation is incorrect regarding the ipmi login credentials.

the username is actually ADMIN, not admin. and the pw is printed on a sticker on the mobo and also on the plastic removable cpu socket cap.

[diizzy]

All ECC memory ((E)UDIMM) you’ll find that’s 32Gb will be 2R unless something changed very recently.

Nice that it worked in the end

[ScottishTom]

I’ve got the same board with 4x Micron/Crucial mtc20c2085s1ec48br DIMMs and while set to auto detect, the RAM only works at 3600MT/s. However if set manually to 4400MT/s in the BIOS it works fine, and has done for months. Technically out of spec per the datasheet/manual, but eh.

FWIW I also had some weirdness with video output on the board - out the box it defaults to the onboard IPMI/ASPEED (VGA) controller, rather than the iGPU on the CPU (DP and HDMI), which makes sense I guess, but would be nice if they made it a bit clearer.

[ironicbadger]

Bit of a necrobump but I recently purchased this board with a i5 13600k and I cannot get IPMI and HDMI out to mirror each other. I tried the settings above and many other permutations. Is this possible with this board?