Proliant 1600, no post, no beep, ... toughts

[jclemente]

Hi.
I just got my hands on a proliant 1600 6/450R (it's amazing what you can find in a dumpster here in Portugal).
I've searched for specs about the proliant and I think I have a almost basic proliant 1600, except that I have the redundant power supply that doesn't seem to be there by default, and it had no memory. It is missing 2 PCI cards (I see the empty backslot) but I think there was nothing relevant there.

So I have a single PII 450, 2 SCSI hotswappable HD's connected to a PCI SCSI controller (I think it's the standart one, I see no "RAID" written on it) and i plugged some 32 or 64 MB PC100 SDRam stick (that is working on other PC) to test it...

When I power it, the fans go on, the raid card gets some leds on, the cd led goes on and off after some seconds, and... ... ... nothing ... nothing shows up on screen, no post beeps, nothing for me to troubleshoot the problem...
The leds on the CPU board seem to light up as "processor ok" but I'm not sure of this as these leds are not visible and all I see is the reflection of it inside the cpu case.

I've tried resetting the BIOS/CMOS by turning on a switch that is found on the PCI/ISA motherboard, but it still doesn't boot.
I tried switching the memory stick for another PC100 stick, and still no beeping or image...

I'm not sure what to try... maybe change the cpu? I have a working PIII 450, so maybe I could try to plug that on on it to see if it works?

I have other questions that maybe you know how to answer:
- What is the "processor power module" for? If I install a second CPU I'll need to add the other power module, or is it optional?
- If I consider this proliant dead, maybe I can use the HD's and the PCI SCSI controller... does it work on a standart PC board? Can I still use the hotswap rack if I do that?

Any tip? I have no idea on how to troubleshoot a machine like this one...

Thanks
Joao

 

[spi200]

Hi

Try and swap the CPU.
To add a CPU you will need the processor power module as well.
Not sure about the SCSI controller, but I have used standard SCSI controller in 1600's so they are probably compatible with out motherboards.

Good luck


David

 

[jclemente]

No good... I tried another processor and the behaviour is the same. Actually I even tried the processor that was in the Proliant on another machine and it booted ok...

Any other toughts.... or maybe I should consider this MB dead?
Thanks
Joao

 

[ntinlin]

1. It must be ECC memory you put in the system
2. BIOS could be corrupt - try the following

"System configuration DIP switch should be set to: 1=on, 4=on, 5=on, 6=on. (Take note of previous settings).
Insert RomPaq diskette and power on.

Wait for a beep code that signifies end of ROM upgrade, this may take up to 5 minutes and there is unlikely to be any video output during disaster recovery."

Paraphrased from my HP training course notes.

Neill

 

[iolair]

Compaq has been known to use some screwy voltages on their processors - you may have to actually buy an OEM processor to make this work. Good Luck, the 1600 is a great server.

Iolair MacWalter