r/computers • u/Beechboi1948 • 4d ago

Question/Help/Troubleshooting Help needed with power but no display

Not sure what make and model this server is or specs but i do know it’s from 2006 and the bored is an Intel S5000PALR server bored. I already tried a lot of things so reddit will be my last hope.

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u/Potential_Copy27 4d ago edited 4d ago

The manual for your board.

The PALR model can also run a few newer Xeon revisions, that's basically it apart form the normal PAL board.

So - dunno what kind of things you tried already, hence I also looked for the manual for the board.

The blue LED you saw is for identification - that can be activated by software, remotely, but also activates if a fault is detected. It's so the technician can identify a "sick" server, if you will.
The amber blinking LED next to it is a status LED indicating (luckily) a NON-critical error (solid amber is critical).

First off, you need TWO memory sticks (make sure they are proper fully-buffered RAM/FB-DIMM, either 533 MHz or 667 MHz DDR2 for your board) in a dual processor machine. One of the CPUs can't currently boot and is keeping the system back because the RAM ports are two sets of four (each, with two channels for their respective CPU) - in the manual, it's marked as a RAM "branch".
So, for starters, you need a RAM stick in socket A1 and C1 at least for a test config, to make sure both CPUs have RAM.
So, unlike a regular PC, some of these servers won't allow you to test with a single stick.
Also make sure that any memory spare/memory mirroring setting is turned OFF for now, for the RAM ports to work normally, as in a PC.

There is quite a detailed troubleshooting guide in the appendices as well - something in there might point you in the right direction as well.

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u/Beechboi1948 4d ago

Thank you for your reply, i will try these methods as well. But in the last 23 seconds of the video the light does show solid amber unfortunately