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No POST or power up after Moving Poweredge 2950
Hi Folks,
Working on a Poweredge 2950. Moved it out of a rack to another server room and now it does not wanna do anything.
If I press the little button on the front LED Diagnostic display for 5 seconds al it says is "E4". I have searched and searched and cannot find any reference anywhere to an "E4" error.
I have tried removing ram, boards, etc, and reseating everything yet pressing the power button does nothing. I even opened it up and pressed the little power button with a screwdriver in case the button itself was bad and I can get the amber light on the LED display to light up for a few seconds yet after that still nothing, only the E4 error, or the "I1910" Intrusion error because I took the cover off.
Initially one power supply was dark with no lights so I swapped it and now have 2 Power supplies each with the LED 'Line' indicator on yet pressing the power button does not get the "Power Supply Status" indicators to light up.
I have tried removing both batteries with no change.
The only signs of life besides the Power Supply Line Voltage Indicators LEDs are a green LED indicator on the motherboard right by the LAN interfaces along with the Blue LED Diagnostic display on the front the keeps scrolling "Dell Poweredge 2950", or "E4" when button is held in for 5 seconds.
There is nothing coming out of the video connectors on the front nor the back.
Any additional troubleshooting or diagnostic advice will greatly be appreciated!
Thx!
Brig
brigs
5 Posts
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January 5th, 2014 12:00
Wanted to add a final comment on this thread. I ended up getting a 2nd 2950 that we retired from Production service. When I opened it up it was immediately obvious to me what the "risers" were and it appears that when the SA gave me the first 2950 he had removed the DRAC card along with the riser leaving the system disabled.
So obviously the system absolutely needs the riser in place to do any kind of power up and POST operations.
Also after searching everywhere for the meaning of error code "E4" with no luck at all I think it may be safe to say that error code E4 means "Missing Riser Board" or maybe a generic "Incomplete Hardware Configuration"
So this issue is resolved.
Thx!
Brig
DELL-Chris H
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December 3rd, 2013 12:00
Brigs,
I would take the server to a Minimum to POST configuration. That is removing everything but the following :
After that then try starting the system. If it powers and clears post then power down and add the removed parts back one at a time until issue repeats, identifying the culprit.
If the systems still DOESN'T power up under that then check that the processors are secure and snug.
Let me know what you find.
brigs
5 Posts
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December 3rd, 2013 12:00
Hi Chris,
Thx for the advice!
One other thing I wanted to mention before proceeding with your suggestions. I inherited the system for R&D use and when it was running for Production the system had a DRAC card in slot PCI-1. Since I am using it stand alone in a lab now the old SA removed the DRAC card and handed the hardware over to me to load an OS, etc.
Is it possible that this is the root cause? I am not sure what the 'riser' is you mentioned, yet is this something that should have been put back in PCI -1 when the DRAC card was removed?
Thx!
Brig