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April 6th, 2019 14:00
Poweredge 2900 Stuck on Boot - RN50 A21 BIOS
I have bought an old PowerEdge 2900 that is stuck at boot anytime it boots up, I get video, but only see a single line of information and a blinking cursor. The line Reads RN50 A21 Bios. No error message after that line, just the cursor.
Nothing but the raid controller was connected to the server, so I removed it and the disks and the dvd rom drive, nothing changed, removed all memory but one, same issue, removed all memory, no video as expected, put memory back in, still no change.
Tried to reset bios by changing the jumper but nothing showed up differently.
I cleaned up the board and visually I did not see anything wrong with it.
Anybody has any suggestions on what to try next?
Both power supply work.
savvy2
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April 8th, 2019 08:00
GEN 3 old. 2006 built (as old as)
the RTC coin cell new? battery? after 7 years old this is knee jerk 100% do it every time service. or go nuts.
if the bios read wrong data from the NVRAM what can it do but go NUTS. ok>?
your battery is now 13 years old, if never changed, so almost 2 time battery makers spec. of 7.
make sure minimum ram is set up by the manual do not guess what slots runs 1 stick.
take it down to 1 CPU yet, per book, not guess which what socket is cpu1.
flash the bios yet?
What if last owner flashed the firmware with wrong bios, did the seller say its DOA certified or not.
did you ask him first if the BIOS screens work, and must or dont buy it?
your page is here
https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/product/poweredge-2900/drivers
bios fresh is 2.6.1 2013
rodrigolzd
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April 8th, 2019 10:00
Sorry for the delay, I had not see any notifications from this reply.
I'll replace the mainboard battery. maybe that will help.
I understand there is a minimum amount of ram required, but I wanted to try anything that would give me a different result, that's why I tested with a single ram stick.
This server only has one CPU. I might try to change that just for testing.
I bought the server knowing it was not booting right, (Ad didn't say that, only found out it wasn't working when I got to the place where I bought it) I needed the power supply and it was cheaper to buy this server with two power supplies to save another one instead of getting just the power supplies.
I figured it would also count for spare parts just in case, or even if it was working, I could just bring whatever hardware I had left from the other server to this one.
I do not know if I can flash the bios, it doesn't respond enough to do anything at this point. Thanks for the help. I