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spiderhole
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April 5th, 2025 10:43
T7910 won’t post - possible memory issues?
I’m having issues getting my Precision T7910 with dual E5-2697 V3 and 128gb memory to post, show any display output or power to usb keyboard. Power supply tests green and when I turn on the system I get a solid white power button, just no bios or any screen display even if I hit f2 or f12 immediately after powering on.
some history - ever since I purchased this system as refurbished back in 2019, it would occasionally exhibit this issue on initial power up but if I cycled the power it would always boot fine on the 2nd try. Fast forward to a few weeks ago and see suddenly one day it would just not post at all. At that point I gave it a good interior dust cleaning and checked all the connections and then fired it back up and this time it posted! I ran the full suite of diagnostic and everything passed including all 128gb of memory. I noticed the following repeated in the most recent bios event logs…
-Invalid configuration information - please run SETUP program
-Time-of-day not set - please run SETUP program
“Ah Ha! It’s probably just a dead cmos battery” I thought, so I took out the old coin cell, waited about 15 min and popped in a fresh one. Ever since then I’ve not been able to get it to post again. At this point I’m suspecting a memory issue and upon closer inspection I realized that there are two different brands modules, 8x8gb of Samsung (white banks) and 8x8gb of Hynix (black banks). I removed all of the Hynix sticks, leaving banks 1-4 for both CPUs populated with the Samsungs. When I tried to boot in this configuration I got the Amber 2,7 power LED which supposedly means a memory configuration error. Next I removed the memory from banks 3 & 4 for both CPUs and it went back to the solid white power LED with no video signal or power to the keyboard.
Next I’m planning to try 1 stick of the Hynix in bank 1 only for both CPUs just to rule out bad Samsung memory, but beyond that I’m not sure what else to try. I’ve also tried another video card that’s known to be working in my T7610. I supposed I could get two approved 4gb crucial modules to test but not sure it’s with the money and effort for such and old workstation. It’s still a great render box when I need one so I’d love to get another year or two of life out of it.
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Posted April 5th, 2025 13:38
@mazzinia_ Very interesting theory! Is it typical that there would be zero display during this memory training process? I don't think I've left it siting more than a few minutes after powering on with the white solid light but on Monday I'll try to leave it alone for a half hour or so and see what happens. I know testing of 128gb takes a while in the bios diagnostics tools so perhaps you are right. Thanks for the suggestion.
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Posted April 5th, 2025 14:25
@spiderhole to be honest I've not had memory training yet, so I don't know ... but i suspect it would not have a display
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Posted April 7th, 2025 22:04
Waiting an hour for possible "memory training" and also using the jumper to reset the cmos have not resolved my issues. I've ordered a Quadro K600 card off ebay to see if the higher end GPUs I've tried might be the culprit (I've tried known working GTX 1070ti and Tesla GP100 cards). Stay tuned!
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Posted April 7th, 2025 22:13
@spiderhole well, not the result i was hoping to hear :(
Do you remember if you had secure boot on ?
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Posted April 7th, 2025 22:41
@mazzinia_ I had it set to UEFI with "Always, except internal hhd" the last time it posted successfully. Keep in mind I have the boot hdd removed for now and simply getting it to post to the bios at all.
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Posted April 9th, 2025 09:28
UPDATE!
While waiting on the K600 card to arrive I decided to swap out all four of the remaining 8gb DIMMs with different modules, put both side panels back on and turn fire up the system. It’s ALIVE!!! I’m not sure if it’s bad memory or maybe the bios won’t post if the case covers are not in place but I’ll soon find out as I do more testing. More to follow.
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Posted April 9th, 2025 10:25
@spiderhole There's an intrusion switch that prevents the computer to work with the side cover removed. If you want to operate while open, you have to tape down the switch.
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Posted April 9th, 2025 11:08
@mazzinia_ What's interesting is that it ran before I changed the CMOS battery with the left side panel and front bezel removed. I even have photos of it in that state with the bios screen active. Maybe it was a fluke, or perhaps only the RIGHT cover panel is preventing boot when it's off.
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Posted April 9th, 2025 11:14
@mazzinia_ What I'm also wondering is if there should would typically onscreen message in the event of missing cover panel vs just a blank screen, which is what I was experiencing.
mazzinia_
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Posted April 5th, 2025 12:16
Hello,
how much time have you waited ( after booting with the new cmos battery ) with the solid white led, before turning it off ? It may be "training" the ram