Supermicro X10SAE Beep Code

[kenwood850]

Does anyone know what 10 short beeps means for a Supermicro X10SAE motherboard? There is nothing in the on-line manual for the code. Whatever it is, it is fatal as there is no POST. This is on a new board, CPU, and RAM.

 

[alexoiu]

Have you checked Appendix A?
ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/CDR-X10-UP_1.00_for_Intel_X10_UP_platform/MANUALS/X10SAE.pdf

 

[kenwood850]

I went to that link and downloaded the manual and it is revision 1.0. If you go here
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/xeon/c220/x10sae.cfm
there is a link to revision 1.0b which is the one I used.
Unfortunately it does not matter which manual you use, there is no beep code listing for 10 beeps.

I do have two more pieces of information. Unlike the beep code for no memory which repeats this one of 10 beeps does not repeat. You hear the 10 beeps then nothing. Also there is a very short beep just prior to the 10 beeps that appears to consist 3 very short beeps with different tones that run together.

 

[alexoiu]

I would try contacting Supermicro and asking them http://www.supermicro.com/about/contact/

 

[kenwood850]

I would try contacting Supermicro and asking them http://www.supermicro.com/about/contact/

That was my first stop but in my search for a solution on line I read about how poor Supermicro support was so I thought I would try here as well. This is my first Supermicro board. All my others have been by Asus with no problems but it was such a good price when purchased with the CPU I went for it. How does that go? Ah yes, "Decide in haste, repent in leisure" 🙂

 

[kenwood850]

I am answering my own post in case someone else comes looking for an answer to the same question. The reason for a beep code of 10 short beeps is that there is no video card. I made the mistake of thinking because it had the Intel C226 chipset and video connectors that it didn’t need a CPU with graphic capability. I robbed a video card from a nearby PC and the beep code disappeared and the server booted normally. Perhaps they will put that beep code in the next revision of the on-line manual.

 

[ghackett]

First off, thank you @kenwood850 for posting your answer. This was the only resource I could find that explained the 10 beeps and helped me get my server up and running when I ran into the same problem. I'd like to add one detail that I just discovered and made me very happy...

It looks like the 10 beeps isn't actually a fatal, just a warning that you have no way to display anything. But if you're building a headless system, you can borrow a video card to set it up, and then remove it once it boots to a state that is accessible to the network. It does look like boot time takes a bit longer, but that's probably not a huge concern on a server board.