I think my PSU is to Small??

[TheLostTroll13]

Hey I'm new here and i came here with a puzzling issue... I am in the process of building a Dual CPU Server Gaming PC. I'm Using the Motherboard form a HP XW9400 Motherboard (Which I have 2 of...) and a set of AMD Opteron 6-Core 2427's. I currently have a GTX 650 GPU installed and a Lepa 500 Watt PSU. My problem is that when we apply power and turn it on, the fans spin up, but the screen never activates and no boot is even attempted? I've tried running 4-Core Opteron's thinking the CPU's were to new or big, but that didn't fix it. My RAM is not faulty, it worked perfect when in their last home. We have even gone as far as using a friends 800 Watt PSU to try firing it up. I looked at the original manufacturer book for the motherboards original PC, it calls for a 1100 Watt PSU minimum to my understanding.

 

Could the issue be that I don't have enough juice to fire the CPU's/Motherboard in General? Or maybe a lack of drivers for the GPU to run?

 

I am going to be purchasing a 1200 Watt PSU soon but I wanted to find some extra feedback before dropping the money on it? 

 

Thank you for any help in advance!

 

DISCLAIMER: I know some things may not belong where they are, I have always enjoyed a Frankenstein Build just as much as a Clean Build, so please refrain from informing me that CPU Wraith Coolers are not for cases and such other things like that... I am aware... Please don't Judge...

 

***Let me just say that I have Top of the line PC's I normally build/run, but occasionally like to dive into the deep budget PC Builds like this.***

[TheLostTroll13]

***There is also a GTX750 in there... Forgot....

[Sakkura]

Which particular Lepa PSU is it you have? They have multiple 500W models.

 

This could well be a PSU problem, but it doesn't have to be the wattage - could be more to do with quality. 1200W is certainly overkill for your hardware.

[TheLostTroll13]

It is a LEPA N Series 500 Watt. Its not a crazy GPU. But it's the same PSU that runs my AMD Ryzen Build, it's worked for at least a year now in that build without a hitch.

 

Is 1200 Watts overkill for a motherboard that originally demanded 1000 Watts?

[mariushm]

you need 24pin atx + 4 pin cpu power + 8 pin cpu power to power the board

 

My advice... DO NOT waste your money on a 1200w psu. Use that money to buy something new.

The two 6 core cpus you have now are about 10-20% less powerful than a Ryzen 3 1200 processor (4 core, 4 thread)

Spend 50$ on a Ryzen 1200 and a 60$ B450 motherboard and some ram and you'll get higher performance, for around half the amount of electricity  (your two opterons will idle at around 80-100 watts, a ryzen 3 1200 will idle at around 40w)

 

also in the pictures the video card doesn't have a 6 pin pci-e connector plugged in - that could stop your pc from starting up.

 

[Sakkura]

1 minute ago, TheLostTroll13 said:

It is a LEPA N Series 500 Watt. Its not a crazy GPU. But it's the same PSU that runs my AMD Ryzen Build, it's worked for at least a year now in that build without a hitch.

 

Is 1200 Watts overkill for a motherboard that originally demanded 1000 Watts?

Okay as far as I can see, that's a PSU built by Yue-Lin and rated for 360W on the 12V rail. That's two red flags for quality, so there's a good chance that's the problem.

 

The official PSU recommendation is exaggerated to cover their asses. You don't need a thousand watts, unless you plug in some much more power-hungry graphics cards.

[Sakkura]

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

also in the pictures the video card doesn't have a 6 pin pci-e connector plugged in - that could stop your pc from starting up.

 

Well, the PSU just isn't installed there. Definitely a showstopper.

[TheLostTroll13]

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

you need 24pin atx + 4 pin cpu power + 8 pin cpu power to power the board

 

My advice... DO NOT waste your money on a 1200w psu. Use that money to buy something new.

The two 6 core cpus you have now are about 10-20% less powerful than a Ryzen 3 1200 processor (4 core, 4 thread)

Spend 50$ on a Ryzen 1200 and a 60$ B450 motherboard and some ram and you'll get higher performance, for around half the amount of electricity  (your two opterons will idle at around 80-100 watts, a ryzen 3 1200 will idle at around 40w)

 

also in the pictures the video card doesn't have a 6 pin pci-e connector plugged in - that could stop your pc from starting up.

 

I defineitely appreciate you concern for the lack of power this thing will have, but I'm only $30 in this build. I have 3 Ryzen Builds already and this is just a fun hobby build.

[TheLostTroll13]

1 minute ago, Sakkura said:

Well, the PSU just isn't installed there. Definitely a showstopper.

LOL I needed that today! I was borrowing the Lepa out of one of my other builds.

[TheLostTroll13]

5 minutes ago, Sakkura said:

Okay as far as I can see, that's a PSU built by Yue-Lin and rated for 360W on the 12V rail. That's two red flags for quality, so there's a good chance that's the problem.

 

The official PSU recommendation is exaggerated to cover their asses. You don't need a thousand watts, unless you plug in some much more power-hungry graphics cards.

So would and underrated PSU stop the PC from attempting to boot?

[TheLostTroll13]

By the way, just need to say i appreciate your guys's quick replies, other forums I've been through are nothing like this!

[mariushm]

anyway ... the 2427 opterons are 115w TDP processors, they'll use a lot of power even when idle.

So two of them will probably average 100-150w or so of power consumption..

 

the motherboard should start with a 4-500w psu but you most likely have to insert both 4pin and 8 pin connectors for power. If you want to be cheap, find some 8 pin cpu extension cable (or cut one from another supply along with the wires) and connect it to the psu besides the 4 pin cpu connector ... yellow wires go to 12v , black wires go to ground... it's easy to add connectors to psu.

 

if you're not sure why something doesn't start.. simplify the circuit ... disconnect sata drives, try again ... not working? leave just two memory sticks per cpu, then try with only one stick per cpu (read manual to see which memory slot must have ram) ...

if it still doesn't work, try with just one cpu first... but make sure the video card is inserted into the pci-e slot for that particular CPU socket that's filled with CPU. Some pci-e slots are connected to one cpu socket, some to the other socket.

 

With these workstation / server boards it's not uncommon to take up to 1 minute for a system to boot when there are hardware changes

 

it's purely impossible for  motherboard to know the wattage of a psu, unless it's a proprietary power supply with special connectors.

It's possible for a motherboard + cpus to pull a lot of power from a power supply, more than it could handle, but it shouldn't be the case here. If you think this may be the case, you could just try removing one cpu and its ram to reduce the theoretical power consumption by half and see if the system starts.

[TheLostTroll13]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

anyway ... the 2427 opterons are 115w TDP processors, they'll use a lot of power even when idle.

So two of them will probably average 100-150w or so of power consumption..

 

the motherboard should start with a 4-500w psu but you most likely have to insert both 4pin and 8 pin connectors for power. If you want to be cheap, find some 8 pin cpu extension cable (or cut one from another supply along with the wires) and connect it to the psu besides the 4 pin cpu connector ... yellow wires go to 12v , black wires go to ground... it's easy to add connectors to psu.

 

if you're not sure why something doesn't start.. simplify the circuit ... disconnect sata drives, try again ... not working? leave just two memory sticks per cpu, then try with only one stick per cpu (read manual to see which memory slot must have ram) ...

if it still doesn't work, try with just one cpu first... but make sure the video card is inserted into the pci-e slot for that particular CPU socket that's filled with CPU. Some pci-e slots are connected to one cpu socket, some to the other socket.

 

With these workstation / server boards it's not uncommon to take up to 1 minute for a system to boot when there are hardware changes

We've been through most of these steps, but I wasn't aware that there may be a required set of ram slots to fill. I'll have to dig through the manual again. We tried booting with a 800 Watt PSU with everything plugged in properly. Still nothing? Would a board this old possibly be incapable of running a newer GPU without drivers? Like maybe it's booting and we just can't see it?

[mariushm]

remove board from case, put it one some cardboard box or paper (something that wouldn't cause short circuits on the back)

put just one cpu in, just two sticks of memory, plug power connectors (all 3), plug video card and 6 pin pci-e connector. 

double check and make sure you start motherboard from the front panel header (maybe you got the wrong pins and you try to start by pressing switch but switch isn't connected properly)

go from there.

 

This manual may help you out : https://jp.ext.hp.com/lib/doc/manual/workstation/xw9400/xw9400strg_e_c00774787.pdf

HP xw9400 Workstation Service andTechnical Reference Guide

 

 

edit apparently i was too optimist with the power consumption ... see page 16

 

 

also page 80 ... proper memory install :

 

 

[TheLostTroll13]

29 minutes ago, mariushm said:

remove board from case, put it one some cardboard box or paper (something that wouldn't cause short circuits on the back)

put just one cpu in, just two sticks of memory, plug power connectors (all 3), plug video card and 6 pin pci-e connector. 

double check and make sure you start motherboard from the front panel header (maybe you got the wrong pins and you try to start by pressing switch but switch isn't connected properly)

go from there.

 

This manual may help you out : https://jp.ext.hp.com/lib/doc/manual/workstation/xw9400/xw9400strg_e_c00774787.pdf

HP xw9400 Workstation Service andTechnical Reference Guide

 

 

edit apparently i was too optimist with the power consumption ... see page 16

 

 

also page 80 ... proper memory install :

 

 

Too Optimist meaning? From what I'm seeing in your Snips, it doesn't take much at all?

 

Edit, I have this PDF Manual on my phone, it's often less specific than i need... LOL

[mariushm]

too optimist... i was saying it would consume 100-150w at idle... the manual says 200-220w which is worse , more power hungry.

[TheLostTroll13]

7 minutes ago, mariushm said:

too optimist... i was saying it would consume 100-150w at idle... the manual says 200-220w which is worse , more power hungry.

So it may still be a Power Supply Issue?

[TheLostTroll13]

Took a little bit but here is the factory PSU Specs for this board. Can you make sens eof them?

[mariushm]

The contents in the picture you posted is in the manual I linked to a few posts above. Just goes to show how little you pay attention.

The information in the table doesn't matter, it just lists the technical specs of that power supply. The server is supplied with an overkill power supply at 1080w because the server manufacturer doesn't know what the server is going to be used for - if the server's gonna have 20 hard drives, if there's gonna be 2-3 video cards inside, if there's gonna be 512 GB of memory installed and so on...

Like I said, your system should start with a decent 500-600w power supply AS LONG AS YOU USE BOTH 4 PIN AND 8 PIN CPU POWER CONNECTORS. 

If you have such a psu and still doesn't start up, do like I said and start booting the motherboard with just one CPU and just 1-2 sticks of ram and a video card, outside the case.

I won't even reply to this thread unless I see pictures with the motherboard and everything outside the case... not gonna waste my time anymore if  you can't even pay attention to advice.

 

And stop quoting my full messages if there's nobody else posting between my post and your answer ....  I predict you're not gonna see this line and quote this message... .