Found another junked computer...

[dkevelx]

TL;DR at end. Will make a lot more sense if you read the whole thing, though.

 

So a few months back, I found an old intel skulltrail system that I somewhat refurbished for like 80 dollars (needed new ram and HDD) with two intel Xeon L5410's (they're older quad cores at 2.33) and a GTX 480. I got this for literally nothing, as the guys throwing it out didn't even know what it was.

 

It has it's issues, like how it doesn't goddamn boot to Windows anymore after I increased the clock speed to 2.7 (it's stuck in a post loop and then stops at error code 12 and I have no idea what that means on a D5400xs, or anything really. I'm not too aware of post codes, to be honest), to clarify it ran perfectly fine at 2.66. If I can get any help with this, that'd be great.

 

Back to the point, however, I found another computer that was about to be thrown out! This one, I was interested in purely because it had a wi-fi adapter, which Garbage Comp 1 needed at the time. So I asked the guy throwing it out again and he let me take it, again, for nothing.

 

I really want to be a part of scrapyard wars. I'd crush everyone, with my luck.

 

The wifi adapter ended up being a d-link unit that was worth around 100 dollars new, as well as 16gb of perfectly good kingston HyperX DDR3. Because the rest of the computer looked like straight up trash, I put it to the side and tinkered with Garbage Comp 1 for a few days. Even got a 3dmark score on it, if anyones interested in seeing it-

 

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/6633949

 

That was, until it started bugging out on me.

 

Because my initial pet project computer was acting like a dick, I decided to waste time by dismantling Garbage Comp 2. And lo-and-behold, sandwiched between its chunky, terrible looking stock heatsink and hideous green PCB sat an intel Core i7 860.

 

Naturally, I threw the computer back together, sans wifi adapter, and amazingly it works somewhat fine with the harddrive out of Garbage Comp 1 after a fresh install.

 

I'm at an impass now. Should I try and get Garbage Comp 1 back online? What the hell is post code 12 and why is it stuck there? Or should I scrap Comp 1 and put everything into Comp 2? Everything that I bought for Comp 1 I can use in Comp 2, except the DDR2 (which was only 40 dollars). Though if I scrap Comp 1 for Comp 2, I'd want to buy a new motherboard and decent 1156 mobo's aren't that cheap.

 

TL;DR: Anyone know what post code 12 on a D5400xs is and why a computer would be stuck there? If I can answer this question with an answer that's easily do-able, I'll save Garbage Comp 2 for later and fix Comp 1. If it's dead, I'm hedging my bets on Comp 2.

[Altecice]

Have you tried resetting the CMOS after the failed OC? it will reset everything back to stock clocks.

[dkevelx]

I only took out the battery on the mobo and unplugged the PSU and let it sit there for like 20 min. I think that should have cleared it, no?

[royalcrown]

I only took out the battery on the mobo and unplugged the PSU and let it sit there for like 20 min. I think that should have cleared it, no?

Nope, you need to either:

 

short the CMOS jumper or

 

Touch the battery terminals with something metal to equalize the charge and reset CMOS.

[dkevelx]

After reading the Motherboard manual that I dug up online, I found that this thing doesn't have a CMOS Jumper, but a BIOS configuration Jumper. Seems to do the same thing except I have to reinstall the bios using a USB stick. Also I need to find a BIOS for the motherboard.

 

Will get back to you after I've formatted USB and tried to reinstall the BIOS.

[dkevelx]

Ok guys, I'm pretty sure garbage comp 1 is done for. Now it just continually shuts on and off every few seconds until I manually stop it by pulling the plug/turning off the power supply.

 

Replacing the jumper to normal position just makes it stick with error code 12 again.

 

Time to invest in an 1156 motherboard. =( 

 

EDIT: OMG, I don't know what happened, but now it freaking works.

[royalcrown]

Ok guys, I'm pretty sure garbage comp 1 is done for. Now it just continually shuts on and off every few seconds until I manually stop it by pulling the plug/turning off the power supply.

 

Replacing the jumper to normal position just makes it stick with error code 12 again.

 

Time to invest in an 1156 motherboard. =( 

 

EDIT: OMG, I don't know what happened, but now it freaking works.

sometimes boards don't like their settings messed with...lol. I had a gigabyte board with an e8400 and every time I'd tweak something, I'd have to clear the CMOS because it'd  flake out, completely fine at default settings though.

[DunePilot]

Reset CMOS properly or sometimes you can flip the switch off on the back and wait for the LED lights to go out on the MB, maybe another 5 seconds, flipping it back on it may boot up to fail safes and you can attempt a new OC. This is in the case that its stuck in a boot loop where it keeps trying to boot up for a couple seconds and shuts right back off without ever seeing the POST screen, it just does that over and over if you dont switch the PSU switch. After about the 2nd or 3rd time you see one do that its best to just switch the PSU off and try that trick. 

[dkevelx]

Yeah. After I reinstalled the BIOS, it mostly works.

 

Sometimes it gets stuck on E6, but when I turn the power supply off and back on, it usually fixes it. 

 

These Xeons apparently really don't like any more GHz past 2.5.

 

Not quite sure what to do with this i7 now, though. 1156 mobo's arent' as cheap as I expected them to be. May have to scrounge on ebay for something.