Issue reviving a Dell E510 to use for F@H for our team

[lectrocrew]

I just acquired this PC which is inoperable. I suspect a bad motherboard, which I can purchase for $56.99 + shipping from a NOS provider whom  I've bought boards from in the past with no complaints and I'll also need memory since someone robbed the DDR2 modules from this unit ($29.99 for 2 - 1Gb modules from newegg). But I'm not sure about whether the problem is a motherboard issue or power supply.
  The PS (Dell model# L305N-00 - P/N PS6311-2D2) is illuminating a green light light on motherboard as soon as the 120vac power cord is plugged in but nothing else comes on when the start button is pressed - , no ps fan, cpu fan nor cpu activity.
 So how do find out whether or not the ps is actually functional and healthy vs do I have a faulty mboard?
 Doesn't the ps need to receive a signal form the mboard/machine in order to start? Can I jumper that circuit to test the ps 1st before I spend $ on a mboard that I may not need?

[DaveLembke]

Just wanted to mention that a similar spec working system with OS and guaranteed to work is only $85 with free shipping at newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883256132

Your system Dell E510 shows up as Pentium 4 3.0Ghz
This working system is a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz, only slightly slower to the 3Ghz and guaranteed to work if money is spent. For systems like the one you have that are questionable and its age, I wouldnt put much into it. If it were me and I was determined to have a Pentium 4 running, I'd buy a working model with a warranty and operating system. Otherwise with what you already have, I'd try to find free good guts to add to it and troubleshoot with the only cost being time spent troubleshooting it vs spending money on this with the chances of the cost to get it working being greater than buying a good working refurbished model with warranty.

* If there are any local computer shops, sometimes they will let you pick through carcasses for free or be able to sell you guts cheap like $5 for power supply and $10 for a good Pentium 4 motherboard etc. It costs them money to dispose of obsolete and what they may consider junk parts. 2 computer shops out my way use to allow me to look through and grab whole systems or remove single components for free if really old or really cheap if modern but beyond economical repair to bring the system back to life but the laptop has a good display etc that they wont bother listing on ebay etc and is an exact match to one I need and good working in a fried main board Lenovo etc.

*I'd avoid putting too much money into this system as for its very outdated. Also to mention that I was running F@H on Pentium 4 CPU systems and it took forever to complete each crunch. I ended up shutting the Pentium 4's down and just running my Athlon II x4 2.6Ghz quadcore which was able to complete about 2 units a day vs the Pentium 4's that were only able to get 1 unit done every 2.5 days.

I also wanted F@H to take advantage of all this processing power that it seemed wasteful of not taking advantage of and run full bore on my quadcore as for it wasnt using 100% CPU. I ended up running 4 virtual Windows XP machines + the physical Windows 7 machine concurrent on 4GB RAM with Windows 7 left with 2GB RAM, and the Virtual XP Machines with 512MB each x 4, so this single system was acting as if it was 5 computers crunching for F@H. You would think that the extra burden of all these virtual machines resources would make for lesser productivity, but I was able to then get about 6 to 7 units completed a day and run the CPU 90 to 100% utilization.

I was then tempted to set up my Athlon II x2 2.53Ghz also this way but only 2 virtual machines + the physical machine for 3 more systems ( 2 virtual and 1 real ) processing, but I only had 4 windows XP Pro keys available that were not in use elsewhere, so I just used my main system to do it.

This was the best way to get as many units completed at around 300watts of continuous draw, and not waste electricity by having say 5 individual systems running at the same time for close to 2 kilo-Watts of power and wasted CPU power since F@H was being gentile to my CPU.

*I'd suggest using a modern Dual-Core CPU or faster for best results and get the most units completed per kilowatt hour, and if you have extra keys available and plenty of RAM and also find that F@H isnt using the full ability of your system, you can also make 1 computer act like more than 1 and get the most processing out of each fraction of a kilowatt hour of cost.

My ID at the Computer Hope Folding Team is ( Nixie_PC,  Rank 36, credit=13990, total units= 79 )
*I havent folded in a while and should fire it back up. 

So how do find out whether or not the ps is actually functional and healthy vs do I have a faulty mboard?
 Doesn't the ps need to receive a signal form the mboard/machine in order to start? Can I jumper that circuit to test the ps 1st before I spend $ on a mboard that I may not need?

I'd swap PSU out with a known good PSU.

Yes the PSU needs to receive signal from softpower button through motherboards softpower circuit.

Yes there is a way to jumper the power supply to test it, and i would do this with the power supply disconnected from the motherboard, (BUT) this would be a non-load test. That is the power supply might come to life ready to supply power, but still be a problem because there is no load and it may fail under load. (Its safer and easier to swap PSU with a known good PSU as for if you cross the wrong pins and it powers up you can get sparks and smoke if it doesnt just crowbar and make the ticking "overload" noise.

[lectrocrew]

Thanks for the reply DaveLembke. I installed a 'known good' PSU and have the same result so the problem is not the PSU. I believe I'll follow your advice and keep my eye open for some 'free' or 'cheap' replacement parts. This particular machine has a Pentium D processor but I still agree it really may not be worth spending the $ on for 'new' replacement parts. If I can't find parts to fix it maybe I can use the CPU, PCI-e graphics card, SATA HD or DVD burner on something else later on.
Thanks for helping me get my head on straight! 
Mike

[DaveLembke]

No Problem... Glad to help.

I'd contact any computer repair shops that might be in your area to see if they will allow you to take away obsolete hardware for free. They may require the hard drives to remain in their control etc, especially if they dont know you.

I have gotten free computer hardware from 3 locations in the last, 1 of them was a 2nd hand store that takes donations of everything and tries to sell it and if it doesnt sell it costs them money to dispose of it. I worked out a deal with them for about 2 years to take any and all computer hardware off their hands, but I had to put a stop to that when disposing of CRT monitors at my local dump was no longer free.

The other 2 locations were computer shops which regularly have obsolete or beyond economical repair computers they are disposing of because the cost to get them running is beyond their return on investment etc. So at the computer shops sometimes you could get lucky and find modern good guts such as a laptop with a crushed display, but otherwise works. With the laptop all you need to do if you dont have a display replacement for it is to attach an external display and run it as a desktop computer setup. I got some nice Core 2 Duo's this way, one of them wasnt too bad because it only has 5 verticle hairlines through the display, but otherwise works well. For an application like F@H, these types of working hardware scores are perfect, especially if you had say a 4port KVM used on a stack of 4 busted display laptops with single external display, mouse, keyboard, etc. Way back I was thinking about using a team of laptops with busted displays for crunching with F@H, but never did. When I found the ability to run 5 copies of F@H on a single system using Virtual PC, I went that route.

The 2 computer shops I got free computer guts and obsolete or broken systems from knew me, and maybe thats why they allowed this. I am guessing that if they dont know you the worst they can say if you ask is "Sorry We Cant Do That", but if you tell them you are planning on using the hardware for the F@H project and maybe have something printed out on what F@H is in case they are unaware, they may allow it knowing its being used for a good cause. Also maybe they will offer to join in and Fold as well by donating to the team. You never know! At a computer shop that doesnt know you, also be prepared that if they do allow you to take away junk computers that they may require you to not remove hard drives which still could contain sensitive client data etc. I had a deal with the 2 sources of my hardware that I scrubbed the drives on any that I take. In addition to this if they require you to take whole systems vs picking guts from the carcasses, be prepared to have a proper way to dispose of the hardware. I was stripping the guts from cases seperating the metal, plastic, circuit boards etc, and bringing them to the local recycle on anything that wasnt worthy of being saved. Circuit boards and Steel use to bring some extra cash to offset the gasoline to get them there with truck, but has since become free to get rid of but no payout.

Also if you like working on computers fixing them up, you just might find that the computer shop might ask you sometime to work there for them. I was offered a job a while back when they saw my ability to bring trashed computers back to life. I had to decline the offer, but if its something you'd like to do, maybe you will form a relationship with a computer shop in which you too get a similar offer. The 1 shop that gave me an offer tried to sweeten the deal with certifications offered at their expense A+, Network+, and possibility of MCSE cert down the road etc. It was a definately a hard offer to turn down at the time, the complexity of the situation was that the owner was best friends with the GM at the Food Store that I was the head IT guy for, and it would have been a bad thing just jumping ship on them in favor for free certs. Athough sometimes I think maybe I should have taken the offer   

[lectrocrew]

Well, I feel bad about this because I know all the suggestions from you guru's are based on much more computer knowledge than I have, But: I have a history of being 'hard headed' / '1 track mind' / 'obsessive - compulsive thinking' ect. 
 There are no computer shops anywhere around the rural area I live in so getting used parts does not happen often.
 This PC is really not worth spending the $ on, but it's kind of like a rescue scenario for me -  like my loving calico cat I took from it's former owner due to abuse/neglect - and my German Shepard dog that I found in the wilderness, left to starve by some idiot because she had mange (which has since been cured via love and mega $ at the vet). Now, I have 2 of the most loving / loyal pets a man could ask for. 
 I figure It's got a 2 core Pentium D cpu @ 2.66 GHz which will run F@H SMP2 clients pretty fast and although power consumption is pretty high on this 'Malay' cpu, I'll get the light bill paid eventually - somehow LOL 

  As I posted previously, this machine had no RAM in it when I got it, but based on my limited experience, the mboard will still function regardless of whether RAM modules are present or not. Correct?
But I wanted to install new / or 'know good' modules to be sure this is not the cause of my issue, so:
The Dell E510 service manual says to use DDR2-400 or DDR2 533 but the only DDR2 memory I could find within 100 miles was 2x1Gb DDR2-667 (PC2-5300)  Will this memory work in this machine?
I installed the new RAM modules and had the same 'non-operation' issue with the mboard - hence I ordered the new mboard.
  I ordered a mboard from ascendtech $56.99 + $9.99 = $66.98
 I'll post the results after I have the new board installed and she's up and running / folding, hopefully! 
Thanks again for your help DaveLembke!!!
Mike

[patio]

The PC needs at least 1 stik of RAM before you can determine if there are issues with the MBoard ...or not.

[lectrocrew]

Ok, thanks patio. I wasn't real sure about this issue so that's why I purchased the new RAM to try in the old mboard before ordering a new one.
I have this new DDR2 667 memory installed in DIMM slots 1&2 and still have no response when the power button is depressed. Since the power on button still has no effect I enabled the PSU via jumpering between pin 14 (power on) and 13 (ground). At this point the psu and cpu fans operate, and the indicator light on the power on button illuminates when pressed, but that's the only activity I see.
 All else being in working order, this DDR2 667 RAM will operate in this machine in which specs require DDR2 400 or DDR2 533, correct?
Thanks patio! 

[lectrocrew]

 I need help 'please' once again from you CH 'Guru's'.  FedEx delivered my new motherboard today and I have it installed, and I have the new 2 x1Gb RAM I bought installed in slots 1&2 (1 being closest to the processor according to the dell service manual).
 But I still have the exact same symptoms as originally posted. The green light on the motherboard lights as soon as the AC power cord is plugged into the PSU. There are no audible beeps from the motherboard at anytime. I've replaced the PSU with a 'known good' unit with same result. I can initiate operation of the PSU fan, CPU fan, hard drive operation, and the activity light located at the power on switch, via momentarily jumpering the power-on circuit to ground (ATX PIN #14), but I have no operation at either IDE optical drive and I have no display.
 It has onboard video with VGA output, and also has a Genuine Dell/ATI Radeon XG857 X300 SE 128MB PCI-E x16 High Profile Video Graphics Card. I've tried 2 'known good' VGA monitors on both the PCI-e x16 card and the integrated VGA output with both motherboards, but I've have not seen anything on either monitor at any point.
 The green light on the motherboard illuminates as soon as plug the power cord into the PSU, but that's the only activity I get until I jumper the PSU pin #14 to ground.
 I've tried removing the PCI-e graphics card and dial-up modem card with no joy.
 I've already got $66.98 for the board + ~$40 for memory spent on this project for F@H so I certainly don't want to turn back now. I imagine the problem is something simple that I'm not realizing in my ignorance, (I hate old age), but hopefully I can get it fixed with the knowledge you guru's have.
 Once again, thanks for any help!!! 
Mike

[DaveLembke]

I am guessing you have booted bare minumum. Power supply connected to motherboard. All drives disconnected both power and IDE or SATA cables, all extra cards NICs, modems, sound cards etc removed from PCI and PCIe slots. If you have integrated video as an option on this board and have a video card stuffed into video card slot PCIe etc, remove the video card and boot using integrated video, and only 1 stick of RAM into slot 0 or first RAM slot?

With a known good power supply, questionable replacement motherboard & questionable new Ram, known good monitor and video cable etc. You should get the system to boot with post screen and then complain about NO OS at the end of the successful POST.

Its odd though that you replaced both the motherboard with what should be good and replaced all RAM sticks with new RAM and have this issue with a known good power supply.

If all hardware is good and system is not booting it can be one of the following:
- BIOS Version does not support CPU and BIOS needs to be flashed to support CPU ( If this CPU is the original CPU to this motherboard this is not the case here, but I have seen motherboards that were created for Pentioum 4 CPUs black screen with no POST if you have a newer socket 775 CPU stuffed into the motherboard that the BIOS does not support. Seen this happen when stuffing a Pentium D 3Ghz into a older socket 775 motherboard that originally had a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz in it. I had to stuff the Pentium 4 back into the motherboard, flash the BIOS with newer version that had support for faster CPUs, and then perform the upgrade to the Pentium D 3.0Ghz to get it to boot without black screen. *If you have a spare socket 775 Pentium 4 or Celeron laying around to test with, I'd perform this test. Celeron would have to be a normal Pentium 4 era Celeron, not a Celeron D which is of the Pentium D era.)

- Check to make sure any jumpers on the motherboard are set correctly.

- Verify that the RAM you have is NOT ECC, you need to have a motherboard that supports ECC Memory to use ECC Memory. Its rare to buy ECC memory by accident as for it usually costs more. Its more common that people stuff Non-ECC Memory into a Server requiring ECC Memory.

- Verify that the RAM you have is a match to your Motherboard, both in speed and maximum memory that can be addressed per slot.

- If this motherboard has its RESET connected via the wire harness to face of computer and motherboard, remove the RESET connection so that if the push button for reset was defective, its not holding your motherboard into a constant reset state. ( You only need Power Switch connected to test if a motherboard will boot from the push button at the case of the computer, and if the push button is stuck in the (connected) state your system should boot and then shutdown shortly after as if the power button was held in. )

- Also to mention the last thing that I have seen hold a system from booting was a bad PS2 keyboard. Not sure exactly why, but a customer once had a bad keyboard keep his system from booting. Replaced the keyboard and problem was fixed. *You should be able to power this system up and get it to post without a keyboard or mouse connected, in which it might complain about keyboard not detected depending on BIOS preferences.

* Lastly one other test I would perform is to carefully short the pins to Power Switch on the motherboard for 1 second and see if it will boot to bypass the power switch on the case or if you have a multimeter test to make sure that when the power on push button is pressed in you have less than 3 ohms ( closed circuit ), and when push button is released the (circuit is open). Its rare that a push button goes bad, but I have seen it happen a couple times over the many years working on computers. (( Be sure you know you are only shorting Power Switch gold pins on the motherboard if you bypass and try to force boot the motherboard as for other pins there are for LED Display Power etc, and those would not be good to short the driver chip if the system boots during the process. ))

Wish you the best of luck with this!

The only original components from the initial troubled computer are CPU, Power Supply, and Case is my understanding in regards to minimum required hardware to post. Its Very Rare that this CPU could be toast, but if you had another socket 775 CPU laying around to test with it would be good to know that the CPU is good since this system was received dead and who knows what abuse it received prior to your posession. I have had systems that took lightning strikes still have good CPU's but blown motherboard and power supplies. The last CPU that I dealt with that was toast was an old Pentium III 850Mhz Server I had running in which the CPU fan stopped spinning while it was processing. The CPU got so hot that it let out its secret smoke. I removed the heatsink from this CPU and it had a great big blister on the green waffer where it melted down under excessive heat. The heat was also so severe that the white plastic fo the socket 370 was discolored around the blister on the CPU waffer board. If my memory is correct, the later Pentium 4 and all Pentium D's had thermal throttling built into them to prevent melt downs.

[lectrocrew]

Yes I've tried to boot with no optical drives, hard drive, (including power supplies to those), PCIe graphics card, PCI dial up modem card installed, and front panel connector cable disconnected. I've tried 3 known good VGA monitors. Tried 1 stick of new ram in slot 1, then swapped the other new ram module  into slot 1. RAM meets system requirements.
 No reset button on the front panel although I've attempted to boot it with the front panel connector wiring harness connected/disconnected.
  I'm using USB mouse and keyboard and tried to boot with those connected/disconnected.
  I don't have another CPU to fit yet. I have 2-Pentuim 4's, both neither fits this Celeron D  socket. (I'm still looking for the correct CPU but used parts around here are scarce).
 I'll post again when I locate a CPU to try?
 Thanks again for the help guys!
Mike

[lectrocrew]

I have 2-Pentuim 4's, both neither fits this Celeron D  socket.

Sorry but that "Celeron D" is a misprint. This is an IntelŪ PentiumŪ D Processor 805
 It say's in the specs "Sockets Supported  - PLGA775.
 I have '2' Pentium 4 CPU's:
Pentium 4 
 and specs say "Sockets Supported PPGA423, PPGA478"
and
Pentium 4
 Specs also say Sockets Supported PPGA478
And I bought another Pentium 4 yesterday that is 'Socket PPGA478.

- BIOS Version does not support CPU and BIOS needs to be flashed to support CPU ( If this CPU is the original CPU to this motherboard this is not the case here, but I have seen motherboards that were created for Pentioum 4 CPUs black screen with no POST if you have a newer socket 775 CPU stuffed into the motherboard that the BIOS does not support. Seen this happen when stuffing a Pentium D 3Ghz into a older socket 775 motherboard that originally had a Pentium 4 2.8Ghz in it. I had to stuff the Pentium 4 back into the motherboard, flash the BIOS with newer version that had support for faster CPUs, and then perform the upgrade to the Pentium D 3.0Ghz to get it to boot without black screen. *If you have a spare socket 775 Pentium 4 or Celeron laying around to test with, I'd perform this test. Celeron would have to be a normal Pentium 4 era Celeron, not a Celeron D which is of the Pentium D era.)

I should have read your post closer; "If you have a spare socket 775 Pentium 4 or Celeron laying around to test with". I didn't realize the different sockets a P4 fits.
  So I'll look around my area some more to try to find a 'Socket 775 CPU and post back.

After wrestling with this I realize it could indeed be a CPU issue since it does not produce any heat when I jumper power to the mboard, but at this point I'll have to find it really cheap! LOL
Thanks again guy's!
Mike

[lectrocrew]

Okay, I got another brand new (NOS) motherboard and I have the same results. Green light on the Motherboard lights when power is applied, but the 'ON' button on the front panel has no effect. I can jumper the PSU to get the CPU fan and PSU running but I get no video - and no audible beeps. So I guess I need another CPU? I don't know. The CPU does not heat up at all.
 I've tried booting with another (known good) 512 Mb RAM module in DIMM slot 1, and with 2 different PSU's, and installed a known good SATA HD (and tried no HD), and no cards are installed in the PCI slots.
 Should I buy a CPU? Most specs I see for Dell E510 show Pentium 4 CPU, but this has Pentium D Malay.
 
 

[DaveLembke]

I'd research your motherboard to see what the motherboard manufacturer states in the compatability listing. For example, a HP Pavilion Tower I was given to me with crashed hard drive originally had a Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8Ghz with 2MB Cache, I looked up the motherboard in this HP and found that HP went with an ASUS motherboard. ASUS had a compatibility listing for this motherboard in which it supported up to Core 2 Duo E6850 3.0Ghz with 4MB Cache.

I just happened to have a Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4Ghz with 4MB Cache from a dead system I saved it from and this was an instant performance upgrade and free with exception to having to consume a small amount of artic silver thermal compound.

(BUT) sometimes you will find that some motherboards either have very limited documentation available, or were designed to be non-upgradeable in regards to the CPU's that they support.

Such as an eMachine that I saved from the landfill that is both lacking in documentation as well as was never intended to have CPU upgrades. It was originally a socket 478 Celeron 2.0Ghz with 128MB of DDR 266Mhz RAM and 60GB IDE HDD. I tried to get it to run on a known good socket 478 2.4Ghz Pentium 4 CPU that I had available, but it would only black screen and wouldn't post. I then found an old HP that was being thrown away that the ram was missing and the motherboard was damaged, but the 2.0Ghz Pentium 4 socket 478 CPU was still intact, and ejected that CPU safely and brought it home still bonded to the heatsink/fan to stuff into the eMachine motherboard I had that was good but slow on the Celeron CPU, which is a TriGEM Imperial GL VE 2002-1111. It booted up properly and ran way better on that Pentium 4 CPU with more Cache of the same 2.0Ghz speed, so this motherboard will not run on a CPU faster than 2.0Ghz. Still using this system/motherboard today running Windows XP for programming and WAMP service to play with PHP etc, but moved the guts into a cheap $15 Rosewill minitower vs full height and ugly battered from prior owner e-machine tower as a space saver, and also have it running on 2 x 512MB ( 1GB Ram 266Mhz ).

Chances are it will boot up fine on the Pentium 4 CPU that was common to that motherboard, and if you can find support for the motherboard online and find a newer BIOS flash, if you can get it running on the Pentium 4 and if a BIOS flash is available to increase the motherboards CPU supported list, maybe you can stuff that Pentium D into it after the BIOS is updated and have the faster Pentium D performance. In order to get the BIOS flashed though to more recent version if available the motherboard requires a healthy and supported CPU to process the flash function.

*Flashing a BIOS can lead to bricking a motherboard if you are able to flash it with the wrong flash or interrupt the process before it is completed. So it comes are some risk, but if the flash is an exact match and you want the speed, then its a go and usually there is no problems with the flash process. I have flashed about 40 motherboards and only had 1 run into problems, and fortunately it had a failsafe to revert to prior BIOS version. The flash I tried to send to it was corrupt and so it failed mid process with somesort of invalid checksum error etc. I was able to kill power and have the system boot back up with the prior BIOS version vs this corruption killing this motherboard.

[lectrocrew]

I've installed 2 brand new Dell motherboards from a 'new old stock' vendor via E-Bay that I bought that are an exact match for the motherboard that was originally in the machine.
 I don't have access to a computer repair shop near my rural MS, USA location to get parts so this past Thursday I ordered a Pentium D 805 Malay CPU (E-Bay purchase) that matches the #'s on the original CPU. So hopefully this replacement CPU will enable it to boot.
- 'Intel Pentium D SL8ZH 2.66Ghz/2M/533 Socket LGA775'
  I've got too much $ invested to stop now so I sure hope this fixes it!
I'll post back to this thread when the new CPU gets here and I have it installed.
Thanks again DaveLembke! 
Mike