[KayBee]

Hi All, I recently got an Octane2, It is very clean, though that doesn't guarantee anything. As soon as I plug it in, the fan spins up, and the power button has no effect. The light bar shows nothing. I disassembled per the manual, the System and Graphics module look clean enough to eat off of. Not much dust inside, but I cleaned everything anyway with compressed air can. No signs of arcing pins on the PSU, it all looks very good, compression connectors look new. It appears to have low-end graphics, which is fine by me. Looks to be full of RAM though. Once reassembled, same result upon plugging it in, fan starts up immediately, power button has no effect. I tried without hard drive as well, no difference. The troubleshooting flowchart shows I think possible CPU or front-plane failure, but doesn't indicate power switch.

Any advice is appreciated, thank you.

KB

PS, is RAM compatible between octane and octane2?

[Raion]

Frontplane failure is my guess. Swap your components one-by-one to the working Octane and see.

If it does, frontplanes can be had fairly cheap.

And yes, assuming you have the same motherboard type (black handle can't handle high density, silver can)

[saq]

If you post where you are you might be lucky and have someone nearby to help you troubleshoot... eventually anyway, when this mess straightens out.
I'd lean to frontplane as well - while I haven't had a serious Octane failure the usual light sequence is it comes on "happy" on power up until the CPU toggles it to "problem" to indicate entry into POST. Now there is a slight chance that this is what is happening (failure of IP30 before it switches to POST mode) but you might not be able to see it because the Octane has an incandescent bulb instead of an LED for the power on light and on many Octanes this has burnt out.

[KayBee]

Hi All,

Weblacky and I were trading some parts, so he offered to help me try to narrow down what is wrong. He provided measurements and instructions on which pins to measure resistances on the PSU (to find a possible short), which I did and compared to another PSU I had for an Octane1. The readings were similar, so I tried the Octane2 PSU in the Octane 1 and it booted without issue. Then he explained which pins inside the Octane2 itself to again look for a short. My readings didn't differ significantly from his. At this point, knowing there were no shorts I could detect it was a manageable risk to try swapping some components. The Octane 1 mainboard in the Octane2 chassis booted right up. The Octane 2 mainboard in the octane1 chassis did not. Per weblacky I pulled the Octane2 RAM and reseated it and tried again to boot, no change. Then I took known good RAM from the Octane 1 and tried it in the Octane2 and no change. Then I tried the Octane2 CPU in the Octane 1 and the Octane 1 booted right up. I also tried the Octane1 CPU in the Octane 2 mainboard and no change. So, he did have more in-depth techniques to test the Mainboard, but I had spent all the time I was willing to diagnose. I have multiple Octanes, but no spare parts at all, so I decided to send him the mainboard for his own uses and further diagnostics and I would keep the Octane2 chassis (I really like the blue) and RAM, CPU, PSU etc. so now I have some spares and enough machines for my use.
I learned a lot from this process including how to test for short circuits using the resistance mode on my meter.

Thanks for following along.

KB

[weblacky]

The lack of KayBee’s Octane2 using the red error LED in the lightbar was very unusual. While the LED could have also been non-working, I doubted that.

You’re right in that when Octanes boot they do go through a phase of white light, red light and then white light after POST diags.

Since KayBee knew what a working Octane did and had the right monitors and connectors and all that, I felt this was a very early stage failure to even post. Basically because his system couldn’t utilize its error indicators.

While it might have been considered overly cautious, I asked him to try a series of multimeter readings just to make sure there wasn’t a static short on any major component. For all we knew something had shorted that could ruin his working parts on a swap.

We did the PSU rails first and this did indeed turn up similar to two other sample PSUs. So at that point we were confident the PSU was safe to try.

Then a quick check of the PSU connectors on the mid-plane yielded the same. No shorts- but a couple big differences. These might be due to the Mainboard that was plugged in. One or two of the control lines were in the mega ohm range but off by quite a few mega ohms to what I measured. This might indicate something further down the chain. But not a short, so it’s not an immediate issue.

We didn’t know which component was the issue. But we did try simple XIO carrier removal (just to see if it would indicate an error) and then we did an entire Mainboard carrier swap from a working Octane. That settled if it was the mid-plane xBow or the mainboard assembly.

The older mainboard started right up, that pretty much told us it’s something in the mainboard. KayBee picked off whatever components could be easily removed off his mainboard and cross-tested them. They all came up good. So really the Octane2 mainboard was the only common component that the zombie symptom followed around.

Of course the story isn’t completely over, but after those results (knowing what works and what didn’t). It was decided to just leave it there for now. Yes, a mainboard could be purchased to complete the repair, but that’s not my decision. KayBee is happy, so I’m happy.

I do plan to look into the mainboard sometime (unsure when I’ll get that time). I have a few theories, and I have an old xBow that’s supposed to be working I can mate with it outside a chassis to find the main voltage rails.

I’m leaning towards a short right now, possibly localized behind a voltage regulator or something. If I can identify the basic VCC lines in the ICs and test for short perhaps it’s as simple as a decoupling cap going short and dragging down a regulated low-voltage line? Who knows at this point.

If I find an answer, I’ll make every effort to post it. I could use the new Octane board anyway, I think several of my Octanes use older boards anyway, so if working, upgrade for me.

We’ll see if there’s anymore to the adventure.