[orb]

Hi, 

I was given an O2 that is known not to boot, however when I went to work on it I reached for the lever to pull out the main board and it is missing.  Furthermore it won't budge with the amount of force I've so far dared to apply.  I tried removing the shell and other components like the HDD and option card, but of course the chassis is too well built to allow me to get a lever onto anything but the fragile black plastic rear of that module which creaks alarmingly but doesn't move.

Is there a trick that can be used to pull one of these out if it is stuck? I assume that a previous owner tore off the lever trying to get it out. 

I did try powering it on and got an amber light, so it might be saveable, and I did remember to unplug the power before doing anything else to it, I just can't get the mainboard out to try anything.

[robespierre]

Suggest very gently using a flathead screwdriver between the black IP32 I/O panel and the sheetmetal. The R10000 version has a larger surface area (due to the extended panel for the PCI riser) and could be easier to pry out. Just twist the screwdriver lightly at the beginning, to slightly widen the gap between the panel and the sheetmetal. You could also use a bottle opener (the old style like you stick to your refrigerator) to slowly pry between those pieces. Do this with the PSU plastic cover off, and the drive sled(s) removed, obviously.
The force holding the board in is quite high and you may need multiple pry tools at once.

[orb]

Thanks, my wife helped me slowly lever it out with flat blade screwdrivers from multiple sides. There was a bunch of broken plastic bits in there but I was able to use the lever from the option module and a thicker screw to make a replacement for the main board for now. It looks like the memory is bad or needs to be reseated so that’s next.

[orb]

As a last follow up to this once I was able to look at the main board I realized that the computer had no memory in slots 1&2. Shuffling the Dimms down allowed it to boot, and it turns out to be a 300Mhz R5k rather than the base machine I expected. The disk makes a lot of unpleasant noises and the cd drive is not working but still pretty good for free.