Gentlemen

 

After lurking for a long time, I decided to go ahead an build an unRAID system.  I initially was going to construct it from other system parts, but finally decided to build one from scratch using components used in Lime Tech's own systems to maximize reliability and it's going to be used in a system requiring high WAF.

 

The system consists of:

 

Antec 1200 case

Corsair 650W PSU

Supermicro C2SEA motherboard

Core 2 Duo 3 GHz E8400, with Prolimatech Megahalems heatsink

4 GB Kingston 1333 MHz 1.5 volt DDR3 RAM

4 Western Digital WD20EARS hard drives (all jumpered on pins 7 &

unRAID USB drive purchased from Lime Tech

 

They keyboard is an old Dell keyboard connected via the PS2 connection, and the mouse is a USB wired Logitech trackball.

 

I know the components are excessive for the job, but I wanted something reasonably quiet with considerable headroom for adding drives, and the incremental increase in costs was within reason (after someone posted a coupon for a discount on the hard drives in the forums here).

 

I did not install a floppy or optical drive, and the hard drives have never been used or formatted, and based on my reading here, I installed the jumpers on pins 7 & 8 prior to installing them.

 

The USB key is installed in one of the external USB slots, though it looks like I could plug it directly in to one of the sockets on the C2SEA motherboard.

 

When I try to boot the system, I get basically nothing.  The power switch attached to the motherboard works to power it up and shut it down, the fans spin up (including the CPU fan attached to the motherboard connector) but that's it.  I never get any video out of the onboard VGA, I do not get any beeps from the motherboard, and I cannot access the BIOS (though without video I suppose I could be getting to the BIOS and not seeing it).

 

Do I need to install a floppy or optical drive to do an initial boot?  I know the motherboard can boot a USB drive as that's the board that Lime Tech uses, but it doesn't appear to be booting the USB key I got from the company.  If I need an optical drive, can I boot from a unix Live CD of some kind to avoid installing anything on the hard drives, or should I just go ahead and install an optical drive, install XP, and then install unRAID?

 

I've done multiple other builds over the years without material problems, but in the past have always installed a floppy and/or optical drive from which I booted to install an OS.

 

Any help offered will be much appreciated.

 

Thank you.

 

Kevin

can you telnet in?

 

http://lime-technology.com/wiki/index.php?title=Telnet

I never get any video out of the onboard VGA, I do not get any beeps from the motherboard, and I cannot access the BIOS

 

Your problem has nothing to do with unRAID, or with installing floppy drives, etc..

Before you can get some screen output, like being able to see that you can get into the BIOS setup, you are not going anywhere.

 

Your onboard video may be dead. (or your monitor). Try plugging a video card and see if you can get video from there.

 

Some of your RAM sticks may be bad. Try different RAM.

 

If you can't make the motherboard POST then a RMA is in order.

 

EpiX - I hadn't thought of trying to telnet in, so that was a good idea.  As it happened no.

 

purko - Thanks for your thoughts as well.

 

I'm not sure exactly what the problem was.  After failing to telnet in, I opened it up and reseated all the cables, RAM, etc.  It has subsequently booted, and I am running memtest now, so I'm rather embarrassed that it appears it was nothing more than something being loose.

 

Thank you both for your helpful suggestions.  The forum is definitely one of the reasons I decided to buy the software and take the plunge.

 

Kevin

RAM often needs to be reseated if it is brand new, in my experience at least.