Dell Workstation Owners Club

[frankr2994]

If someone could help me out I would appreciate it.

So I updated through Dells software for Bios update A18 on my Dell T3600. Now, it is stuck in ME Recovery State and doesn't boot. I tried pulling the CMOS Battery and waiting for about 10mins but issue is still the same. I can get into the bios but thats it. Tried to boot to a bootable USB but it prevents me from doing anything as it just states ME in Recovery State.

I tried to update the bios in order to get an E5 2665 CPU I have to work in it as the bios on the machine was first revision (never updated).


Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Never tried what you did. I always end up flashing the bios multiple times to get to a current revision. Always scared me to try jumping 10 levels. You should be able flash the bios again with a earlier version. When you go to the Dell download page read the installation instructions on updating the bios without an os. If you go over to bios mods they will tell you that you need an external programmer. I have one but it's also not the easiest thing to accomplish. You would also need a complete bios dump. Dell does not supply this. The bios files they have are just updates.

 

[sepheronx]

Never tried what you did. I always end up flashing the bios multiple times to get to a current revision. Always scared me to try jumping 10 levels. You should be able flash the bios again with a earlier version. When you go to the Dell download page read the installation instructions on updating the bios without an os. If you go over to bios mods they will tell you that you need an external programmer. I have one but it's also not the easiest thing to accomplish. You would also need a complete bios dump. Dell does not supply this. The bios files they have are just updates.

As I said, USB updater without OS doesn't work because it's stuck on ME Recovery State. So if you try a bookable USB through dells recovery (tried) or hiron boot, doesn't work either. Goes straight to that display error on top left screen and 2 3 and 4 lights then light up and that's that.

Whatever, if I gotta get a 5810 as replacement, fine.

 

[Retrorockit]

Dell has a network based BIOS program Dell DCCU (Distributed Client Configuration Utility) It has an option to allow older BIOS to install. Maybe you can stuff a new/old BIOS file in there from another computer over a LAN port. Lex probably has a lot more experience with this than I do. I just used it once for a modded BIOS flash.

 

[sepheronx]

Dell has a network based BIOS program Dell DCCU (Distributed Client Configuration Utility) It has an option to allow older BIOS to install. Maybe you can stuff a new/old BIOS file in there from another computer over a LAN port. Lex probably has a lot more experience with this than I do. I just used it once for a modded BIOS flash.

Issue is, while other Dell machines have the bios flash option, it doesn't exist elsewhere for devices like t3600. Dell website says t3600 will only flash via DOS. So either within windows or through command prompt from freedos which doesn't work cause I get same error - ME recovery.

I think last option is a SPI programmer. It seems the other options work for devices like T7810's as an example.

At his point, for $100 cad, this ain't worth it. Was wondering if there is a free method of fixing it. But other areas lead me to complete brick.

If I had truly cared, I would provide a video of what I'm explaining because I think I'm not quite clear what I'm saying.

Buddy of mine who deals with these machines said there is a nvram jumper so maybe pull that?

 

[Retrorockit]

ASFAIK the jumper does the same thing as battery removal. Just safer. I don't think the jumper can blow up in your face.

 

[sepheronx]

ASFAIK the jumper does the same thing as battery removal. Just safer. I don't think the jumper can blow up in your face.

Fair enough.

Yeah, I was kinda hoping for some miracle but my buddy explained out of at least 10 of these machines (at our work), two of them had the same error and after three days of him fiddling, his SPI just couldn't do it either.

Imo kinda funny how Dell doesn't have a real failsafe for their more cheaper workstations but the failsafe exists on the more premium ones (I saw that a 7600 has the same flash bios option in the boot options which doesn't exist on 3600). Gotta love that. I guess I won't be so careless with the 5810.

 

[Atom-88]

Hi Guys & Gals, new to the site and forum. I recently purchased a Dell Precision T3600 as a project for me and the missus to do up as a home media server using either Ubuntu or OMV, the system currently has a Xeon E5-1603, 8GB Ram, NVS300 GPU and a 650 PSU. I have been looking at A Xeon E5-1650, max RDIMM ram and a Quadro P2000 but not sure if I may be better with something else. Anyways I was hoping someone would be able to give some advice on what hardware I should look into to upgrade the system, any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

 

[frankr2994]

Fair enough.

Yeah, I was kinda hoping for some miracle but my buddy explained out of at least 10 of these machines (at our work), two of them had the same error and after three days of him fiddling, his SPI just couldn't do it either.

Imo kinda funny how Dell doesn't have a real failsafe for their more cheaper workstations but the failsafe exists on the more premium ones (I saw that a 7600 has the same flash bios option in the boot options which doesn't exist on 3600). Gotta love that. I guess I won't be so careless with the 5810.

Ya sorry I misunderstood earlier about trying to flash the bios. Ya if people aren't getting it with a spi your out of luck. As far as a t5810 goes I've tried modding my bios and flashing every version available. I was trying to overclock. I had bricked it multiple times on accident and on purpose. Spi programmer always brought it back. Side note. I have read people have had trouble with programmers in Dell precision boards period. To many things get back fed through the bios chip when you hook up. With mine I removed the USB power pins from the programmer and hooked up 3.3v from an atx breakout box. Jumpered the resistor on the spi that changed 5v to 3.3v so I had a constant 3.3v capable of enough amperage to fry the board. I was obviously very careful but it worked great.

Hi Guys & Gals, new to the site and forum. I recently purchased a Dell Precision T3600 as a project for me and the missus to do up as a home media server using either Ubuntu or OMV, the system currently has a Xeon E5-1603, 8GB Ram, NVS300 GPU and a 650 PSU. I have been looking at A Xeon E5-1650, max RDIMM ram and a Quadro P2000 but not sure if I may be better with something else. Anyways I was hoping someone would be able to give some advice on what hardware I should look into to upgrade the system, any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

E5-1650 cpu is a good choice. I do not know what memory requirements you need but I'd recommend at least 32gb 4x8gb in 4 channel. The p2000 is a popular GPU when wanting to transcode. Being the minimum Nvidia sets up for more than 2 transcodes at a time. My friends and I have a Plex media server I installed a gtx 1650 super in. There is a modded driver to allow for unlimited transcodes and it's a beast. At the time that GPU cost 150 bucks. Good luck finding that now. Hell good luck with a p2000. Most likely you will want to focus more on the storage side of things. We have an online backup service but using that is a big delay. All transcoding and metadata gets dumped onto a nvme drive and then main storage is 4x6TB drives in a mirrored pool. In a 3600 it's not really possible to install 4 3.5" drives but like I said I'd focus on storage.

And almost forgot to mention our boot drive is a 2.5"ssd. I like to keep stuff separate because I could care less if we loose the nvme. Could care less if I have to re install the OS and I'd care alot if I lost all of our storage and had to wait a week for drives to show up and hours of file transfer.

 

[Caring1]

If someone could help me out I would appreciate it.

So I updated through Dells software for Bios update A18 on my Dell T3600. Now, it is stuck in ME Recovery State and doesn't boot. I tried pulling the CMOS Battery and waiting for about 10mins but issue is still the same. I can get into the bios but thats it. Tried to boot to a bootable USB but it prevents me from doing anything as it just states ME in Recovery State.

I tried to update the bios in order to get an E5 2665 CPU I have to work in it as the bios on the machine was first revision (never updated).

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Is there an option in the Bios to disable M.E.?
Some manufacturers have that, i'm not sure if Dell is one of them.

 

[sepheronx]

Is there an option in the Bios to disable M.E.?
Some manufacturers have that, i'm not sure if Dell is one of them.

Not that I could find.

Ya sorry I misunderstood earlier about trying to flash the bios. Ya if people aren't getting it with a spi your out of luck. As far as a t5810 goes I've tried modding my bios and flashing every version available. I was trying to overclock. I had bricked it multiple times on accident and on purpose. Spi programmer always brought it back. Side note. I have read people have had trouble with programmers in Dell precision boards period. To many things get back fed through the bios chip when you hook up. With mine I removed the USB power pins from the programmer and hooked up 3.3v from an atx breakout box. Jumpered the resistor on the spi that changed 5v to 3.3v so I had a constant 3.3v capable of enough amperage to fry the board. I was obviously very careful but it worked great.

If you do not mind, I will be PM'ing you in a bit as I will be buying a T5810 and I would appreciate if you could guide me through this process as I plan to get an SPI programmer anyway and it would be nice to have the knowledge.

 

[frankr2994]

Not that I could find.


If you do not mind, I will be PM'ing you in a bit as I will be buying a T5810 and I would appreciate if you could guide me through this process as I plan to get an SPI programmer anyway and it would be nice to have the knowledge.

Not a problem. Since figuring out what I did you would be the first person that it might actually be useful too lol.

Is there an option in the Bios to disable M.E.?
Some manufacturers have that, i'm not sure if Dell is one of them.

There is something out there called M.E. cleaner that can mostly get rid of it. I don't know much about it since that area of the bios has never given me any trouble.

 

[MrJunez]

Hello all, if you remember me from last year I'd say about 3 months back, anyway I got the capacitors needed to replace every single brown capacitor that someone mentioned were bad and dell got in a lawsuit because of it so I changed them all but now I see a constant 3 - 4 LED Lights with green power LED after awhile it goes away and the green power LED is only left but then the fans go to the max and the system turns off any solutions? could it be PSU? im confused

 

[Atom-88]

Thank you for the reply Frankr2994, I'm sure I read that the t3600 maximum ram is 64gb RDIMM and will be definitely keeping an eye out for 6-8TB ironwolf HDDs and already got a drive caddy to replace the DVD drive so will be putting a SSD in for the O/S. I can't seem to find anything on if the Quadro P2000 will work on the T3600 tho, wanted to ask if anyone has any tips for freshening the inside up as I opened the unit up earlier and it stinks inside, I've had used systems before so I'm not new to cleaning the insides but never had a smelly one before lol.

 

[frankr2994]

Smelly is bad. Usually means spilled stuff in it. Or burnt..... The GPU should be no problem. It will fit just fine and power consumption isn't big in that card. What I'd do right now since it is a system that has the ability to boot is run a diag test on it. Spam f12 when you turn it on and enter Dell diagnostic test. I do this first thing on every used Dell I buy. For hard drives on a budget which I always am I use goharddrive. Look for drives with good specs and a good warranty. When you get them set them in an external dock and stress test them with crystal disk info running. Look for errors, noise and temperature. I have sent drives back to them and got replacements no problem. Can usually get lightly used enterprise grade drives really cheap. If diag goes good boot up windows and just verify everything works good. Maybe check to see if you can do any bios updates while your at it.

 

[Atom-88]

Thank you once again frankr2994, yeah the smell is like a stale kinda smell but will definitely boot up and check the diagnostics using f12 this weekend. I had never heard of goharddrive so will definitely check that out and also glad to hear the GPU shouldn't be a problem.

Honestly thank you again frankr2994, I really appreciate the advice and tips and am looking forward to playing about with this the weekend now.

 

[sepheronx]

Ended up getting a Dell T5810 with a 1650v3 and 32gb of ddr4 ram for $190 cad. Also 625w psu.

Not bad I say.

 

[frankr2994]

Ended up getting a Dell T5810 with a 1650v3 and 32gb of ddr4 ram for $190 cad. Also 625w psu.

Not bad I say.

Great deal. Now what do you want to do with it? I've done a great deal of modifications to mine so I know my way around it.

Hello all, if you remember me from last year I'd say about 3 months back, anyway I got the capacitors needed to replace every single brown capacitor that someone mentioned were bad and dell got in a lawsuit because of it so I changed them all but now I see a constant 3 - 4 LED Lights with green power LED after awhile it goes away and the green power LED is only left but then the fans go to the max and the system turns off any solutions? could it be PSU? im confused

Did you look at the owners manual? It's available online. I could not find a fault that had that light pattern. Maybe take a look and see if it makes sense. I looked back through your post and see you got a project on your hands.

 

[sepheronx]

Great deal. Now what do you want to do with it? I've done a great deal of modifications to mine so I know my way around it.

Throw in my rx 6600, ssd for OS, pcie nvme 1tb drive and a backup 4tb had and use it as my game console.

I needed a more beefier CPU for those PS3 emulations.

 

[MrJunez]

Great deal. Now what do you want to do with it? I've done a great deal of modifications to mine so I know my way around it.


Did you look at the owners manual? It's available online. I could not find a fault that had that light pattern. Maybe take a look and see if it makes sense. I looked back through your post and see you got a project on your hands.

Where can i find the owners manual? I tried many options if you see from my old posts. Changing RAM, Trying one ram in slot one, Changing all brown capacitors to new ones, Switching out Processors, Fixing a weird pin in the socket, Soaking the whole motherboard with 90% iso, Replacing CMOS battery, Resetting CMOS, I already have a video of the lights that it is showing so I will send it again. Although from this video the ONLY difference now is the power button light staying on longer at the end and Fans would blow to the max then system would shut down. No display, No post. (Video is old but showing because it is the same lights)

 

[frankr2994]

Where can i find the owners manual? I tried many options if you see from my old posts. Changing RAM, Trying one ram in slot one, Changing all brown capacitors to new ones, Switching out Processors, Fixing a weird pin in the socket, Soaking the whole motherboard with 90% iso, Replacing CMOS battery, Resetting CMOS, I already have a video of the lights that it is showing so I will send it again. Although from this video the ONLY difference now is the power button light staying on longer at the end and Fans would blow to the max then system would shut down. No display, No post. (Video is old but showing because it is the same lights)

I don't have time this morning to help diagnose. I'll look this evening. But here is the Dell download link for the manual.

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/precision-t5500_setup%20guide_en-us.pdf

If I had to take a guess I'd say something is shorted. I'd look over all your solder connections with a magnifying glass.

 

[MrJunez]

I don't have time this morning to help diagnose. I'll look this evening. But here is the Dell download link for the manual.

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/precision-t5500_setup%20guide_en-us.pdf

If I had to take a guess I'd say something is shorted. I'd look over all your solder connections with a magnifying glass.

I see nothing that can cause a short with what i soldered, gave it a look over.

 

[frankr2994]

Well why don't you give a run down again of what you did and what you have. How many on what kind of memory, what cpu, any add on cards (needs to at least have a GPU) any drives connected. I'd like you to strip it to the cpu,1 stick of ram and the graphics card. Make sure that's how we proceed. I'm sure we can check voltages coming out of the psu if need be.

 

[MrJunez]

1.Tried Reseating CPU
2. Tried two different CPU's of the same kind (x5680's)
3. Tried fixing a pin that was spotted by a user here in CPU1's Socket
4. I do not have the riser card
5.Tried two different Ram (Will show in pictures I took)
6. Tried one Ram in DIMM1 Slot
7. Tried all Ram slots at once
8.Cleared CMOS
9.Replaced CMOS battery (When the computer booted once it told me low battery voltage so I thought about replacing)
10. Video card is a Radeon HD 2400 PRO (I like to use this when it comes to testing things like this, its a old card)
11.Replaced all brown capacitors (a user here told me that dell got in trouble for using these in these boards, I decided to change them to eliminate that factor)
12. There is one hard drive connected to SATA0 (The blue slot) The hard drive has windows 10 installed on it
13. Soaked/Cleaned the whole motherboard with 90% iso
Note: When the computer started up into windows just once it froze loading windows, (my older posts have pictures of when it booted) This happened once. after that it continued to be no display

Well why don't you give a run down again of what you did and what you have. How many on what kind of memory, what cpu, any add on cards (needs to at least have a GPU) any drives connected. I'd like you to strip it to the cpu,1 stick of ram and the graphics card. Make sure that's how we proceed. I'm sure we can check voltages coming out of the psu if need be.

Forgot to quote

 

[frankr2994]

Ok well let's take the boot drive out for now. It's not needed to get into bios which is all we're really concerned with right now. In other words nothing hooked up. You can yank your SATA cable going to your disk drive too. And I see you said you tried one stick in dimm1 and then populated all the slots? Try 2 different sticks 1 at a time in multiple slots. If you have a multimeter you can pin one of the sata power connectors for 5v and 12v. I know that's not all the rails but it's certainly easy to start. Other than that I believe that psu only puts out 12v and it's knocked down else where for 5v. Could probably back pin cpu and motherboard connector. Looks like you'll have limited time due to how fast it's kicking off.

 

[MrJunez]

Ok well let's take the boot drive out for now. It's not needed to get into bios which is all we're really concerned with right now. In other words nothing hooked up. You can yank your SATA cable going to your disk drive too. And I see you said you tried one stick in dimm1 and then populated all the slots? Try 2 different sticks 1 at a time in multiple slots. If you have a multimeter you can pin one of the sata power connectors for 5v and 12v. I know that's not all the rails but it's certainly easy to start. Other than that I believe that psu only puts out 12v and it's knocked down else where for 5v. Could probably back pin cpu and motherboard connector. Looks like you'll have limited time due to how fast it's kicking off.

I don't have a multimeter and don't know how to use one so that I can't do. I tried however sticking two ram sticks in two white ram slots and it showed the same issue/lights also tried the last white ram slot and same issue. Tried also all the black ram slots and it will tell me a beep code 1-3-1 and 1-3-2 which both relate to ram. even with no drive it still does the same, no display , no bios , no post