Hope someone can help me. Since Ive began using the "[Gen3] HP MediaSmart Server VGA/PS2/Serial Debug Board" I have noticed that the servers will only boot with cable plugged into motherboard. Once I remove the debug board the machines no longer boot instead I get steady purple/blue mixed led. Could there be a bios settings causing this? Ive tried reseting bios to defaults with no luck. Now I have 2 HP mediasmart servers that wont boot without the gen3 board inserted. Need urgent help please. Thanks.

Basically, how do I make it headless again? Thanks.

yakuza's Questions: Did you muck with the BIOS settings? Do you have to interact with the system via the KVM in order to get it to boot successfully? Do you have the jumper in place on the motherboard? Try resetting the BIOS to Optimized instead of Defaults.

@geeksuneek: This is strange. I've never heard of this behavior happening.
My Questions: You bought a cable back in June. Did this just start happening (2 months later) or has this always happened? If this just started happening, do you remember what you did? Can you take a few pictures of your BIOS screen and post them? Specifically, it would be nice to see the boot order and boot priority screens.

Did anyone figure out the issue? I'm having the same thing happen with my EX490 now that I've moved to FreeNAS.

If I plug in the debug cable, it'll boot from any USB port, if I unplug it, it won't boot from any USB port. I loaded optimal defaults and it did nothing.

I would remove the jumper pin that was required to do when you installed the cable.

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First time posting on here, want to say thanks for all the help this site's forums have given me over the last year.

I'm also seeing this boot issue after recently switching to FreeNAS on my X310.
I used the pin diagrams to create a custom cable for hooking up a monitor so i'm not using any of the PS/2 mouse and keyboard pins. I'm only using the vga pins and I have a jumper installed on the motherboard to enable usb keyboard.

This is what I've found:
If I boot with the monitor plugged in, it boots right from usb and into FreeNAS.
As soon as I unplug the monitor (leaving the cable still attached to the motherboard) it tries to boot from the first HDD.

I thought I would just hook a keyboard up and on boot press F11 and select USB as the boot device from memory blindly if I ever needed to restart my server or if there was a power loss. But I can't seem to get that to work either. When the monitor is unplugged from my cable the keyboard seems to not function.

I'm curious if HP put some kind of detection on whether or not a monitor is hooked up on (Maybe pins 4, 11,12, and 15) and without these pins pulled to ground or some other input it automatically boots from hard drive? I'd love to figure this out because my home-made cable is completely crappy looking and I don't want to leave it hooked up AND have to actually plug my monitor into it to get it to boot.

I don't have a 310 or have I used Freenas or unraid but it sounds like a boot order bios thing.
Once you set the boot order to usb first and use the correct boot usb port (I think it was lower back port) then you should be able to take the cable off and any jumper you may have used (maybe) and be headless again.
Goodluck, hopefully something here will help.

P.S. There is a GUIDE on using unraid that might help.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/2011/05/18/guide-unraid-server-part-1-the-journey-to-unraid/

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[quote="Gardian"]I don't have a 310 or have I used Freenas or unraid but it sounds like a boot order bios thing.
Once you set the boot order to usb first and use the correct boot usb port (I think it was lower back port) then you should be able to take the cable off and any jumper you may have used (maybe) and be headless again.
Goodluck, hopefully something here will help.



Thanks for the idea's though I have already tried these. Seems as if when there is a drive in the first slot it will try to boot from it. (regardless of bios boot order) Since I only have 3 hdd's so I just moved them to the top 3 slots. Boots fine from the usb now. I'll just worry about this problem when I add a 4th drive.

Just a thought. If the x310 can be located next to the client you use the monitor on and you add in a 2 port KVM switch and leave your DEBUG Cable connected but make the connection to the KVM Switch I wonder if that will resolve your issue even if you do not like your cable but then you can also get a proper DEBUG Board from VOV Technologies and install it towards the front and exit out the side of the front grill which is my preferred way to install these DEBUG Boards. viewtopic.php?p=70165#p70165

The KVM Switch will allow you to simply share a single Keyboard, Mouse and Monitor with multiple devices depending on the KVM Switch. Over the years I have used 4 port KVM switches and now I have an 8 port unit that I will soon daisy chain to another 8 port unit in my rack but a 2 port unit with cables will run you about $35-50 where as an 8 port unit without the cables can be purchase for around $30 on eBay. I also find them useful for servicing computers in that I always have an extra set of cables available to plug in a computer I am working on for myself or others so they do come in handy and save lots of space with the reduction of Keyboard, Mouse and Monitor dedication for each device.

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It's been a while since this was posted and wonder if there is any solution found. I run into this same booting issue.

I use a Gen2 cable from VOV and I have been running unraid on a an EX490 for some time without having to change any BIOS settings.

I now installed Xpenology on this device and it worked immediate. This is with the Gen2 cable and board attached nd jumper placed on the motherboard.

I wanted to put the lid on the case so I removed the board and left the cable and jumper in place.

Xpenology won't boot anymore however, because it wants to boot from the first harddisk. When I reattach the Gen2 board it boots again from USB and loads Synology's DSM from harddisk. It seems to me that booting of USB gets overruled by booting of harddisk when the Gen2 board is not in place but that this not happen when the Gen2 board is attached.