When I got a hold of one of these beasties, it only had 1 processor installed. The other socket had a terminator in it. I thought, “Cool, a REAL dual processor machine, I’ll just buy a matching P3 733 off eBay and have some fun!”. Wrong. The board only comes with 1 Voltage Regulator Module – for the primary proc. It’s the VRM that supplies power to the proc. Attempting to start without the secondary VRM but with 2 procs: no POST. No hardware was blown, it just didn’t POST. I had a lot of trouble finding this out, because I couldn’t get the correct technical manual for the M20 (all I could find on Google was the M10), and nothing about needing a secondary VRM was listed in the tech manual that I had.

So, off to eBay again, and no luck on getting one of these. At least, not under the guide of a part for an IBM M20. I Googled a bit and found a post on a technical help website indicating a similar problem. He said he’d used a VRM from a Compaq, and that it had worked. He gave the part number (Compaq spares code 329267-001) and whacked it into eBay. Hey prestor, there is one in the UK. I’m in Australia, so that’s a little annoying, but oh well, it’s only $30. I could spend more at a restaraunt, does it really matter if it doesn’t work. So I forked out the dough, the VRM arrived a week (fast airmail yay!), and I gave it a go. Result? It worked! I thought it was such a longshot, I certainly was (pleasantly) surprised when it worked

So anyway, I played with the server for a couple of days as a dual processor machine, and then packed it back away into my archive of computers. I’m such a hardware junkie