Aurora R4, computer won’t boot with Intel Xeon E5 2697 v2 in LGA2011 socket

in this particular case there is no next gen X79 Dell aurora.  R4 is a singular case in the Aurora line after the initial R1.  Only R4 and R1 are HEDT chipset, X79 and X58 respectively.  All the rest of aurora are consumer chipset series.  For the rest of HEDT such as X99 X299 Dell only makes them in Area 51 triad models.

@redxps630​ Yes, they still want you to buy a new system over upgrading. A current consumer system would be an upgrade over any LGA 2011 system.

Hello Everyone,

Okay, thank you very much everyone for clearing that up for me. That was a huge help! 

James

@James83Alienware​ Hopefully you can return the CPU for a refund. Unfortunate you had to find out the hard way it does not work.

I have an Aurora R4 I purchased second hand a while back just because the case was stout and had an old love of the Alienware brand.  That said $300 into a unit will bias my view of the product towards positive.  

The unit wasn't stable and plagued with heat issues I swapped out the stock cooler for h80iv2.

Fast forward a few months and the GPU it came with finally got enough heat and the processor seemed to separate from the board (likely fixable with a reball but not worth it so just swapped it with a cheap 1060).

Im not a heavy gamer but I have a 10 year old that was using it for all the usual suspects just fine for a while then it started having the occasional shut down and blue screen.  I didn't think much of it because he's always installing mods and I question a child's ability to avoid sketchy links and such.  After a while of him complaining about it off and on I decided it would do him some good to start diagnosing and upgrading components as a step towards building his own pc.   I say all that to say that old R4 pushes his neo g9 with settings I wouldn't try and for a 2012 pc to even be in this discussion 11/12 years later that's kinda something all on its own. 

These forums and those like it have helped me choose what to try as some 6+ year old info is clearly outdated. I'm sure it was good at the time but like doing the A11 Bios update we can't get mad when one source says 16gb ram is max and later 32gb becomes the accepted number. 

Back to what matters, it would be rather cheap to outperform an r4 heading down a different direction but for someone with one the parts are rather cheap I think stability is possible. 

In our situation I suggested with all in one cooler working fine on cpu and reliable GPU it was time to address heat in the case, do a fresh windows install to rule out any kind of software or driver issues.  I decided to address heat I'd go oldschool  and swap the case (the best part of the r4) for the Corsair 7000d.   So the r4 case is currently empty but it will get repopulated as we replace the remaining components over time as he earns money and wants to upgrade.   At which time I may find it a new home or choose to use it as a dedicated system to remedial task. 

After swapping the case I have the 120mm cooler fan on the front in a pull push setup and 2 of the 3 provided 140mm fans on the front below it brining air in the front I have the other 140 mm fan bringing air in from the back and temporarily using 3x120mm fans exhausting out the top.  This large atx case has lots of room for other coolers so we will likely swap to the nzxt cpu cooler and possibly work out a GPU cooler situation on a RTX 3080 but that will likely be on the next motherboard and processor though I'd like to try out the factory internals with 3080 to see how she's bottlenecked.  

After software refresh and case swap I was finally able to track down the glitches and blue screens and pin them on one stick of ram but I'm rather certain it was a compound problem despite inability to show proof.   The ram would pass memory tests and long bouts of stress testing but it was the factory F5 test tools that was able to highlight the memory errors (even though it said it was able to correct the errors). Swapping out all 4 sticks of ram as cheap preventive maintenance it went from 12 minute boot time and occasional hang up to less than 1.

Along the way I also found what some might get confused with is UEFI vs Legacy - if you roll legacy you get the ugly alien head boot up low res and UEFI you get the crisp Alienware word and a faster boot. (You may have HD detection issues and bootable usb stick problems if you have formatted for one vs the other.  I'd highly suggest making windows usb stick with rufus for UEFI and then leaving the legacy stuff off if you can.)

After all problems were fully resolved I swapped out the older HDD for SDD just because I didn't want an intermittent disk issue to make problems pop back up. 

Ram was PC3L 12800U CL11 4x8GB 1600mhz DIMM that I bumped to 1866mhz.  Anything higher won't post and have to clear cmos. 

As an too cheap not to try upgrade path I just ordered some Xeon E5-2690 (S0L0) (v1)

(2 shipped delivered for $18) 
Looks decently promising as the best chip I can find for the 07JNH0 motherboard.  I think the 1866 will have to back down to 1600 but the more cores and Intel Turbo Boost adjustment should enable similar/improved performance and windows 11 support (not important but worth mentioning). 

I just got a win 10 pro retail key for $12.

Im not at all boasting about parts and a waste of time refresh just that it sure seems like with legacy parts the highest possible option for each component is the one thing in demand and all lesser options cost essentially nothing.  

Still have i7-3820 @3.6 and didn't overclock it.

CPUz benchmark v19.01.64 has single thread at 121.7 and multi thread at 596.5 and the v17.01.64 at 360.5 single and 1743.2 multi. 

I sure wouldn't expect the moon from an old r4 but I'd have to stop short of saying don't replace $40 in ram and keep coolers functioning. 

if I had to point to a bottleneck in specs the main board is pci-e 3.0 (8 gt/s) and the 1060 6gb is 2.0 (5.0 gt/s) 

im glad the old miner days are over on the gpus but it's hard to trust used wasn't fed a hot supper when you have had a solder issue.  At the time of this writing a 3080 can be had new for 580-700 based on subtle differences and people are asking about the same in the used market. At best not cheap enough to take any additional chance.   

while this can't possibly age any better than other posts I like the 3080 more than the 4070 and the 4080/4090 I can't justify their value. A 3080 12gb  can run some competitive specs. 

The 7000d has a easy to open glass side panel so the components to replace all that is r4 will be 

1.Corsair 1000/1500 PSU 

2.RTX 3080 with pre installed GPU cooler if possible (but I'll install myself if it's crazy prized)

3.NZXT Kraken Elite 360mm cpu cooler

4.I like the i7-14700kf 20 core better than many of the i9 offerings and looks well priced at $392

5. Msi Meg Z790 Ace max gaming ddr5 pci-e5 m.2 thunderbolt 

he's got 2 other setups at his moms and grandmas but they were more like the ibuypower setups with 3060 etc. so while currently he's not restricted and even casts vr through steam on the old r4 it's nice to see that what was once an expensive pc it's still relevant today. From a 1984 baby that once shelled out crazy money for voodoo agp and a slot 1 processor that didn't age well even 6 months later that's rather refreshing. 

sorry for the long book hope it helps keep another r4 out the graveyard.