Hey everyone, I’ve been self hosting a few things on a raspberry pi like board and wanted to upgrade to a mini PC. I got my hands on an old Intel NUC model D54250WYB but it had no memory or storage, not even an enclosure. I bought some RAM and a power supply but the SSD I was planning to use wasn’t compatible (physically) and I didn’t install it.
I tried powering it on but I only get a Standby LED when I plug it in. Pressing the power button doesn’t do anything as far as I’m aware. There’s supposed to be a second LED that turns on to show that the computer is ON. I have an Ubuntu installer USB that should work that I plugged in but nothing changes when I plug it in. Also, the board heats up when plugged in so I assume it’s doing something?
I was planning on temporarily using an SD card or USB until I made sure the computer works so I don’t spend money in vain.
My question is: Could it be that the missing internal storage is preventing the computer from booting? If not, could it be that something is shorted/doesn’t work anymore? Has anyone had experience with this model? From what I found it was released in 2013 so it’s relatively old now.
TLDR: Intel NUC without SSD storage but with only a usb won’t boot. Is it the missing SSD fault?
Thanks in advance :)
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EFI bootloader won’t have this problem. Adjust accordingly, and things will be fine.
It’s likely there’s another boot device that’s taking priority over USB, if USB is even enabled in the bios. I’ve had a few computers that try to pxe boot after internal drives, so it never went to usb until I futzed with the boot order to remove pxe. It’s likely not that you didn’t have an SSD in it, but that USB drives aren’t high enough on the boot list, or not at all. You could try finding what the boot selection key press is on boot, then blindly picking first, second, third option etc. to see if anything gets a hit (frantically press boot key during start up then hit enter after a few seconds, then reset and do it again if nothing happens after about 30 seconds, but hit down, then enter.)
Yeah I think my next attempt is gonna be to get a keyboard connected and mess around. But wouldn’t the computer LED turn on too even if it just boots to bios? Or does the power on LED typically only turn on when the OS is properly rubbing?
I would think that the power led would be on if there’s power going through the motherboard.
Are you referring to the power led or the disk usage led? I think on my nuc the only other led is the disk usage one, which looks like a soda can. The power led is always on, but doesn’t indicate standby or operating as far as I’ve seen.
There’s a total of 3 LED on mine, I’m probably seeing an extra one cause I don’t have an enclosure on it. I checked the manual and the only one that’s on is the “standby” LED that’s supposed to show that there’s power going through the board.
The disk usage and normal “power on/off” LED are off. And I haven’t managed to get them to do anything so far.
No display at all? I suspect something else is at play there…
On that model during bootup
F2 = BIOS
F10 = Boot Menu
You should be seeing something in the Boot Menu, or at least be able to get into the BIOS?
Also double-check the USB formatting, I don’t remember if that NUC has UEFI boot support or if it needs to be enabled in the BIOS beforehand. e.g. if your USB is formatted to boot legacy then reformat it to boot in UEFI, or vice versa.
I actually have a few of those NUC models around but am not sure what it does exactly with no SSD, I think/thought it should still be able to handle USB boot in that situation.
I haven’t tried to check for display yet, I don’t have any mini HDMI cables on hand. I’ll try to get it connected to a display.
I was hoping to do the whole setup process “headless” but I guess I’ll find a cable and keyboard.
Do a BIOS recovery using the jumper. You’ll have to go to download the recovery BIOS from Intel.
Edit: didn’t read the full post. You can turn off the other LED in the bios.Youll need a display to know what’s going on and to debug. If no storage is present, it usually boots to PXE boot or a screen that says no boot device found.