Begining my homelab journey - Server not connecting to my local network
Hi there!
I wanted to try to build my own homelab for a while. Recently, a friend upgraded his PC to a gaming one, so he gave me his old one.
It has a very low end graphics card (though I don't know yet which one), two 8GB DDR4 RAM modules and the motherboard is an Aliexpress server board (by looking at it I think the model is a AD12-B V1.0). It only has one ethernet port, so no management ports I guess. It also does not have any hard drives connected yet, because I want to try and see if any of my old ones still work.
When I connected the graphics card into my screen to access the BIOS (to test the hard drives and then install the OS), it outputs no signal. When I looked at it closer, I noticed that the GPU's fan powers on when I power on the computer, and then it powers off. I don't know if this is normal behaviour or not.
With no luck entering the BIOS, I thought I could try to test the hard drives and install the OS remotely. I connected the computer straight to my router with a brand new Ethernet cable, but when I entered my router's config using my other desk PC, in the local network map, I can only see said PC, my smartphone and my laptop. The "soon-to-be-server" is nowhere to be seen.
I have basic computer networks knowledge, so I understand that, for some reason, the initial POST signal from my computer is not being sent to the router, so it doesn't assign it a new IP.
I've tried starting the system with only one RAM module (trying both in turns) and no GPU, just if there was a problem with any of the hardware. But I got the same results.
Also, when I connect the computer to my router, the lights in the router's port are on (one blinks slowly and the other is permanently on).
Any suggestions?