As with many purchases, this one began with a thread on ServeTheHome . Given my previous work on the Fujitsu TX140 S2 motherboard , how could I refuse the offer of a barebones Fujitsu TX1320 M3 for only 29€?
The TX1320 M3 is slightly too tall to fit within 2U, measuring at 398x340x98mm. Those wishing to place it on a rack shelf, you will need to budget 2.5U for the unit.
My TX1320 M3 came with BIOS 1.19.0, which does not support Xeon v5 CPUs. Not knowing the iRMC S4 password, it was not possible to flash a newer BIOS via iRMC. But, the SOIC8 that contains the BIOS was easily located (on the front of the motherboard, near to the INTR header and internal USB3 port).