HP ProLiant MicroServer owners' thread

i have a n36l with freenas 8 on internal usb and every time i shut down and restart the server, the bootup will hang, leaving me with the F1, F2 and F5 options but is completely unresponsive to all inputs.

to fix this i have to boot off a cd and go through the upgrade process again.

any idea on how to fix this??

ive set the bios to boot USB first and set the usb to be a HDD device.

i get to the screen that says:
"
F1 FreeBSD
F2 FreeBSD
F5 Drive1

F6 PXE
Boot: F1
/
"

then it becomes unresponsive and nothing else works except ctrl alt del

my microserver is configured as follows:

4x ST2000DL003 Seagate 5900rpm
Freenas 8 on internal USB
Intel CT Gbe card

thanks
 
Sounds like the boot sector of the USB stick is corrupt.

Maybe completely wipe it... and reinstall

or try another USB stick?

.
 
i've tried another USB stick already and still the same issue.

Which freenas8 version should i be installing?

my process is to get the iso, burn it to CD, then insert USB drive into the microserver and boot off the CD.

on installation i choose the USB drive and just let it do its thing.

Is that the correct way?
 
nismohks said:
i've tried another USB stick already and still the same issue.

Which freenas8 version should i be installing?

my process is to get the iso, burn it to CD, then insert USB drive into the microserver and boot off the CD.

on installation i choose the USB drive and just let it do its thing.

Is that the correct way?
Click to expand...

another SAME Usb stick eg brand model etc?

or another brand...?

Some older USB sticks AFAIK are actually not Bootable

.
 
i just downloaded FreeNAS-8.0.4-RELEASE-p2-x64.iso and am installing onto a new Sandisk Cruzer Slice 4gb so will see how that goes and then try to auto-import my raidz1. hopefully should all be ok, any tips?

well the previous usb drives i had used was a transcend 4gb model and a random 2gb one i had in my drawer. failing this, im just going to install it on a spare 80gb sata drive i have
 
well i reinstalled and did the volume auto-import and now it is working fine...

im still skeptical though because previously it was fine also but some how it decided to poop itself.

anyhow this time im using a better flash drive so hopefully all is well and im quite liking this auto-import thing as all i had to do afterwards was enable CIFS and setup my shares again which took 5 mins :)
 
so i reinstalled freenas 8 on a new sandisk cruzer slice 4gb and all seems well at the moment after i had auto imported my volumes

however ive noticed that the speeds have dropped when accessing via CIFS (which is the only one i use) from a windows 7 machine

for reference, my microserver has:

4x st2000DL003 seagate
2x4gb Kingston ECC
4gb cruzer slice FreeNAS-8.0.4-RELEASE-p2-x64
Intel CT gigabit

large file transfers (6gb files) go at 35-40MB/sec only and it was higher before.

the only tweaks ive done is to the CIFS service:

Large RW support
Send files with sendfile(2)
Enable AIO
Minimum AIO read size 4096
Minimum AIO write size 4096

are there any other things i should do?
 
Has anyone used Ubuntu on a USB stick as their OS of choice? How is the performance? I will be using Ubuntu 12.04 server and Lexar 16gb which according to the specs has 45MB read and 20MB write.

Thanks :)
 
jarthel said:
Has anyone used Ubuntu on a USB stick as their OS of choice? How is the performance? I will be using Ubuntu 12.04 server and Lexar 16gb which according to the specs has 45MB read and 20MB write.

Thanks :)
Click to expand...

Yup i'm using in both microservers a LaCie Moskeyto 8GB stick, but its only booting ESXi from it... i use for my datastores other disks.

Just orderded last week 2 more for clustering with HA both with 2x8GB corsair sticks.
 
Last edited:
LightStar said:
Yup i'm using in both microservers a LaCie Moskeyto 8GB stick, but its only booting ESXi from it... i use for my datastores other disks.

Just orderded last week 2 more for clustering with HA both with 2x8GB corsair sticks.
Click to expand...

Do you have a HW Raid card in your Microservers?
 
LightStar said:
Yes in the 2 i got i use a HP Smart Array P410 8port Sas controller.
Click to expand...

I have a P410 in my N36L, I've noticed that it get's quite hot in the small Microserver. Have you added any additional fans?

Which harddrives do you use? Gonna have to upgrade my 5x1TB Samsung F1's soon and don't want to buy 5 drivers that are gonna start dropping from the array :)
 
Callek said:
I have a P410 in my N36L, I've noticed that it get's quite hot in the small Microserver. Have you added any additional fans?

Which harddrives do you use? Gonna have to upgrade my 5x1TB Samsung F1's soon and don't want to buy 5 drivers that are gonna start dropping from the array :)
Click to expand...

Hd type: Seagate ST3000DM001, and no the case or not hot, they stand in a cooled 19" rack :)
 
Does anyone has the original bios for the N40L? I updated mine to latest and then april 2011 and it can only see 8gb of my 16gb. It can recognize the full16GB before the bios update.

The oldest I can see from the HP website is the one from April 2011. Thanks
 
On my N40L, 16GB don't work reliably. I use the Corsair (CMX8GX3M1A1333C9). I always had either 8 or 16GB reported by BIOS, so I did some tests with a 4GB and an 8GB stick. Result:
Installed in slot 1 the 8GB stick works fine, in slot 2 it is picked up by BIOS in about 1 of 5 boots. It doesn't matter which of the two 8GB sticks I use for the test.
In the end I gave up and now use 12GB. Apparently there is a reason why HP does not support 16GB RAM.
Regards, Martin
 
I think yall are running into a the max number of ranks the lil guy can address.
It is only single channel.

Lemme do some digging.
 
My fan is slowly, but surely making more noise.

Does this box have a standard 3 or 4-pin fan header?
 
Hi,
has somebody ever tried to run a HP MicroServer N40L with 32GB of Ram?
In the meantime there are some 16GB modules our there
e.g. the Kingston KVR1333D3D4R9S/16G

Which criteria does the memory have to fulfill to work?

best regards, Christian.
 
That's registered memory. MicroServer runs ECC non-registered memory.

HP only rates it at 8GB, even though the chipset seems to support 16GB (though this thread has shown not 100% reliabily.) 8GB ECC non-registered DIMMS are haven't been on the market too terribly long, and are only in recent months coming down on price. I have not seen a 16GB ECC non-registered DIMM yet.
 
I have the production bioses saved locally if anyone needs them... So if you want to roll back to what your server shipped with lmk.
 
ill definately take you up on those bios'. i plan on playing with the boxen i have accumulated this month. pm me a link if you can :)
 
brandstaetter said:
I have the original HP BIOS version O41
Click to expand...

O41 is the series, the date is the version.
Slightly different than the consumer world as far as naming scheme.

Depending on when you got it... it probably has a different version.
I believe both the Feb and April BIOS' were shipping BIOS'.
 
Patriot said:
O41 is the series, the date is the version.
Slightly different than the consumer world as far as naming scheme.

Depending on when you got it... it probably has a different version.
I believe both the Feb and April BIOS' were shipping BIOS'.
Click to expand...

there is written 2011-07-29 as date
 
brandstaetter said:
there is written 2011-07-29 as date
Click to expand...

Cool, that is the latest...
My suspicion on ram compatibility has to do with the controller only being single channel...
And therefore limited on ranks of ram per bank...
That and mixing in memory if different ranks might cause problems.

Now confirmed working on the latest bios is 2x 8gb sticks of Kingston dual rank modules.
 
Is there any kind of 3.5 to 2.5" adapter out there for SSD's which specifically lines up a 2.5" disk in the 3.5" socket in the right position to be used in drive rails like the Microserver?
 
Patriot said:
I think yall are running into a the max number of ranks the lil guy can address...
Click to expand...
It appears to me that such a limit would result in either "it works" or "it does not work". In my case the 16GB worked sometimes, but not always.
After I got the BIOS to actually recognize the 16GB by hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del for a few times, I could run memtest86 for hours without any errors being shown.

Windows server actually shows 16GB "installed" memory in any case, but only 8GB as "usable" if the BIOS did not recognize the 2nd RAM bank.

The incompatibility therefore seems to be during POST, when the BIOS checks and initializes the RAM. This part is unreliable in my system. Judging by some other posts in this forum, this could be a "feature" of the newest BIOS; The older (non-RAID 10 capable) BIOS seemed to recognize the RAM with greater reliability.

Anyway: I originally wanted more RAM because I wanted to virtualize more than one OS, but my tests in the meantime showed terrible disk I/O with ESXi 5 (at least 10 times slower than native I/O throughput), so I gave up this idea. Windows Server 2008R2 Hyper-V did not even work (it did not like the sector size exposed by the RAID driver).

So now I am using WHS 2011, which only supports 8GB RAM in the first place. As a result, my desktop now has 24GB RAM, which is nice as well.
 
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