HP ProLiant MicroServer

SomeoneEls said:
Sorry I don't, have a feeling your problem is the ATI drivers though. Have a look at openelec.tv though... the boot up is insanely fast compared to xbmc live
Click to expand...

I'll have a look into it - busy downloading the ISO you posted, 20min left... hopefully it works.

Else I'm going the Windows Home Server route + XBMC until I find time to fiddle, getting flack from my SO because I cancelled DSTV and now this isn't working :p

EDIT - Oh, and it is an aTI problem.
 
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Cruelty said:
<snip>
- 1 x 2.5" 320GB hard drive. This was mounted upside down under the ODD bay. I drilled 2 holes through the bottom of the ODD bay to secure the drive with only 2 screws. I sellotaped some cardboard to the underside of the drive so that the drive's circuitboard does not touch the chassis. The drive is connected via the single onboard SATA port. OS (WinSrv 2k8) is installed on this drive. I did not flash the BIOS with the custom firmware; drive performance seems reasonable so I probably won't flash it.
</snip>
Click to expand...

This drive has caused a lot of headaches. The Win2K8 Srv install was happy with the drive until I added the Active Directory role and dcpromo'ed the server. After that the server wouldn't start - after post the Microsoft logo would come up and the screen would go blank as it usually does before showing the login screen. But the login screen never appeared. The machine would just show a blank (black screen) with the mouse cursor and you couldn't logon. After an hour or so the machine would reboot and go through the same cycle. Google told me this is called a blacK Screen Of Death (KSOD). Safe mode showed me that the system was hanging when it was loading CLASSPNP.SYS. This hang is pretty common (happens on Win7 as well) and apparently happens when Windows tries to disable the write cache on the drive.

Reinstalling Windows didn't help. Installing Windows updates before running dcpromo didn't help. Some forum suggested I change the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE; this didn't help. Flashing the BIOS with the hacked version (to supposedly enable full speed on the separate SATA port) only made Windows refuse to install on the drive (it couldn't create the 100MB system partition.) Flashing the BIOS to the latest official HP version didn't help. Using the HP-provided SATA, chipset and VGA drivers didn't help.

What did solve the problem was moving the drive onto a different controller. So instead of using the onboard SATA port, I connected the drive to the 2-port PCI-e controller. Windows installed, dcpromo did its thing and the machine is happily chugging along re-resynching the RAID5 array..

*sigh* 6 days of reinstalling Windows and trying different things. Maybe this post prevents someone from pulling their hair out.
 
Cruelty said:
This drive has caused a lot of headaches. The Win2K8 Srv install was happy with the drive until I added the Active Directory role and dcpromo'ed the server. After that the server wouldn't start - after post the Microsoft logo would come up and the screen would go blank as it usually does before showing the login screen. But the login screen never appeared. The machine would just show a blank (black screen) with the mouse cursor and you couldn't logon. After an hour or so the machine would reboot and go through the same cycle. Google told me this is called a blacK Screen Of Death (KSOD). Safe mode showed me that the system was hanging when it was loading CLASSPNP.SYS. This hang is pretty common (happens on Win7 as well) and apparently happens when Windows tries to disable the write cache on the drive.

Reinstalling Windows didn't help. Installing Windows updates before running dcpromo didn't help. Some forum suggested I change the SATA mode from AHCI to IDE; this didn't help. Flashing the BIOS with the hacked version (to supposedly enable full speed on the separate SATA port) only made Windows refuse to install on the drive (it couldn't create the 100MB system partition.) Flashing the BIOS to the latest official HP version didn't help. Using the HP-provided SATA, chipset and VGA drivers didn't help.

What did solve the problem was moving the drive onto a different controller. So instead of using the onboard SATA port, I connected the drive to the 2-port PCI-e controller. Windows installed, dcpromo did its thing and the machine is happily chugging along re-resynching the RAID5 array..

*sigh* 6 days of reinstalling Windows and trying different things. Maybe this post prevents someone from pulling their hair out.
Click to expand...

HardForums said:
I wanted to put SRV 2008 R2 64bit on it, and all went fine, until I wanted to DCPROMO it. It hangs. The problem is that I would have to disable write caching, but it's impossible to do so. Doesn't matter what I choose in the bios, if i try to disable the caching in computer manager - storage, it hangs.
Click to expand...

Same issue you think?
 
So far my microserver seems to be handling HD fine with WHS and XBMC... and ATI 5450 :D

Actually thinking of selling my Boxee Box and getting another of these servers.
 
Hi Guys
What the cheapest that anyone can get the HP Proliant Server for me for?
I'm in Gauteng.

Thanks
 
xrapidx said:
So far my microserver seems to be handling HD fine with WHS and XBMC... and ATI 5450 :D

Actually thinking of selling my Boxee Box and getting another of these servers.
Click to expand...

Have you tried streaming HD without the 5450?

EDIT: are you running WHS or XBMC on the HPMS? Or both?
 
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<3 my little HP Microserver :)

Big ups to PP for organising and delivering this bad boy.

For those that might be interested, I also bought 2x 4GB Corsair value RAM and a Sapphire HD5450. I have VMware ESXi running on an 8GB low profile USB drive connected to the internal USB port. I have a 320gb 2.5" 7200rpm laptop HDD mounted under the ODD which currently has two partitions, one for each guest VM's OS. I have 3 x 3.5" 2TB HDDs each with a single .vmdk partition.

I am currently running two virtual machines, one running FreeNAS 8 and the other running Ubuntu Server 11.04. The FreeNAS VM has all the 2TB's formatted as ZFS and provides both Windows shares and *nix mount points to my home network. The Ubuntu Server VM is currently running SABnzbd+, sickbeard and couchpotato behind a LAMP configuration.

I have wired an eSATA->SATAp (SATA + power) back into the Microserver, but currently I have been unable to get a drive to power up using this cable. I have updated to the latest available BIOS on the HP site.
I will be setting up XBMC this week on the Ubuntu Server VM.
I also found that I needed a MOLEX->2x SATA power for the 2.5" and the SATA cable needed to be a right angled connector so it would fit underneath the drive bays.

Good, clean fun.
Thanks PP :)
 
yeti said:
<3 my little HP Microserver :)

Big ups to PP for organising and delivering this bad boy.

For those that might be interested, I also bought 2x 4GB Corsair value RAM and a Sapphire HD5450. I have VMware ESXi running on an 8GB low profile USB drive connected to the internal USB port. I have a 320gb 2.5" 7200rpm laptop HDD mounted under the ODD which currently has two partitions, one for each guest VM's OS. I have 3 x 3.5" 2TB HDDs each with a single .vmdk partition.

I am currently running two virtual machines, one running FreeNAS 8 and the other running Ubuntu Server 11.04. The FreeNAS VM has all the 2TB's formatted as ZFS and provides both Windows shares and *nix mount points to my home network. The Ubuntu Server VM is currently running SABnzbd+, sickbeard and couchpotato behind a LAMP configuration.

I have wired an eSATA->SATAp (SATA + power) back into the Microserver, but currently I have been unable to get a drive to power up using this cable. I have updated to the latest available BIOS on the HP site.
I will be setting up XBMC this week on the Ubuntu Server VM.
I also found that I needed a MOLEX->2x SATA power for the 2.5" and the SATA cable needed to be a right angled connector so it would fit underneath the drive bays.

Good, clean fun.
Thanks PP :)
Click to expand...

Will XBMC run from within a virtual machine?
 
grimstoner said:
Have you tried streaming HD without the 5450?

EDIT: are you running WHS or XBMC on the HPMS? Or both?
Click to expand...

What do you mean streaming HD without the 5450? If you mean playback through the server, yes - it was choppy with a 8GB file...

HPMS?

I currently have two Microservers, one in my office which handles storage (content for playback)

One in the lounge running Windows Home Server 2011 (trial mode) - and XBMC on top of that with the latest ATI drivers... this plays the content on the server storage in the office over GB lan.
 
yeti said:
<3 my little HP Microserver :)
For those that might be interested, I also bought 2x 4GB Corsair value RAM and a Sapphire HD5450. I have VMware ESXi running on an 8GB low profile USB drive connected to the internal USB port. I have a 320gb 2.5" 7200rpm laptop HDD mounted under the ODD which currently has two partitions, one for each guest VM's OS. I have 3 x 3.5" 2TB HDDs each with a single .vmdk partition.
I am currently running two virtual machines, one running FreeNAS 8 and the other running Ubuntu Server 11.04. The FreeNAS VM has all the 2TB's formatted as ZFS and provides both Windows shares and *nix mount points to my home network. The Ubuntu Server VM is currently running SABnzbd+, sickbeard and couchpotato behind a LAMP configuration.
Click to expand...

This is exactly the configuration that I had planned - when I acquired mine, alas my n36l is hidden away at the moment.

Seen as you have already configured it , maybe I should bug you for some help - in about 2 weeks time, when I get around to configuring mine again.

Awesome setup yeti!
 
yeti said:
<3 my little HP Microserver :)

Big ups to PP for organising and delivering this bad boy.

For those that might be interested, I also bought 2x 4GB Corsair value RAM and a Sapphire HD5450. I have VMware ESXi running on an 8GB low profile USB drive connected to the internal USB port. I have a 320gb 2.5" 7200rpm laptop HDD mounted under the ODD which currently has two partitions, one for each guest VM's OS. I have 3 x 3.5" 2TB HDDs each with a single .vmdk partition.

I am currently running two virtual machines, one running FreeNAS 8 and the other running Ubuntu Server 11.04. The FreeNAS VM has all the 2TB's formatted as ZFS and provides both Windows shares and *nix mount points to my home network. The Ubuntu Server VM is currently running SABnzbd+, sickbeard and couchpotato behind a LAMP configuration.

I have wired an eSATA->SATAp (SATA + power) back into the Microserver, but currently I have been unable to get a drive to power up using this cable. I have updated to the latest available BIOS on the HP site.
I will be setting up XBMC this week on the Ubuntu Server VM.
I also found that I needed a MOLEX->2x SATA power for the 2.5" and the SATA cable needed to be a right angled connector so it would fit underneath the drive bays.

Good, clean fun.
Thanks PP :)
Click to expand...

Pleasure... Will be copying your settings soon as I've opened my HP MS... :D
 
iDOL said:
This is exactly the configuration that I had planned - when I acquired mine, alas my n36l is hidden away at the moment.

Seen as you have already configured it , maybe I should bug you for some help - in about 2 weeks time, when I get around to configuring mine again.

Awesome setup yeti!
Click to expand...

Please do bug him for info. :D:D
 
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