HP N36L/N40L/N54L Microserver Updated AHCI BIOS Support.

Get well soon.
And take your time till you get over it.

Thank you,
I hope so, been ill for about 10 months now, spent 6 months in hospital, still waiting a diagnosis.
 
N54L has arrived :D
 
Cheap way to get a reliable enterprise Intel dual NIC that supports link aggregation (NIC Teaming), Jumbo frames, failover etc.

Buy a HP NC360T (Full size cards are cheaper)

I got one here: [ame=http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=161041381599]HP NC360T Dual-Port Gigabit NIC PCI-E Network Card / Intel PRO 1000/PT | eBay[/ame]

Easier to modify to half height than I thought!

Used a pair of snips, bent bracket so level with PCB, cut off excess, slide motherboard back in to microserver, no screw hole needed to be drilled as the microserver has a built in holder which locks the card in place.

Works perfectly in Xpenology now have Jumbo Frames and Link Aggregation (NIC Teaming)

Pics:



 
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TheBay I have the same card, but mine came with full size + half height bracket!

I haven't set up teaming because Im not 100% sure on how to do it yet.
 
Ordered a HP N54L last night as it seems like a bargain for £97 after cashback. Ordered from Server+ with the free delivery (code) and is showing as shipped.

Anyway, so my first question(s)....

(a) BIOS: Is the BIOS the same for all versions of the Microserver, N36L, N40L & N54L?

(b) Memory. I think I'll need 8GB RAM as I want to run ZFS under FreeNAS. Seem to be able to pick up 8GB ECC on Ebay for around £45. Is this the going rate? And what type of RAM will it take? I know ECC, but will it also take registered RAM or is it unbuffered?

Thanks and sorry for the questions...
 
Hi, I just bought a 3TB hdd and would like to install it on my N54L. I understand that I will need this bios update for N54L to recognise a 3TB HDD. Can someone please help me with the process? As per the first post, I just need to unrar "TheBay_Microserver_Bios_041.rar" and run the executable to create a bootable usb stick and then boot using this to update the bios... Is this all or there are any additional steps? I also have the below questions.

1. I have hard drives, additional RAM and Video card currently installed, do I need to take any of these out before the RAM upgrade?
2. I remember reading on HP website that I need to use a 1GB flash drive for bios updates. I only have 4GB and 32GB flash drives. Can I use these?

Thanks
 
Hi, I just bought a 3TB hdd and would like to install it on my N54L. I understand that I will need this bios update for N54L to recognise a 3TB HDD. Can someone please help me with the process? As per the first post, I just need to unrar "TheBay_Microserver_Bios_041.rar" and run the executable to create a bootable usb stick and then boot using this to update the bios... Is this all or there are any additional steps? I also have the below questions.

1. I have hard drives, additional RAM and Video card currently installed, do I need to take any of these out before the RAM upgrade?
2. I remember reading on HP website that I need to use a 1GB flash drive for bios updates. I only have 4GB and 32GB flash drives. Can I use these?

Thanks

I don't think you need the BIOS mod for it to recognise a 3TB HDD.
 
I don't think you need the BIOS mod for it to recognise a 3TB HDD.
Thanks very much for the reply. Then I will try the new drive without the bios mod first. I would still like to know the bios mod process and what needs to be connected or removed from the machine during the update, just in case I decide to do the mod.
 
I recently setup my N40L with 16GB ECC RAM and 4 x 2TB HDDs. Following some guides (most of which were from a year or two ago), I flashed the hacked BIOS from the bios-mods site, but I then just found this thread. Is the BIOS in this thread different to the 'standard' hacked BIOS that is referred to in the other guides, and if so, what are the differences?
 
I don't think you need the BIOS mod for it to recognise a 3TB HDD.

Hi I just installed the new 3TB drive and only 2TB is shown as usable under windows 8. The remaining space is unusable. So I think, I need the bios update. Can someone please help me with the steps?
 
Hi I just installed the new 3TB drive and only 2TB is shown as usable under windows 8. The remaining space is unusable. So I think, I need the bios update. Can someone please help me with the steps?

What mode did you set the SATA controller for the drive bays in the BIOS to ? It will probably need to be set as AHCI to recognise 3TB disks. You don't need to flash the BIOS unless you want a 3TB drive in the top bay.
 
a) yes

b) Non-Ecc, ECC Unregistered, a mix of both but NOT ECC Registered
If it helps, I just successfully upgraded my N54L to 16GB memory, using this (Amazon uK)
2 X Kingston KVR1333D3N9H/8G 8GB 1333MHz CL9 DDR3 ValueRAM Memory Kit

I didn't need to MOD the BIOS either, that's with stock N54L BIOS as delivered.. at the moment, that's my next project.
 
I recently setup my N40L with 16GB ECC RAM and 4 x 2TB HDDs. Following some guides (most of which were from a year or two ago), I flashed the hacked BIOS from the bios-mods site, but I then just found this thread. Is the BIOS in this thread different to the 'standard' hacked BIOS that is referred to in the other guides, and if so, what are the differences?

I cannot comment on other peoples work, but if this any reassurance to you I am an EX HP Employee that used official sources to build that bios. At that time I was working for HP.

Haven't looked at the bios-mods site, I created mine as I did not want something from an unknown origin.
 
Just wanted to say thanks to TheBay for this work and making it available. I'm going to locate my OS drive to the top bay so will want to use the modded BIOS. I see you are working on an update so I will wait for that first I think.
 
Just wanted to say thanks to TheBay for this work and making it available. I'm going to locate my OS drive to the top bay so will want to use the modded BIOS. I see you are working on an update so I will wait for that first I think.


Yes will put some downtime on the box this week, though this version in the first link is still the version the N54L ships with, it is fine to use and you can still flash an update later on.

I may release a few different versions with different functionality and some pre-configured for all 6x SATA/AHCI with or without options to change it back for simplicity.
 
What mode did you set the SATA controller for the drive bays in the BIOS to ? It will probably need to be set as AHCI to recognise 3TB disks. You don't need to flash the BIOS unless you want a 3TB drive in the top bay.
I was able to sort this out. I had the make the partition as a "GPT Disk" to be able to format it to 3TB. But before figuring this out, I had done the bios mod anyway...
 
I've had a fairly extensive search so apologies if this has been covered and I'm just not putting my question in the right terms...

I've got a N54L with the mod bios (thanks btw). I have WOL working from s5 state (shutdown) but I'm having no luck getting the PC to wake from s5 when using a scheduled task (wake pc to run task).

What I'm trying to achieve is booting the server at a certain time each day (just in advance of when I get home) and shutting down after inactivity (I'm using a program called Shutter to shutdown- which works great btw and allows monitoring of network usage/mouse input etc).

I'm running WSE 2012, I have enabled "wake timers" in the windows power options, enabled GEC resume wake from S5, checked the clock, and searched for other possible options in the mod bios southbridge config and, as far as I can tell, tried a number of combinations of the task scheduler "wake computer to run task" - highest privileges/administrator accounts/logged in or not etc.

Has anyone got this to work (In which case I'll persevere with software options) or am I on a hiding to nothing? :confused: My suspicion now is that the absence of a "wake pc on RTC alarm" option within the BIOS means this isnt possible...?

I have an option to get one of the pc's on the network to wake (assuming they support this) and send a WOL magic packet before shutting down again but this seems a crude solution... Thanks for any help
 
As a follow-up (which I guess may make my last post and this reply in the wrong place - i.e. not a Bios related issue - mods feel free to move it to a more appropriate place)

I have solved my particular case in a slightly different way and hope this may help another trying to achieve something similar.

In summary
  1. I have not succeeded in getting a task to wake the pc from s5 state even though WOL will.
  2. I have achieved what I want by using hibernate instead of s5 (which has other benefits)

I didn't need any revised drivers from those that Windows Server Essentials 2012 uses by default to get hibernate to work correctly. In order to activate hibernate run the powershell (as an administrator otherwise you'll get an error) and type:
powercfg.exe /h on

to check it's worked - as you get no confirmation type:
powercfg.exe /a

and hibernation should now be possible

if you want to test then this command will put the server into hibernation:
shutdown /h

I use shutter.exe with a few triggers to check for network activity, user activity and pings network machines to determine if they are on - the wiki is great for working out what you need. This puts the server into hibernation if all triggers are met at once (and also restarts shutter in preparation for the next session). Clearly there are others, Lights Out or Smartpower but shutter seems to work very nicely.

I have also set task scheduler (running a dummy .BAT file) to wake the machine at the times I want. The benefit of Hibernate rather than s5 here is that the "boot" of the server from s5 is 2mins and from hibernate is around 35s. This has raised the question as to whether I actually need to turn the server on at pre-determined times or whether it is now so fast that I can just run a WOL script on each network pc. The server would then be on at almost the same time as the pc (I don't have any SSD'd pc's ;))

This is an alternative to using Lights Out which seems to work well - if anyone sees any issues with this then feel free to correct me. This is all a bit of a learning curve tbh!
 
Question re: pci-e slots....

Looking at the manual, there are two slots for pci-e cards. pci-e x1 & pci-e x16. In this photo the additional LAN card is in the x16 slot...

null_zps0d4751fa.jpg


Is there space for the LAN card in the x1 slot? I also have an Adaptec 3405 around (but no LP bracket yet)... so I'm wondering if there it's possible to fit both the LAN and the RAID card?

Anyone know? The Adaptec has a SFF-8087 Mini SAS connector, so hoping it would just fit straight in (although that connector doesn't seem the easiest to re-route)
 
HP do a dual port NC360T card (based on an Intel, cannae mind model) which is a PCIe x4 card.

However over on OCAU a guy used insulation tape to cover pins 20 something onwards and dremeled the ends of the PCIe X1 and PCIe X4 (the Remote Access RAC slot) to create a continuous channel slot so the card could physically fit in both slots but only electrically connect wi the PCIe X1.

The card automatically detects it doesn't have the full X4 and acts accordingly.
 
There are some "newer" bios's available which I am playing with, however there is still no S3 support in any of the bios tables. I am looking in to a way around it. I can however change the ACPI level from 1.0 up to 3.0. It looks at the moment these are only capable of level S5 (Power off). I will still continue to work on this and see if there is any way I can add S3.
Newer BIOS? For the N54L???
...I may release a few different versions with different functionality and some pre-configured for all 6x SATA/AHCI with or without options to change it back for simplicity.
Any chance to make S3 working? I found this setting (imm.io - dl.dropboxusercontent.com.png), but seems changes anything.
Thanks.
 
So with this BIOS, does it make the eSata port on the back port multiplier capable?
 

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