HP ProLiant MicroServer N36L Owner's Thread - Part 3

Wise Choice...
Thick fans have higher static pressure. This is just as important as the 'CFM' rating.
Airflow 'Cubit Feet per Min' is officially quoted with the fan suspended in free air. As soon as you put some resistance in the way, the airflow drops. If you had fitted a cheap PC chip-fan, it would have moved little air in that application.

Papst are a good brand, and should be very reliable despite being sleeve bearing.

For others, I can suggest taking a look at these (BALL Bearing) and cheaper:
Adda DC Fan Ad0412 Lb c50
12v 40x40x20mm Ball Bearing Cooling Fan

- though both on Back order at present!!

 

I read somewhere about replacing the whole PSU in a HP microserver with a Pico PSU.
Not heard of them before, but they are tiny and don't need a fan.
Use an external power brick, which is not always supplied.

Something like this:

LinITX.com - 12V 150W PicoPSU-150-XT

Not sure how suitable it would be.

 

I believe the Pico PSU will work in the N36L and it's perhaps one to consider if/when the original PSU finally lets out the magic smoke and direct replacements are hard/impossible/expensive to come by, though to be fair to HP it actually looks like a standard 1U power supply so replacements shouldn't really be a problem, or expensive (about £40 tops).

 

You guys with N36L are more than welcome to add and contribute to the N40L wiki:
HP MicroServer N40L Wiki

Consolidating all general information to one area can limit the threads here to true discussion and not necessarily constant re-hashing of what has already been proven

 

The Papst 412 fan arrived from Farnell today and as expected there is no motherboard fan connector attached so I soldered on a spare 3-pin fan connector so that I could connect it to the P6 (ODD) 4-pin Molex plug (using a 3-pin to 4-pin adapter, of course).

The fan seems to push a decent amount of air, though it's not exactly the quietest fan in the world so I attached it to a Zalman Fanmate fan controller to slow it down a bit and make it silent - I reckon it will still move enough air to keep the PSU in the N36L comfortable. I'd be surprised if the original fan ran at the full bore 7000RPM and would expect it to have been under-volted at 7V or maybe even 5V so probably isn't pushing the rated volume of air, in which case a slowed-down Papst is probably still a reasonable match for the original fan (wish I'd measured the voltage before putting it all back together!)

One rather annoying problem is that the attachment holes on the Papst fan have a diameter of 4.3mm (+/- 0.1mm according to the datasheet (PDF)), and the supplied HP screws are closer to 4mm in diameter so they don't actually fit and cannot be used to attach the Papst - luckily I had some spare fan screws available with a larger diameter (about 4.5mm) and that sorted it. The holes in the PSU casing itself are probably 5mm (maybe even 5.5mm) so there are no issues fitting the larger fan screws through the PSU casing itself.

 

Feel free to update your wiki with any information I've posted, after all I assume you are the one benefiting from the advertising plastered all over the wiki pages. Although do make it clear it applies only to the N36L as I have no knowledge of the N40L hardware and can't assume they're the same/identical.

 

The advertising $ goes to wikia. Sadly I benefit only from information. But N36L info is just as important as N40L, because realistically there isn't much that delineates the two except for the CPU.

I became tired of reading through all the major board's threads on the microserver that repeated questions about 6450's and the esata->sata switch.

 

I'm thinking on buying a Microserver if it can host Team Foundation Server 2010. Has anyone manage to install TFS 2010 this Microserver?

 

I have a Microserver running WHS 2011. I installed lightsout the other day and amended the box so it would hibernate.

I set calendar intervals so it would hibernate and wake up at various times.

It is bibernating fine but not waking up.

If i turn another PC on the network on it will wake up but not without this first.

I though Lights out should start up the server at the set time in the calendar?

 

Finally ordered everything I need for mine (except HDD's). Now...I just need to sort out the OS

 

I'm running a few HP ml110 G5 servers with 2.4ghz Xeon Dual Core was thinking about picking up a couple of these to reduce space / power consumption. Does anyone know how the performance benchmarks compare between the two? Specifically would stick in 8gb RAM and 4 x disks to be used with server 2008 r2 and hyper-v with 1 or 2 VMs and NAS duties.

Thanks

 

I'm looking to remove the main os hard drive from one of the bays and replace it with a 2.5 drive into the 5.25 this weekend and reinstall whs just wondering what cables I will need to do this

Cheers

 

Hi Everyone,

While trying update the BiOS, following the latest guide over at OCAU , after the update I rebooted, and the HP logo was glowing red. What could've possibly gone wrong? I followed the same process for both of my Microservers, N36L and N40L!

Any help would be appreciated!

 

A 40-50cm SATA cable, preferably right-angled at one end (for the motherboard connection, I believe) and a Molex-to-SATA power adapter. You will of course require a some way of mounting the 2.5" drive in the 5.25" bay - a number of options exist for this, velcro, 2.5"/3.5"-to-5.25" HDD adapter, 2.5" HDD dock. You may also need the modified BIOS that improves performance of the ODD SATA port.

 

Try a CMOS reset? Presumably you get nothing on the video output?

 

I did that as well', no video output just red HP logo.

 

According to my research these are both discontinued :-(

I have ordered one of these as a replacement:

OD4020-12LB Orion Fans Fans & Blowers

It was 7 quid, but delivery was another £13! That's one expensive fan.

I will add resistors if required to shut it up.

 

Any chance you can measure the voltage being supplied by the PSU to the stock fan? I'm interested to know if it's closer to 7V than 12V (I would have measured my own if I'd remembered to do so before putting it all back together!)

 

Absolutely I was going to do this anyway. Will report back later once I have nicked the battery out the smoke alarm to use in my meter

 

Surprisingly, the voltage supplied to the fan is 5V (actually 4.8)

It can be measured without chopping anything by locating the pins marked fan on the PSU board. They are in the corner as you follow the wired back from the fan itself.



Matt

 

Aha, thanks for that - thought it could be as low as 5V but must admit I was expecting it to be closer to 7V.

So, given the original fan specs rated at 12 volts, assuming straight-line performance over 5V-to-12V*, the original fan may have been running at about 2900 RPM, pushing just under 3.5CFM at 13.3dBA.

If the voltage really is meant to be 4.8V (ie. not just a quirk of your PSU) then the fan performance figures are more like 2800RPM/3.3CFM/12.7dBA.

Given this, I feel much better about slowing down my 12V/6000RPM/6CFM/18dBA Papst - at 7V (3500RPM/3.5CFM/10.5dBA) it should be doing a fine job. Not a good idea to run it at 5V though (2500RPM/2.5CFM/7.5dBA)!

* Please nobody flame me for being so naiive with my assumptions!

 

I would not expect the PSU to have a dedicated 4.8V rail just for a fan. To keep costs down I would have thought it would be 5V or 12V - that's your lot!

I should have compared the voltage to that of one of the Molex connectors - next time I have it open I will.

 

Rapid also have the Papst one for £11
http://www.rapidonline.com/Electrical-Power/40mm-Low-voltage-axial-fan-30765


The Mouser one is expensive because MOUSER IS IN THE USA !!!
I hope you don't get stung for Import duty too

 

Don't forget to order new fan screws, as the HP screws won't fit the Papst (which has 4.3mm diameter holes, same as a Papst 60-120mm case fan, so regular M5 case fan screws should fit fine).

 

Yeah, I realised that after the postage quote came up. Thing is, I really wanted a ball bearing fan and my options seemed limited.

Annoyingly, when I took the PSU to bits I rotated the original fan 90deg and it has been silent ever since! Grrr.

 

Hi,

I have this server. I run WHS 2011 on it. I appreciate the few drives I have in a RAID0 (microsoft built in software raid) can't be queried but I have two other drives in it, one the system and another on the ODD port (with hacked firmware for full speed) which are not raided and for the life of me I can not get anything to probe the drives for SMART data..

Any ideas why is this and how I can go about changing it? I have tried a couple of WHS2011 plugins and HD Sentinel and they all say SMART data isn't available for all the disks (which I know they do have) so I'm guessing its the hardware or something I have configured incorrectly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

Afternoon (for me, at least).

I've been using a N36L, with WHS 2011, for going on 12 months or so now but have been wondering, more and more often, if I could use it as a one-stop-shop for everything it currently does (data/media storage) as well as SD/HD "freeview" recording.

Current specs for Microserver:

N36L (1.3GHz)
8GB Kingston Hyper-X 1600 RAM (overboard yes but it was stupidly cheap)
250GB "system" drive in ODD bay (Russian Bios mod.)
1TB, 1.5TB and 2 x 2TB drives in the remaining 4 bays
Onboard ATI Radeon 4200 (?)

The box that currently does the TV grunt work is a much larger, desktop PC that doubles as the box I normally use for browsing emailing etc. I never use it for any kind or encoding/recoding work as affecting TV recording would not go down too well with the rest of my family; it feels a bit underused to me.

Current (relevant) specs for the Desktop PC:

Gigabyte P55 Mobo (name escapes me)
MSI Nvidia 8500GT video card
Antec Neo Eco 520w PSU
4GB G.Skill Ripjaws RAM
4GB PQI RAM
500GB "system" drive
640GB (Caviar Blue) TV drive
Avermedia A188 Twinstar PCI-E Dual DVB-T
K-World DVBT1602T (something like that) PCI Dual DVB-T

I installed Windows 7 (Enterprise) in dual-boot configuration, including all relevant drivers (not 100% sure about the chipsets drivers actually) and installed my trusty Hauppauge Nova-T usb stick, to enable me to test both HD and SD viability. The lack of a sound card would be an issue for anyone wanting to use the N36L as a HTPC but for my needs (5 x MCE extenders) it doesn't matter.

The results have me a little confused...

If I start a live tv channel (SD or HD), it works perfectly and will continue to work perfectly until it's paused; once it has been paused, it will either not restart or will start with audio and no video or just start and freeze.

Has anyone out there seen anything similar? Does anyone out there use the N36L as I would like to use it?

The microserver is back to WHS duties, for the moment, but my next step is to get the dual pci-e card installed, to see if the issue lies with USB.

J.

 

I have the same server as you. Currently have unraid on it and thinking of upgrading to whs 2011.

Where did you get the memory so cheap. I'm going to need to upgrade the ram from what it came with if I upgrade. Also is it a fiddle changing the ram on this box or fairly straightforward.

If you could send me details of compatible ram it would be appreciated. There seem to be a lot of variations and I want to make sure I get the right one.

 

I'm actually in Australia (Adelaide) and managed to get the memory at my local PC store (MSY) for $52, if memory serves correctly - equates to around 33 quid, in today's money. I jumped on the Hyper-X as I've used it a few times before and, in my experience, has been pretty much bullet proof for compatibility. The 4GB PQI ram kit (9-9-9-24) was also used successfully in the server so it looks to be more tolerant than some systems. Try to find somewhere with a generous return policy and you should be ok.

Getting access to change the RAM is a little fiddly but slow and steady wins the race; once the board is out it's just a matter of removing what's there (if adding a 4GB/8GB kit) and reinstalling.

Good luck!

 

Did you put in 1 x 8gb or 2 x 4gb?

Can you mix sizes? Eg have 1gb in one slot and 4gb in the other.