HP ProLiant MicroServer N40L Owner's Thread *Part 5*

Team,
I have had my N40L for about 2 years and was using it as a home media server.
It was running Windows 2008 server and had a Radeon graphics card.
This week, possibly after Southern Electric caused a power failure, I notice the server wasn't on. (The HP logo on the front wasn't lit). The amber light was on for the on/off switch and the network activity light was flashing as it was still on the network.
When I tried to reboot the unit by pressing in the on/off switch the server did nothing, just sat there with the amber light on.
I removed the power cable, waited 30 seconds, plugged it back in (there was a click). But the amber light came back on but no fans or disks started. I can't even get to the bios page it seems. Pressing the on/off button all the way in does nothing.

Could it be the power supply, although it seems that there is power to the mother board as the network activity is being shown?
Coulld it be a faulty switch?

Any ideas what I should try next?
How long were these units guaranteed for?

Thanks
AJ
 
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... The SATA ports are limited to something like UDMA3 transfers so about 30MB/s, not sure on specific but certainly limited to the point of slowing down your 250GB drive.

I disagree - there's no reason to flash the BIOS with a non-HP one and potentially void your warrany. The only reason to flash the BIOS to enable AHCI mode on the motherboard SATA port is if you're using an SSD on it.

Full details in this post.
 
I disagree - there's no reason to flash the BIOS with a non-HP one and potentially void your warrany. The only reason to flash the BIOS to enable AHCI mode on the motherboard SATA port is if you're using an SSD on it.

Full details in this post.

well thats good to know.

it doesnt look like id lose much by not flashing it.

i wont be buying an ssd anyways.
 
I disagree - there's no reason to flash the BIOS with a non-HP one and potentially void your warrany. The only reason to flash the BIOS to enable AHCI mode on the motherboard SATA port is if you're using an SSD on it.

Full details in this post.


It's not a non HP bios. It's the same HP bios with extra options enabled that are set by single bits to turn them on or off.

It does more than enable AHCI (which is massively important if running a RAID array). It removes the interface connection speed limit of DMA33...Without it, you are limited to theoretical transfer speeds of 33MB/s on those ports, taking overhead into account that's basically the speed of USB2.0. It limits all ports if you use a RAID array with other drives because the slowest drive is what dictates the speed or array creation/rebuild.

If you were to do a RAID rebuild on an array using the port with this limit you'd be looking at a multiple of 3-4x longer to rebuild.

With the ports unlocked you get DMA6.

Been there done that got the T-shirt :)
 
well thats good to know.

it doesnt look like id lose much by not flashing it.

i wont be buying an ssd anyways.

There's a mistake there somewhere. Those ports cannot run above DMA3 without the bios mod. It's not possible those numbers are right and I would urge him to test again with a real world test.

God knows how those numbers appear like that but I can state with certainty (experience with this, not "internet certainty" ;)) that those numbers are derived from either caching, a mistake, was actually using the full speed ports, or because it's not a real world test.
 
Wanted to confirm this so had a quick search. This could be a FreeBSD issue forcing DMA3 transfers...

But regardless, if different OS will use that IDE setting differently then it's a bad thing to have going on.

Sorry if previous comment sounded arrogant...was just rather alarmed as I can't see how those numbers can be correct and numerous people have the same story of sluggish performance, slow read/writes without the mod, not just myself.
 
the flashing is easy though yeah?

Flashing is simple.

Get a USB pen plug in pc, download "TheBay"'s bios pack, extract, run "runme" or whatever it's called. Put USB pen in microserver...boot....wait for confirmation of flash complete...done.
 
Unless it's released by HP it's a non-HP BIOS. The changes may well be minor - but they're changes.

From a warranty point of view yes, I'm more talking from the point of view of if it will likely cause any negative symptoms to the microserver, to which it certainly won't except for it a bad flash is done as with any bios update.

Seriously, sorry about previous posts. :) ..oops even this one sounds a bit argumentative...just the way I post sometimes :blush:
 
Remember, the speed is ONLY limited on SATA ports 4 and 5 (Internal motherboard port, and eSata port) on the standard HP BIOS. Ports 0 through 3 (the 4 bays) run at full speed.

Unless you're utilising the eSata port, or the port on the motherboard, you don't need the modded bios.
 
Hi

This question is directed at people who are using RAID, I was wondering what was the reasoning behind using an array ?

Are people REALLY performing regular back ups ?

Or is the reason for using a RAID array performance related, ie. because you are streaming to multiple devices ?

The reason I ask is because in theory large SATA hard disks can saturate the on board gigabit network card so have forum members with RAID arrays got multiple NICs in their HP Microservers ?

Could someone with both a N40L and N54L tell me what the difference in idle power consumption between the two models are ?

I am not sure if I need an N54L as I will probably use the machine for pure NAS purposes ? May be if I do transcoding then I could use the extra processing power! Am I correct in saying transcoding only occurs when you are upscaling or downscaling a film or song ? Do people generally store their films in 1080p format ?

I am in the process of buying a HP Microserver and have been watching this thread for a few years now. I bought a Microserver this time last year but ended up sending it back for some reason.

I'm bit of a late starter I guess! ;-)

Thanks for the help!
 
Hi

This question is directed at people who are using RAID, I was wondering what was the reasoning behind using an array ?

Are people REALLY performing regular back ups ?

Or is the reason for using a RAID array performance related, ie. because you are streaming to multiple devices ?

The reason I ask is because in theory large SATA hard disks can saturate the on board gigabit network card so have forum members with RAID arrays got multiple NICs in their HP Microservers ?

Could someone with both a N40L and N54L tell me what the difference in idle power consumption between the two models are ?

I am not sure if I need an N54L as I will probably use the machine for pure NAS purposes ? May be if I do transcoding then I could use the extra processing power! Am I correct in saying transcoding only occurs when you are upscaling or downscaling a film or song ? Do people generally store their films in 1080p format ?

I am in the process of buying a HP Microserver and have been watching this thread for a few years now. I bought a Microserver this time last year but ended up sending it back for some reason.

I'm bit of a late starter I guess! ;-)

Thanks for the help!

1. People use RAID1 for backup I suppose. (mirror)
2. People use RAID5(Z2) for some kind of protection...better than nothing at all anyway.
3. People don't use it for increasing transfer speed, it slows it down because the CPU limits it, you'll get faster transfers from a single disk than any array on these microservers (N54 or otherwise)
4. N54 CPU has twice the peak TDP as the N36L which I believe is the same as the N40L, you're talking about an extra 12 watts. Note this is a bit misleading because the CPU is never going to be maxed out with something like this for long periods.
5. Transcoding is for say if you have a video in one format but a player needs it in another, transcoding software running on the NAS can decode and then encode the video for that device. This would be useful for say the PS3 or Xbox 360 which has limited support of various formats unless those consoles are hacked, or possibly a low end portable device that can only play low resolution videos.
6. IMPORTANT - Don't even consider using these microservers for transcoding, they are nowhere near powerful enough even for doing HD to SD or hell even SD to SD material, even the N54L is a lame duck in terms of CPU performance. You could get away with some audio transcoding though, no problem.
7. Most people I expect would store stuff in the format they intend to primarily play on XBMC - No transcoding needed obviously.
8. Idle power consumption is going to be basically the same, difference would be tiny and not worth considering between models.
 
That said, there's nothing wrong with using a Microserver to encode video if you don't care how long it takes. Mine sits there in a limited-CPU virtual machine quite happily converting videos. I only do a couple a week and my server is idle most of the time, so I figure leaving it to convert a couple of films overnight isn't much of an issue.
 
That said, there's nothing wrong with using a Microserver to encode video if you don't care how long it takes. Mine sits there in a limited-CPU virtual machine quite happily converting videos. I only do a couple a week and my server is idle most of the time, so I figure leaving it to convert a couple of films overnight isn't much of an issue.

Definitely, but transcoding needs to be done in real time which just isn't possible except for extremely low resolutions not really watchable on a proper TV.
 
My N40L transcodes content every single day. Never had a problem with it.
 
Hi guys

I have fitted the asus 6450 into the nl40 and installed total media theatre 6 and power dvd 13 ultimate and they both play 34gb mkv ok but stutter when playing bluray iso from virtual drive- dvd fab stuttered with mkv as well
Cpu utilisation 100 percent
I'm using windows server 2008 with latest drivers and direct x 11

Any ideas from you guys with the same setup
 
Hi guys

I have fitted the asus 6450 into the nl40 and installed total media theatre 6 and power dvd 13 ultimate and they both play 34gb mkv ok but stutter when playing bluray iso from virtual drive- dvd fab stuttered with mkv as well
Cpu utilisation 100 percent
I'm using windows server 2008 with latest drivers and direct x 11

Any ideas from you guys with the same setup

Could be...
Bad ISO rip, pirated version of AnyDVD HD, what virtual drive?
 
Bubble gum

I have the trial version of both software's as I was testing before purchasing .

I could get neither software to work until I added the feature to install wmp on the server.

I have used daemon tools and dvd fab virtual drives

I will have two more bluray files to try tonight 1x 2d and 1x 3d bluray iso and I will see how it goes .

I was thinking of wiping server 2008 and installing windows 7 ultimate ?



The file I used was 44gb in size and was the 3d/2d version of a film I'm not sure of the bit rate.

When playing a 33gb mkv file the processor was using 70% utilization and played without issue, however when the blur-ay played it used 100% processor power and and skipped, but the pre intro on the bluray played fine.

Thank you for all your help its much appreciated.
 
Bubble gum

I have the trial version of both software's as I was testing before purchasing .

I could get neither software to work until I added the feature to install wmp on the server.

I have used daemon tools and dvd fab virtual drives

I will have two more bluray files to try tonight 1x 2d and 1x 3d bluray iso and I will see how it goes .

I was thinking of wiping server 2008 and installing windows 7 ultimate ?



The file I used was 44gb in size and was the 3d/2d version of a film I'm not sure of the bit rate.

When playing a 33gb mkv file the processor was using 70% utilization and played without issue, however when the blur-ay played it used 100% processor power and and skipped, but the pre intro on the bluray played fine.

Thank you for all your help its much appreciated.

This doesn't sound right at all, CPU use should be in the mid 20s tops when playing a bluray or MKV etc as modern graphics cards like yours take the burden off the CPU.

Give "Virtual Clone Drive" a go, it's made by same people as AnyDVD and is free and simple and is known to give no problems.
 
Re transcoding. My n54l is used for Plex, it transcodes .wtv (large recordings from Windows Media Centre) files to various clients around the house (iPad, iPhone 4, Roku LT) no problem. I notice that technically, the n36 and n40 are below the minimum CPU specs set by Plex.
 
Re transcoding. My n54l is used for Plex, it transcodes .wtv (large recordings from Windows Media Centre) files to various clients around the house (iPad, iPhone 4, Roku LT) no problem. I notice that technically, the n36 and n40 are below the minimum CPU specs set by Plex.

There are two aspects to transcoding media files. The easiest (from a computational point of view) is re-packaging the content in a new container, or extracting and sending the content via DLNA. The N40L/N54L are certainly up to doing that. The second is re-encoding the content - I don't think the N40L/N54L are powerful enough to do that.
 
What type of content, resolution etc?

Everything I throw at it. The only problem I've ever had is high-res matroskas (and possibly a couple of other odd formats), however this was more down to ps3mediaserver being a wagon to configure more than anything else.

I installed Plex to test a couple of months ago in preparation for the N54L I bought to set up as a proper HTPC - I currently use a PS3 with an N40L streaming to it from somewhere else in the house - and that's never balked at anything.
 

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