Good Cheap Server - HP Proliant Microserver 4 BAY - OWNERS THREAD

Hello,

This is a question to all the uServer owners regarding RAM upgrades.

I'm gonna play with ESXi for a bit and so will be upgrading to 8GB of RAM and have the following two options in my sights:

Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz - ValueRAM

Kingston 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1333MHz - HyperX Blu RAM with HeatSync



Now its £4 to get slightly better performance with the HyperX Blu RAM... but obviously it comes with a heatsync. I've measured the gap between the top of the RAM and the HDD casing and reckon its about 6mm. I've calculated the heatsync to add between 2-3mm to the height of the RAM from these reviews: LINK1 LINK2.


Questions are:

Has anyone upgraded with the HyperX Blu RAM or has any access to it?

What are people thoughts to potentially halving the free space above the RAM? The fan does pull the air the best direction...

Hows the Kingston ValueRAM working out for people?



Thanks
Sam
 
Kingston value ram running for a few months now absolutely no problems. There is plenty of air moving through the case I wouldn't worry about the space as long as the memory fits in.
 
smoove said:
Is there something im missing when I'm putting in a graphics card into it?

I've put a new hd5450 into it, but get no output from any of the connections? Tried reseating it, checked all cables etc etc.

Am i correct in thinking it should switch to the new graphics card automatically?

thanks.
Click to expand...

It should do but it didnt with me either.
What i had to do was plug the new card in, then still use the original VGA on the board. Task manager should then pick it up.
After its installed you should be able to use the new card.
 
Well, I've had the server since the end of February and I have to say I am still very, very pleased with it. I've got some Kingston Value RAM running alongside the pre-installed, 1GB stick which works perfectly.

I've got the server running Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard, which also runs an Apache, MySQL and FTP configuration in addition to backups with a few terabyte drives. It is also handling SSH for remote MySQL management through Essentials Workbench and is coping nicely. I've got plans to use it as a test bed with ESXi in the future, but it's running nicely as it is.
 
smoove said:
got a little further...

Managed to boot into windows and its picked up the card, but how do i set it as the default display device? I've tried removing the vga cable, to see if it defaults to the other (which it doesnt), last option was to disable the onboard VGA and hope it picks the graphics card up.
?
What should i have my pcie settings in the bios set too? Seems when ever i disconnect the gfx card, windows corrupts and wont boot. Just about to give up on the dam thing and stick it in the MM.
Click to expand...

Did you install the drivers? what is it listed under in device manager.

You could try that, but i dont think its needed, there is an option to always use the onboard VGA, or try to find a graphics card and revert back to VGA if none is found, you cant disable the onboard VGA completly.
Set VGA control to auto detect.

look at the thread below for BIOS pictures, you wont need to mess about with the Sata, AHCI unless youve got 5 drives.
BIOS Pics
 
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With the 5 drives, you had to use this Russian hack for the BIOS after you had updated it via a HP download.

That would allow you to power all 5 sata ports (one on the motherboard).
That thread i linked, i basically copied that.
Had major problems with HD5450 and the drives but messing with the settings worked.

Id try and reset the BIOS to default and try again, did you try setting the VGA control to always enabled. then boot with onboard VGA then changing it back to auto and trying again?
 
Yeah its put me off ATI but i just thought it was the server's BIOS and hardware what was causing it and not the card itself.

What you going to get instead?
 
Guru said:
Anyone got this box successfully running SBS 2008 or SBS 2011?

Thanks,

G
Click to expand...

I tried Server 2008 R2 and was horrible for my needs, wanted a HTPC and backup hybrid but was really poor at media stuff, which was to be expected tbh.

What you going to be using the server for?
 
pespro said:
I tried Server 2008 R2 and was horrible for my needs, wanted a HTPC and backup hybrid but was really poor at media stuff, which was to be expected tbh.

What you going to be using the server for?
Click to expand...

I was hoping to use it as a tool to take my SBS 2008 exam. For that I need to be able to run 1x SBS2008 and 1x Vista x64 VM.

I'm currently running 2008 Enterprise, but was considering putting 8GB of ram in and trying to get an SBS2008 with a vista VM in Hyper V.

Cheers,

G


/edit I currently have 4GB of ram and 2008 Enterprise runs everything I want to do in terms of FTP server, media server and teamspeak server. I will not really want to do much more with it than that.

I've partitioned the HDD into 3 chunks, one 148GB and two 75GB, I have enterprise on the 148GB one at the moment.

I tried to install the SBS 2008 as a VM, but it wouldn't install, it just said it needs a minimum of 4GB ram to install, so I thought I'd check if it will run it before I fork out for the 8GB of RAM. My SBS2008 book says that it needs a minimum of 4GB ram and a dual core 1.6 cpu. But I am hoping it might just scrape by considering it's never going to be under load since it's only going to be for my exam and never in production.
 
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I have this server, and have it fully loaded out with an optical and 4 hd's, now I have a 4 port Adaptec raid card, and I would like to add an additional 4 drives, run the sata cables out the back of the server, plug em into the hd's, and split the power off the optical and again feed it out the back of the server, has anyone done this, is the servers psu man enough??
 
Well I can answer my own question here, I installed my Adaptec Raid Card, fed power out the back booted and everything but , when it booted I couldnt use the internal raid anymore, I had to use the adaptec raid, i could use the internal as ahci only if i wished , but this is the opposite to what I was after :( , I couldn't find any options to tell the bios to let the internal raid be the master if you guys get me, any advice??
 
Bought 1 of these for the optical drive bay so i can have 6 harddrives enclosed within the system.
1417856-a.jpg
 
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