Repurposing old dl180 server motherboard, ATX PSU?

[101m4n]

My mounting solution for the heat-sinks, used sections of aluminium siding, drilled holes for mounting to the heatsink and the motherboard. Works very well, still need to trim them down though. Still waiting on the memory though to test the boards themselves.

 

[Tiger2]

On 8/1/2017 at 3:11 PM, CptCarbonat said:

For the SE316 it is a bit complicated to find the latest BIOS, as these models are custom built for some customer and HPE doesn't offer offical support for them. Though looking at this Thread it seems like with the SPP iso from 02/2014 it is possible to update the BIOS on the SE mainboards. You can find the iso here, if that works it should be pretty easy to update the BIOS with that tool. Though I guess if it won't post with the L5640 CPUs, you will have to use 5500 series CPUs to update the BIOS.

Having the same problem with an old 2010 BIOS on this board, I tried to download the SPP from the hpe page, but I learned they are blocking the download for people without running support contracts.I even checked with the hotline and the result is they refuse to get any user of used hardware any BIOS updates.

As many people are using those otherwise great hardware which would be good for years of service I guess I might not be the only one with that issues. I would be interested if anyone found another solution.

 

[CptCarbonat]

2 hours ago, Tiger2 said:

Having the same problem with an old 2010 BIOS on this board, I tried to download the SPP from the hpe page, but I learned they are blocking the download for people without running support contracts.I even checked with the hotline and the result is they refuse to get any user of used hardware any BIOS updates.

As many people are using those otherwise great hardware which would be good for years of service I guess I might not be the only one with that issues. I would be interested if anyone found another solution.

Yeah it is pretty hard to get the SPP iso, couldn't find any download for it either.

[Tiger2]

From a HPE rep I got a statement that as long an any computer would be on maintenance you could download anything. Sounds like a generic "welcome to HP support club membership".

 

If one would know the exact filename of that SPP an exended google search could maybe spot something on a download server. Funny that one almost starts thinking about entering the darknet - not for drugs/weapons/crackware,  but to get a 5 year old BIOS for a legally purchased machine. Times are changing.

 

 

[CptCarbonat]

2 hours ago, Tiger2 said:

If one would know the exact filename of that SPP an exended google search could maybe spot something on a download server.

Well thats what I tried but didn't come up with anything. As far as I know they deletet everything from their FTP.

[101m4n]

Massive necro incoming, but I figured I'd leave the solution here anyway for anyone else that comes along.

I too ended up running into the bios problem, then solved it and promptly forgot about this thread (my bad).
Anyway, the dl180/se316m/x1600 are actually all the same server (more or less), with the same bios. The bios update comes packaged as a utility that runs from within windows, it's a bit weird, but it does actually work.

You can find the updater on the hpe website here.

 

P.S. There was some confusion for me early on in this project as to which board is which, this should clarify:

dl180/se316m/se326m/se1220/x1600(?):

Spoiler

Some of these have the integrated lights out connector (rj45) built into the board, others have a small daughter board that plugs into the board separately (see the small plug next to the button midway up the right side of the board in this picture). I tried briefly to use it, but it's a nightmare. It's flakey as hell, I couldn't get it to open in anything but IE, and a good chunk of the functionality is locked behind a license. So if you ask me, it's no great loss. I ended up using ordinary wake-on-lan to power up my nodes.

 

dl160 (and probably a slew of other names too...):

Spoiler

I have no experience with this board, though greenie214 (from earlier in this thread) does.

 

P.P.S. The cluster, janky though it may be, is very much still kicking!

It has been (and continues to be) an interesting project:

Spoiler

 

[arcaderixclone]

 

Hello check the thread again I need to know about the 6-pin connections Do you have a picture of how I install it on the 4-pin molex? besides the source I only have the plaque and I don't know where it turns on I saw a minuscule button that when pressed is blue lights that's how it works ???

[101m4n]

On 9/2/2019 at 4:31 AM, arcaderixclone said:

I need to know about the 6-pin connections Do you have a picture of how I install it on the 4-pin molex?

6-pin connections? Do you mean the fan connectors? Install on the 4 pin molex? I have no idea what you are trying to ask here. Are you trying to install 4 pin fans on the 6 pin headers, if so pinouts can be found earlier in the thread.

Quote

I only have the plaque and I don't know where it turns on

The plaque? Again, I don't know what you mean. I assume you're trying to connect the front panel header (power button etc)? If so the pinout can be found earlier in the thread too.

Quote

I saw a minuscule button that when pressed is blue lights that's how it works ???

That's an indicator light, it can be turned on or off in software and is there to identify the server when it's installed in a rack, it's not a power button.

[arcaderixclone]

On 9/6/2019 at 11:53 AM, 101m4n said:

Conexiones de 6 pines? ¿Te refieres a los conectores del ventilador? Instalar en el molex de 4 pines? No tengo idea de lo que estás tratando de preguntar aquí. ¿Está tratando de instalar ventiladores de 4 pines en los encabezados de 6 pines? Si es así, se pueden encontrar pinouts antes en el hilo.

La placa? De nuevo, no sé a qué te refieres. ¿Supongo que está intentando conectar el encabezado del panel frontal (botón de encendido, etc.)? Si es así, el pinout se puede encontrar anteriormente en el hilo también.

Esa es una luz indicadora, se puede encender o apagar en el software y está ahí para identificar el servidor cuando está instalado en un estante, no es un botón de encendido.

 Cómo se pronuncia

 

 

sorry for my English
I just need to know the cooler's connection


Is this image correct?

  

[arcaderixclone]

El 6/9/2019 a las 11:53, 101m4n dijo:

 

La placa? De nuevo, no sé qué te refieres. ¿Supongo que está intentando conectar el encabezado del panel frontal (botón de encendido, etc.)? Si es así, el pinout puede encontrar previamente en el hilo también.

This is the connection of the front panel to turn on the motherboard??

 

[Bzzz]

On 8/12/2019 at 9:22 PM, 101m4n said:

Massive necro incoming

Same, same...

There's a SE316M1 (591747 board) on my bench, too, and I cannot figure out what's wrong. I got the machine and powered it up, everything fine. I won't be running that aircraft in its original case, so I disassembled it. Like I did for FIVE other servers at the same time that all turned out fine (I kept some, and I discarded the old crap). This one, however, refuses to work since it got removed from its pizza box. Can someone please tell me the minimal wiring configuration required to boot?

Currently the original PSU backplane is attached, two original power supplies are online (green lights on the back), I have the 24Pin + 4Pin + 8Pin power connectors and the PSU data cable attached to the board, as well as the power plug for the SAS backplane. That one also got a 3Pin cable back to the board. All six fans are connected. Memory is known good and I tried CH1A and CH1A/CH2A configurations (the latter worked when still in the 1U case). ILO is working but cannot start the machine. Power status is yellow = standby, and upon pressing the power button, the health LED starts blinking red while fans go to eleven. No video output (internal VGA/external graphics card). ILO also never states any errors because it needs the system running for diagnosis, but it won't turn fully on for some reason. Fans all working, but only fan1 spinning, PCIe cards booting up, all heat sinks start getting warm, power consumption is 20W in standby and 110W "on". Removing the RTC battery for some minutes (replaced with new one) didn't help either.

Upon connecting power CR5/CR6/CR8 light up green (very edge of the board), everything is off when the board is started. After 4s of pressing the power button, CR1/CR2 start blinking.

I'm clearly missing something trivial, can someone please help me out.

 

@arcaderixclone: Power switch is 14+16 in your numbering. The two bottom row contacts right next to the missing contact 18.

[101m4n]

You should only need the power connectors. 24 pin, 8 pin and 4 pin. Plug those in, along with a screen and keyboard.

Turn on power at the PSU, then wait for the two lights at the end of the debug led strip to be blinking on and off. Then, and only then, attempt to power the board up. It should wake up, post, complain about the fans, then shut down.

Failing that, look around the sockets and RAM slots for red LED’s, those could indicate faulty sockets/cpus/dimms.

As a rule, when you are chasing a problem like this down you should do so initially with the minimum number of memory/cpu’s/devices you can get away with. 1 stick of ram, 1 cpu, etc.

Also don’t bother with ilo2, it’s hot garbage.

[m4rr3co]

On 3/9/2020 at 1:25 PM, 101m4n said:

You should only need the power connectors. 24 pin, 8 pin and 4 pin. Plug those in, along with a screen and keyboard.

Turn on power at the PSU, then wait for the two lights at the end of the debug led strip to be blinking on and off. Then, and only then, attempt to power the board up. It should wake up, post, complain about the fans, then shut down.

Failing that, look around the sockets and RAM slots for red LED’s, those could indicate faulty sockets/cpus/dimms.

As a rule, when you are chasing a problem like this down you should do so initially with the minimum number of memory/cpu’s/devices you can get away with. 1 stick of ram, 1 cpu, etc.

Also don’t bother with ilo2, it’s hot garbage.

hey mate,

thank you very much for this topic! i have a proliant dl180 g6 here and im wondering what's the minimum fans setup that will get the board going? im thinking on getting rid of the rack case and throw it all in a normal eatx case

[101m4n]

10 hours ago, m4rr3co said:

hey mate,

thank you very much for this topic! i have a proliant dl180 g6 here and im wondering what's the minimum fans setup that will get the board going? im thinking on getting rid of the rack case and throw it all in a normal eatx case

The fan headers are weird 6 pin things designed to support two fans. You will have to modify some existing fans to use those headers. You can find the fan header pin-outs earlier in this thread somewhere. As for what the board will accept, the fans have to be spinning fast enough that the board registers them as "working". I don't know what the threshold is exactly, but my systems have two sets of fans. Some slow 140mm fans at the back which don't spin fast enough for the board to consider them OK, and the fans on the CPU heatsinks which do spin fast enough.
You don't have to connect all the fan headers. The first four from left to right along the top of the board if the board is position with the IO at the bottom are the ones you need to worry about.

The way I did it was by taking the tach wires from the CPU fans and daisy chaining them to each of the headers, which worked perfectly.

[m4rr3co]

On 8/30/2020 at 10:24 AM, 101m4n said:

The fan headers are weird 6 pin things designed to support two fans. You will have to modify some existing fans to use those headers. You can find the fan header pin-outs earlier in this thread somewhere. As for what the board will accept, the fans have to be spinning fast enough that the board registers them as "working". I don't know what the threshold is exactly, but my systems have two sets of fans. Some slow 140mm fans at the back which don't spin fast enough for the board to consider them OK, and the fans on the CPU heatsinks which do spin fast enough.
You don't have to connect all the fan headers. The first four from left to right along the top of the board if the board is position with the IO at the bottom are the ones you need to worry about.

The way I did it was by taking the tach wires from the CPU fans and daisy chaining them to each of the headers, which worked perfectly.

hey, you're such a helpful person, thank you very much. The thing is that I have the entire Proliant Dl180 G6 system available here, but it seems that there's some BIOS' bug that will keep the original fans at rotations higher than 3000 - 4000 which is QUITE noisy, so I'm just trying to get around this issue and it seems that I just need to remove everything from the PCI ports (which I have already done) but now I'm facing a smaller problem which is energize a hard drive via sata power (which the original PSU doesn't have fml).
I will try to your solution but, in the mean time, do you think it's possible to convert a 4 pin "micro" molex into a Sata Power connector (15 pin)?

[101m4n]

On 9/3/2020 at 7:44 PM, m4rr3co said:

hey, you're such a helpful person, thank you very much. The thing is that I have the entire Proliant Dl180 G6 system available here, but it seems that there's some BIOS' bug that will keep the original fans at rotations higher than 3000 - 4000 which is QUITE noisy, so I'm just trying to get around this issue and it seems that I just need to remove everything from the PCI ports (which I have already done) but now I'm facing a smaller problem which is energize a hard drive via sata power (which the original PSU doesn't have fml).
I will try to your solution but, in the mean time, do you think it's possible to convert a 4 pin "micro" molex into a Sata Power connector (15 pin)?

Small fans just have to spin faster (not 4000rpm fast all the time ofc), but if your using the original server chassis it won't really be possible to keep the noise down. Well, not to to desktop pc levels that is. It's always going to be a bit whiny and annoying, best put it in another room if you can!

The hard drives should connect to the backplane, that should give them power and data connections. The server should have come with caddies like these, you just pop the drive into them and slide them into the front of the server like this. Should work just fine with sata drives.

The backplane connects to a sas controller (not sata, but compatible with it) via a connector (black cable in this picture going into a pcie card). I don't know anything about the card in the dl180, or if you have one, but maybe it will do the trick? I built a nas using a dell perc-h310 raid card which I flashed with LSI firmware to use in IT-mode. That might be an option if you want to use the backplane at some point.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "mini molex", but if you don't want to faff with the backplane and just connect the drive directly to the board I'd just get one of these or these for power.

Hope this helps!

[m4rr3co]

On 9/5/2020 at 9:18 AM, 101m4n said:

Small fans just have to spin faster (not 4000rpm fast all the time ofc), but if your using the original server chassis it won't really be possible to keep the noise down. Well, not to to desktop pc levels that is. It's always going to be a bit whiny and annoying, best put it in another room if you can!

The hard drives should connect to the backplane, that should give them power and data connections. The server should have come with caddies like these, you just pop the drive into them and slide them into the front of the server like this. Should work just fine with sata drives.

The backplane connects to a sas controller (not sata, but compatible with it) via a connector (black cable in this picture going into a pcie card). I don't know anything about the card in the dl180, or if you have one, but maybe it will do the trick? I built a nas using a dell perc-h310 raid card which I flashed with LSI firmware to use in IT-mode. That might be an option if you want to use the backplane at some point.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "mini molex", but if you don't want to faff with the backplane and just connect the drive directly to the board I'd just get one of these or these for power.

Hope this helps!

thanks once again!! i'll be running tests this week and hopefully can add something useful for the thread.

i wasn't able to access to those last two links, can i kindly ask you to resend them? maybe upload those images to imgur.

[m4rr3co]

On 9/5/2020 at 9:18 AM, 101m4n said:

Small fans just have to spin faster (not 4000rpm fast all the time ofc), but if your using the original server chassis it won't really be possible to keep the noise down. Well, not to to desktop pc levels that is. It's always going to be a bit whiny and annoying, best put it in another room if you can!

The hard drives should connect to the backplane, that should give them power and data connections. The server should have come with caddies like these, you just pop the drive into them and slide them into the front of the server like this. Should work just fine with sata drives.

The backplane connects to a sas controller (not sata, but compatible with it) via a connector (black cable in this picture going into a pcie card). I don't know anything about the card in the dl180, or if you have one, but maybe it will do the trick? I built a nas using a dell perc-h310 raid card which I flashed with LSI firmware to use in IT-mode. That might be an option if you want to use the backplane at some point.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "mini molex", but if you don't want to faff with the backplane and just connect the drive directly to the board I'd just get one of these or these for power.

Hope this helps!

Okay, so little update: "mini molex" it's has the same pinout as a regular molex but it looks like a PWM connector. Also, I managed to connect the hard drive without using backplane, so this is a progress for me.

 

My plan is to take the system board out of the original chassis in order to install it on a different case and also install custom fans in order to lower the noise to a desktop pc level (like you said).

 

Thanks for the help!

[101m4n]

On 9/10/2020 at 2:14 AM, m4rr3co said:

Okay, so little update: "mini molex" it's has the same pinout as a regular molex but it looks like a PWM connector. Also, I managed to connect the hard drive without using backplane, so this is a progress for me.

 

My plan is to take the system board out of the original chassis in order to install it on a different case and also install custom fans in order to lower the noise to a desktop pc level (like you said).

 

Thanks for the help!

No worries!
Always good to have a few machines like this hanging around for testing and projects.

Good luck