[OpenIndiana-discuss] N40L rear e-sata

[Stephan Budach]

Am 11.11.12 20:16, schrieb Jim Klimov:
> On 2012-11-11 20:00, Stephan Budach wrote:
>> +1  - flashing the N40L BIOS is a must. I did that on three units myself
>> and it was really easy using a USB thumb drive. I also just crammed 16
>> GB of RAM into my unit at home, which really made a big difference,
>> since I am also running Vbox on it. :)
>
>
> Ah-hah! So it is possible! (I asked a few times with vague results)
>
> What models of RAM did you use, and approximately what was the cost?
> Is it worth it in your opinion? ;)
>
> Did the HP BIOS complain about component compatibility or try to
> refuse to accept some details? (I saw other HP servers do that)
>
> Thanks,
> //Jim
Hi Jim,

yes it's possible and after searching and comparing (and even had one 
shot into the foot as well) I finally figured that the HP would run with 
PC1333 organized in 512Mx8. I paid € 107,- (VAT incl.) für both modules.

At first my box would only recognize 8GB when I put both modules in, and 
I was only able to get it to run using one 8 GB and one of the remaining 
4 GB modules, which accounted for 12 G in total. After hitting Google 
pretty hard, I checked in with the BIOS of my N40L and just tried out of 
curiosity to disable parity-checking in the Southbridge menu of the 
modded BIOS, which suddenly seemed to turn on the second 8 GB module… 
really weird. I am suspecting the BIOS to not perform a full discovery 
when I inserted the two 8 GB modules, but the 16 GB have been consistent 
available throughout 10 reboots, so I deemd them to operate.

As for the specs of the RAM modules I purchased, I can provide the 
information from the Sticker, that has been put on, hopefully you can 
get something from it - I also could ask my dealer what he exactly 
ordered from his distributor:

CSX:
8 GB DDR3 1333MHz
512x8 Long DIMM ECC
AP_ECC1333D3_8G
XECC-D3-1333-512X8-8GB

As I said, I think that the chip layout 512x8 is key here.

And yes… I do think that it is really worth it - running 3 VMs on the 
N40L really hits hard on the memory and with that more GB to spend my 
VMs really run much better (system load has increased, which is often a 
good sign in that regard) - after all I do have 9 GBs left where ZFS can 
operate on.

So, my N40L is now quite beefed up, without going too crazy… ;)

Cheers,
budy