Topic: hints on running sme on proliant 5000 compaq ( fun with boa

[ed sharpe]

Would like to hear any tips or horror stories .... got this old proliant server 5000  but seem to be having trouble finding memory for it,  and for the life of me where  do the scsi drives hook in?

This is an old neat dual pentium 166 machine... has another card to add even 2 more processors for a total of 4.

seem to have trouble getting it to boot from CD

any help is good!

ed sharpe archivist for smecc
see the museum's web site at www.smecc.org

[dave]

I saw your note and thought I'd chime in.  I'm pretty familiar with the proliant 5000, it's up to a quad pentium pro - max speed is 200mhz - and will hold quite a bit of memory - I think 4 gig.  It takes buffered DIMMs, you can find them all over the place on ebay.  I'd stick with the cheapest ebay stuff you can find, if you go to compaq(hp) or another retail source, you'll spend a small fortune for memory.  I've purchased lots of that kind of stuff on ebay and only had a couple instances where the component was bad.

Here's a link to downloadable DOCs, drivers, updates etc. http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/locate/20_1109.html

The BIOS for that machine is accessed by booting to the COMPAQ supplied CD-ROM, that's where all the configuration is.  If you don't have any SCSI cabling in the box, that's why it won't boot.  These normally came with a SCSI RAID card, either an EISA Smart/E or a PCI Smart 2/P card.  There's also a SCSI header on the motherboard, if you have cabling and no SCSI cards, you'd plug the cables on to the MB.

Once the machine is setup via the CD, it'll create a partition on the drive that contains all the required setup programs, if the drive(s) have been wiped, you'll need that CD to rebuild the system.

They're great systems, and a quad PPRO 200 MHZ (with 1MEG cache processors) box with a GIG of RAM and a good RAID array will still compete in todays world.  It'll be on the bottom edge of the scale, their noisy with all the fans and drives but they're great servers.  Get one running and you can put it in a closet and forget about it for a couple years.

[ed sharpe]

Wow! thans for the info! I need to see if I can burn that CD.... question... can it boot from cd or do you have to  use a diskette first?

thanks ed sharpe archivist for smecc

see the museum at www.smecc.org

[dave]

It should boot directly to the CD.  If the CD is non functional, in that it won't boot any normally bootable CD, then you may have a problem with the drive.  I don't believe there's any bios setable options to keep it from booting a CD, you might want to check the docs on the compaq site, there may be a switch setting that effects this.  

Higher speed SCSI CD ROM drives are available, the one in that proliant is a 2 or 4 speed, tops.  It's a narrow device, with the wide 50pin ribbon cable.  That should plug directly to the motherboard.  The drive cage should plug to the array card, I dont' think you can do both with the motherboard.  I don't recall the specifics, I always used a RAID card for drives and plugged the CD into the motherboard.  

The hard part will be getting that setup CD.  I don't know if there is anything available on the web site for that, though there should be setup packages available from online locations, of course ebay comes to mind...  It's called smart start.  If you get any smart start that supports proliants, it'll support the 5000.  I had a set that I used to configure the 1500, the 4500 and the 5000 so I know the setup CD is pretty generic.

They are great servers that were the best you could get when they were new.  A place I used to work was 'retiring' a bunch of old proliant equipment and I was happy to give it a new home.  A fully loaded quad 133 processor 4500 with half a gig of memory and 5 internal drives, 2 array cards and 3 external 7 drive array cabinets.  The internal drives and 2 of the array cabinets were full of 2 gig drives, one of the cabinets had 4 gig drives, 26 drives total. A little looking online said this equipment cost nearly $100,000 when new just shy of 4 years earlier, and they were going to toss it in a dumpster.  There was a bunch of other stuff too, a couple 1500's and a 2500, those had been raided for any usable parts.  I wound up getting a 4500 to 5000 upgrade kit online and had that set up for a while.  I got tired of the noise and the clutter - actually my Wife did, I was fine with it...

Good luck getting that beastie up and running.  If you do, and you have a few bucks lying around, you might consider upping the processors to full capacity with 4 200mhz procs.  Check the Intel site, with PPro's I don't think you have to worry about matching s-spec codes.

[ed sharpe archivist for]

Dave,  hooked he drive string up to the scsi on the back of the machine as it had been robbed of it's array controller ( got  an extra one?)  I snaked the cable thru the cabinet and  out though a card clot and plugged it into the  back socket  on the MB which I assume is a ultra wide scsi... I then jammed an IDE card in and  booted a floppy that booted the ide drive with win 98 in it and threw it on a drive.. but then weirdly.... win 98 would not recognize the ide or the cd once running.....

I will  try to hunt the compaq CD  next and get the cd  drive booting...

I think I will also try  to hunt  the aux drive cabinet also.. have a pagemarq 20 laser to set next to it that was given to the musem, if nothing else all this will make a nice compaq display for the computer section of our engineering museum.

( see www.smecc.org)

thanks for all the help!  This  box should be great to run sme on!
if any of my other info I have added strikes a cord on anything fill me in!

ed sharpe archivist for smeccdave wrote:
>
> It should boot directly to the CD.  If the CD is non
> functional, in that it won't boot any normally bootable CD,
> then you may have a problem with the drive.  I don't believe
> there's any bios setable options to keep it from booting a
> CD, you might want to check the docs on the compaq site,
> there may be a switch setting that effects this.
>
> Higher speed SCSI CD ROM drives are available, the one in
> that proliant is a 2 or 4 speed, tops.  It's a narrow device,
> with the wide 50pin ribbon cable.  That should plug directly
> to the motherboard.  The drive cage should plug to the array
> card, I dont' think you can do both with the motherboard.  I
> don't recall the specifics, I always used a RAID card for
> drives and plugged the CD into the motherboard.
>
> The hard part will be getting that setup CD.  I don't know if
> there is anything available on the web site for that, though
> there should be setup packages available from online
> locations, of course ebay comes to mind...  It's called smart
> start.  If you get any smart start that supports proliants,
> it'll support the 5000.  I had a set that I used to configure
> the 1500, the 4500 and the 5000 so I know the setup CD is
> pretty generic.
>
> They are great servers that were the best you could get when
> they were new.  A place I used to work was 'retiring' a bunch
> of old proliant equipment and I was happy to give it a new
> home.  A fully loaded quad 133 processor 4500 with half a gig
> of memory and 5 internal drives, 2 array cards and 3 external
> 7 drive array cabinets.  The internal drives and 2 of the
> array cabinets were full of 2 gig drives, one of the cabinets
> had 4 gig drives, 26 drives total. A little looking online
> said this equipment cost nearly $100,000 when new just shy of
> 4 years earlier, and they were going to toss it in a
> dumpster.  There was a bunch of other stuff too, a couple
> 1500's and a 2500, those had been raided for any usable
> parts.  I wound up getting a 4500 to 5000 upgrade kit online
> and had that set up for a while.  I got tired of the noise
> and the clutter - actually my Wife did, I was fine with it...
>
> Good luck getting that beastie up and running.  If you do,
> and you have a few bucks lying around, you might consider
> upping the processors to full capacity with 4 200mhz procs.
> Check the Intel site, with PPro's I don't think you have to
> worry about matching s-spec codes.

[dave]

Well, at least you got it to boot up, that's progress.  Compaq raid cards can be picked up on ebay for less than $50, the 2/P card that came in that machine originally can be had for $15-20 if you look around.  I checked around for smartstart, you can pickup sets for as little as $15 too.  I do have a couple compaq raid cards but they're both being used.  I may have an old smartstart setup CD set around somewhere, it's probably in storage - I haven't had a genuine proliant around here to play with for a couple years.

While I was writing this, I decided to look in the closet and I found a full set of smartstart software.  2 operating system packages and one oracle 7 CD set.  It even includes the program license diskettes. Full copies of WinNT 3.5 Server (Did I say this was an old set?).  Netware 3.12 and 4.1, unixware, SCO Unix and OS/2 LanServer.  The Oracle is V7.1 for NT, Netware and SCO.  I never really used any of it but the system config CD, I have a MSDN universal subscription so I have all the rest of the OS and Backoffice stuff I'd ever need.

Email me your address offline and I'll send the whole thing to you.