HP N36L/N40L/N54L Microserver Updated AHCI BIOS Support.

coolamasta

I can quite happily add and remove drives on other PC's using ACHI HDD's while they are switched on, OK you cant just pull the drive out and you have to "stop" the drive in removable devices first.

I know they are not true Hot Swap drives like SAS or SCSI but I've still be able to do it with other Motherboards, normally with Intel chipsets, maybe AMD do not support it at all...

jzaw

I have also got one of these

IDE to SATA or SATA to IDE Adaptor : Internal SATA Cables : Maplin Electronics

and makes my old ide/ata 200 250 and 300GB disks both hotpluggable to the Microserver but also bootable off them via that adapter

good way to get some extra life out of the old disks ie for test boot purposes or playing with and testing raid configs etc

challengedavid

with the modded bios and altered settings the pc will not reboot properly it just hangs on shutdown,  but if you shutdown and dont reboot its fine

put back on the hp bios and it all preforms fine

edit, its whs2011

mr-b

I don't know WHS but if it's anything like Windows (or Win Server) then have you checked the Event Log and compared the events for Shutdown vs "reboot".

Can you try the SSD drive on a SATA port? I know the eSATA port on the HP is sensitive to cables.
Have you tried the modded BIOS without changing settings? Which settings are you changing?

hawky525

With the 6th/eSata port, how can you using another drive? I have a few spare drives lying around, but understand that a drive and one of the eSata to sata cables wouldn't power the drive (as the sata cable is only data not power, right?).
Would you need an 3.5" enclosure for the drive and then plug it in to a wall socket or am I missing something?

mr-b

This really isn't a BIOS question so should belong in the other thread ...
You can use an external enclosure or else internal with adapter cables - see one of the original build threads (with pics).
http://www.avforums.com/forums/networking-nas/1429720-tims-7-24tb-tiddler-unraid-nas.html

lowmans100

To use the eSata port for an internal HDD you will need an eSata to Sata cable which you run inside the server via the little trap door on the back of the unit, you also need a Molex IDE to 2 SATA Serial Power Cable like this. I got one from ebay.

Both available here for less than £6.50

mg82

Hi,
   
  I bought HP Microserver N40L in Nov  2011 and It has BIOS version (04/02/2011) installed.
   
  By default it had AHCI model enabled for SATA drives but on boot it lists them as IDE.
   
  I have installed WHS 2011 on it and Device Manager list all drives as ATA using IDE channel.
   
  1.         UDMA mode supported by Sata HDDs are udma6 but driving runs only on udma2 and gives write speed of 97 mb/s. Don’t know why it is not running on udma6 mode?
   
  2.      Bought an 128 GB Crucial SSD and attached it to ODD SATA port, this one also listed as ATA drive in Device Manager but runs on UDMA6 although it support UDMA5 and gives right speed of 1 gb/s.
   
  3.      Some blog users have pointed out that if drives run in AHCI mode they should be listed in same place as USB in windows explorer but that’s not the case in my scenario.
   
  Am I missing any setting or drive? How to use SATA drives effectively?
   
  Thanks

jzaw

I bought the N40L in January this year (2012)

have you looked to use the modified bios as per head of this thread?

I reflashed my bios with TheBay's O41072911.ROM and most certainly have 6 ports all fully AHCI fulls 6Gb/s speed and (for me at least) hotpluggable

NOTE the bios still reports them as PATA .... but debian wheezy most definitely sees them as sata drives

see here my dmesg BEFORE and AFTER flashing

N40L microserver sata ide ahci - Pastebin.com

notice that before flashing the esata and the internal odd sata port are seen as pata ports but the other 4 are sata

where as after flashing all 6 are fully capable full speed ahci ports

see my post about how easy it is to flash the bios in linux
you could even do it with a live cd of ubuntu or something

hope this helps

ahhyes

Anyone try out the new fan function? Can you slow it down?