Pimp my Home Server
filed in HomeServer, Technology on Jun.26, 2009
Pimp my Home Server
Just before Christmas 2008 I bought the HP EX475 MediaSmart windows home server. After reading about it before I purchased it I already knew that the puny 512 MB ram that it came with was too little so I already had 2GB ready for installation when the server arrived.
Now a little over six months later the 1TB disks was already over 75% full and I was tired of the underpowered CPU chopping up performance whenever the server tried to do more than one thing at the same time. The server uses AMD AM2 slot CPU’s and I bought a new 2.6 GHz Athlon processor for just over 300 NOK which is a really nice price for a CPU. Following the excellent guide from Home Server Hacks the procedure was quick and painless. Installing a new 1TB disk was also done in a few seconds.
Now my EX475 has 4 times the RAM, 2 times the storage and a CPU that is clocked at 45% higher frequency (but also quadruples the L2 cache) compared to the original. In other words my EX 475 is now more like a EX 485 than the EX475 that it once were.
And to be honest it was needed. If you want to do anything other than sharing documents and backing up PC’s you need to upgrade the RAM and CPU.
June 29th, 2009 on 00:29
I’m happy to hear that you took the plunge to upgrade your CPU to the dual-core LE-1640. I just wanted to point out that if you decide to install the HP 2.5 update hack, you might run into problems with that CPU, other have had problems with the LE-1640 and have opted for the BE-2300, or if your lucky to get the 3800+ EFF.
You can read about it here, http://www.mediasmartserver.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1102
Again, Congrats on the upgrade.
June 29th, 2009 on 11:32
The LE-1640 is a single core, not dual core. But I’ve upgraded the bios and I’m ready for dual-core if this CPU is giving me problems. I’ve had a couple of unexpected shutdowns, but I think they might be due to heating issues. It’s very warm these days (30C room temperature) and that does not help the poor server. The strange thing is that the server shuts down at night when no-one is using it.
I’m moving the server to the basement where it’s cooler later. I’ve also started logging temperatures to see what they are on the next shutdown.
Thanks for the tip though.
June 29th, 2009 on 19:41
Hi, sorry, the link was about dual-core so I thought the LE-1640 was a dual-core. Have you tried the MSS fan add-in by Alex Kuretz for your heat issues ? You can set it to keep the temp a few degrees cooler. http://www.whsplus.com/2009/04/07/mss-fan-control/
As you wrote, moving it to the basement will help.
Maybe it’s shutting down over night if you have the backup running at night, and the added CPU cycle is causing the temp to go up.
June 29th, 2009 on 19:46
Yes, I’ve actually installed the MSS fan add-in today and upped the fan speeds. So far today I’ve had no shutdowns, yesterday was awful with several shutdowns during the day and night. If it survives the night as well then I’ll have to live with the added noise until I get network in the basement and can move the server down.
According to the event viewer in windows the server stopped responding (not shuttdown down, just hangs and there are no more entries in the log until I reboot). This happened about 02:41 at night at which the backups are done long ago (they start at 22 and only takes about an hour or so).