HPE Proliant MicroServer Gen10

HPE Proliant MicroServer Gen10

Issues

• Does not properly handle brownouts - Gets stuck with flashing amber power LED and won't boot properly until manually power cycled
• Possibly not enough power to run 5 HDDs -- seems very unstable
• Doesn't handle hot swapping drives ???
• No IPMI for out of band management
• No serial port for console access
• No per-drive power / activity LEDs
• No door for the drive bays, need to remove the front bezel to get to the drives
• I/O errors on SATA drives and/or they drop off the bus / become inaccessible, apparently due to buggy Marvell 88SE9230 SATA controller
  • Workaround: Add 'iommu=pt' to the Linux kernel parameters
  • See: https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/proxmox-cant-recognize-hdd-on-sata.60259/
  • See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1810239

Status

• Latest BIOS version (as of 2021-02-06 09:28:10 EST): ZA10A380 (13 Mar 2020)

Resources

• Manufacturer page
• Downloads

To Research

• There is a 6th SATA port traced on the motherboard (without the SATA plug) but only 5 show in the BIOS (4 front bay and 1 on the motherboard with SATA plug). Can the BIOS be hacked to enable the 6th SATA port?

Overview

• Expansion bays
  • 1 x media bay (Optional (1) DVD-RW or (1) SATA SSD)
• Drive bays
  • 4 x 3.5" SATA 6Gb/s via caddy-less drive bays (behind front cover) -- advertised as Non-hot plug SATA
  • 1 x on-board SATA port (for device in media bay)
• USB
  • Font: 2 x USB 3.0 ports (not blue for whatever reason)
  • Rear: 2 x USB 3.0 ports (not blue for whatever reason), 2 x USB 2.0 ports
  • 1 x on-board USB 2.0 port
• Network
  • Embedded Broadcom BCM5720 Dual Port Gbe LOM
• RAM
  • Type: DDR4 Unbuffered (UDIMM)
  • DIMM Slots: 2
  • Max RAM: 32GB (2 x 16GB) PC4-2400T DDR4 UDIMM ( DDr4-2400 )
• Display
  • 1 x VGA port
  • 2 x Display Ports 1.2
• Expansion Slots
  • 1 x PCIe3 x4 (1) (low-profile only in this chassis)
  • 1 x PCIe3 x8 (8, 4, 1) (low-profile only in this chassis)
• Fans
  • One (1) non-redundant system fan shipped standard -- not software controllable
• Misc
  • ACPI V5.0 Compliant
  • Slot for TPM (not included) -- HPE Trusted Platform Module (TPM) 2.0 kit 745823-B21
  • PCIe 3.0 Compliant
  • PXE Support
  • WOL Support
  • EMC Class B
  • LFF/SFF SATA connector on motherboard connects to backplane for 4 x HDDs
  • Hard drive screws: 4 x per drive = 16
  • Front bezel lock/unlock indicators
  • Power on/Standby button and system power LED
  • Health LED
  • NIC status LED
  • Drive activity LED ( single, not per-drive )
• Management
  • BMC / IPMI / iLO: NO

Devices

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Root Complex
00:00.2 IOMMU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) I/O Memory Management Unit
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Wani [Radeon R5/R6/R7 Graphics] (rev 84)
00:01.1 Audio device: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Kabini HDMI/DP Audio
00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Host Bridge
00:02.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Root Port
00:02.5 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Root Port
00:03.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Host Bridge
00:08.0 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Carrizo Platform Security Processor
00:09.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Carrizo Audio Dummy Host Bridge
00:10.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller (rev 20)
00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [AHCI mode] (rev 49)
00:12.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 49)
00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 4a)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 11)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Function 0
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Function 1
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Function 2
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Function 3
00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Function 4
00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 15h (Models 60h-6fh) Processor Function 5
01:00.0 SATA controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88SE9230 PCIe SATA 6Gb/s Controller (rev 11)
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM5720 2-port Gigabit Ethernet PCIe
02:00.1 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Inc. and subsidiaries NetXtreme BCM5720 2-port Gigabit Ethernet PCIe

Drivers

• ahci
  AHCI SATA low-level driver
• amdgpu
  AMD GPU
• ehci-pci
• fam15h_power
  AMD Family 15h CPU processor power monitor
• k10temp
  AMD Family 10h+ CPU core temperature monitor
• pcieport
• piix4_smbus
• snd_hda_intel
  Intel HDA driver
• tg3
  Broadcom Tigon3 ethernet driver
• xhci_hcd

lm_sensors found the following:

k10temp-pci-00c3
Adapter: PCI adapter
temp1:        +23.0°C  (high = +70.0°C)
                       (crit = +100.0°C, hyst = +99.0°C)

amdgpu-pci-0008
Adapter: PCI adapter
vddgfx:      750.00 mV 
vddnb:       875.00 mV 
edge:         +23.0°C  (crit =  +1.0°C, hyst = -273.1°C)

fam15h_power-pci-00c4
Adapter: PCI adapter
power1:       21.27 mW (avg =   2.27 mW, interval =   0.01 s)
                       (crit =  15.00 W)

Not that impressive, but not bad.

Potential Upgrade Parts List

• HPE 8 GB (1x8GB) Single Rank x8 DDR4-2400 CAS-17-17-17 Unbuffered Standard Memory Kit 862974-B21
• HPE 16 GB (1x16GB) Dual Rank x8 DDR4-2400 CAS-17-17-17 Unbuffered Standard Memory Kit 862976-B21
• HPE Ethernet 10Gb 2-port 521T Adapter 867707-B21
• HPE Trusted Platform Module 2.0 Kit 745823-B21
• LSI 9200-8E - for connecting to external storage enclosures
• ICY Dock MB411SPO-1B - HDD Hot-Swap SATA Mobile Rack for 12.7mm Slim CD/DVD-ROM Optical Bay (Fits 12.7mm height ODD Slot)
  • Uses SATA port
• 1 x ICY Dock ToughArmor MB852M2PO-B - Dual hot swap NVME in slim ODD bay
  • Needs PCI Express card with 2 x Oculink (SFF-8612)
• 2 x ICY Dock ToughArmor MB840M2P-B - M.2 NVMe SSD to PCIe 3.0 x4 Drive Bay Adapter

My Model

My system has:

• CPU: AMD Opteron™ X3421 Processor (2.1-3.4GHz/4 compute cores/8 graphic cores/2MB/12-35W) -- See on cpu-world or the useless marketing page
  • CPU Core Count - 4
  • CPU Core Frequency (Base – Max Boost) - 2.1 – 3.4 GHz
  • GPU CU Count - 8
  • GPU Frequency (Max) - 800 MHz
  • cTDP Range - 12-35W
  • Max DDR4 Speed - 2400 MHz
  • L2 Cache - 2MB
  • MMX instructions
  • Extensions to MMX
  • SSE / Streaming SIMD Extensions
  • SSE2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 2
  • SSE3 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
  • SSSE3 / Supplemental Streaming SIMD Extensions 3
  • SSE4 / SSE4.1 + SSE4.2 / Streaming SIMD Extensions 4  ?
  • SSE4a  ?
  • AES / Advanced Encryption Standard instructions
  • AVX / Advanced Vector Extensions
  • AVX2 / Advanced Vector Extensions 2.0
  • BMI / BMI1 + BMI2 / Bit Manipulation instructions
  • F16C / 16-bit Floating-Point conversion instructions
  • FMA3 / 3-operand Fused Multiply-Add instructions
  • FMA4 / 4-operand Fused Multiply-Add instructions
  • XOP / eXtended Operations instructions
  • AMD64 / AMD 64-bit technology  ?
  • AMD-V / AMD Virtualization technology
  • Supports IOMMU (via AMD-Vi [amd_iommu])
  • The processor supports configurable TDP in the 12 Watt - 35 Watt range
  • The CPU is compatible with DirectX 12 API.
  • Turbo Core 3.0 technology
• RAM: 8 GB

Resources

• Marketing: https://buy.hpe.com/us/en/servers/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/proliant-microserver/hpe-proliant-microserver-gen10/p/1009955118
• Support: https://support.hpe.com/hpesc/public/km/product/1009955119/Product#t=DriversandSoftware&sort=relevancy&layout=table&numberOfResults=25
• Misc: https://forum.openmediavault.org/index.php/Thread/19388-HP-microserver-Gen10/?pageNo=2
• User Manual: https://content.etilize.com/User-Manual/1046044075.pdf
• Specifications: https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=a00008701enw
• Storage Controller Specifications: https://h20195.www2.hpe.com/v2/Getdocument.aspx?docname=a00017196ENW