help needed with HP ProLiant ML350 G6

[jamofox]

help needed with HP ProLiant ML350 G6

hello.

i humbly turn towards you as i need help with already quite old server.

first ill tell you a little story about my situation. 

me and my family bought a house in last summer. nice and tidy and very comfortable house indeed. but then winter came and as our house is primarily heated with electricity, it made me think what a waste this is. lots and lots of electricity is wasted and i could run several very powerful computers with that energy and still get the same amount of heat out of them but as i dont have any use of that kind of power i started to look some work for my pc's. i found boinc. now many of you might already know about boinc. in short, it is a software where anyone in anywhere can donate computing power to the project they please. help cure aids, cancer, help developing clean energy. i thought this was the thing i was really looking for! good use for the electricity i spend! now im generating heat with couple of my pc's but its not even close enough. radiators are still wasting electricity so i started to look something which had some serious power. i found old ProLiant ML350 G6 and it was very cheap. only problem is, it has only one 4-core CPU with very low TDP. its something but this thing can do so much more.

and finally to my question. sorry about long story. i tried to make it as short as possible.

i want to upgrade my proliant to 2-cpu 6-cores each.

im also missing CPU2 memory, cooler and the fan which is supposed to come with CPU upgrade kit.

where can i get them and which is the cheapest option? i dont need much memory to run boinc. all i need is lots of threads and more power/thread the better.

as we dont have much money, donations are also welcome. if you have fitting parts for this project but dont need them anymore you are very welcome to send them to me.

also, i can easily accommondate another HP server or anything powerful enough and i think we still need to use radiators.

Sincerely

Jarmo

[Edwin Eppel]

For the CPU, you should visit the support page, enter the model number (Proliant ML350 G6) and then download the various manuals. They should contain a list of supported CPUs. Note that going from 1 to 2 CPUs is not trivial. Both must be identical and sometimes it requires a firmware update to run dual CPUs. The latest firmware usually requires a service contract with HP in order to download, so that is not always an option on older used systems. Your power supply must meet the minimum specs as well.

As for parts, if you can't afford new or the parts are out of stock, I recently purchased a used power supply, memory and spare hard drive for a ML350 G6 from Integrity Global Solutions located in Minnesota, USA. Prices were reasonable and all parts are tested. I would buy from them again.

[jamofox]

thank you for the tips. 

ivebeen studying manuals quite a bit and couple of things i still have in mind are:

im am not absolutely sure about the memory. does both CPU1 and CPU2 banks need memory in order to work with two cpus ?

im also going to try how pci-e GPU is going to work in it. is it possible to get the picture out of modern GPU in this machine ? it should have pci-e 8x in it so it should work in theory.

i will also change the OS in some point to win 7 and of course im going to try win 10 in it too. if im going to need any drivers, i believe its best to look latest windows server drivers?

[Edwin Eppel]

"im am not absolutely sure about the memory. does both CPU1 and CPU2 banks need memory in order to work with two cpus ?"

The System Board diagram lists them as "Processor 1 DIMM slots" and "Processor 2 DIMM slots" so I would think yes, both sets of DIMM slots need to be populated for 2 CPUs. (We are only running 1 CPU). Note that there is a specific order that the slots should be filled (see the Server User Guide, Memory Options section).

"im also going to try how pci-e GPU is going to work in it. is it possible to get the picture out of modern GPU in this machine ? it should have pci-e 8x in it so it should work in theory."

This can be tricky. Slot 4 is PCIe2 x16 but only supports up to 75W. You can go up to 150W with the 150W PCIe graphics controller power cable option, but you may have a difficult time finding the power cable. In addition, you need to check power supply requirements, especially if you are adding a second CPU and memory, taking into account how many hard drives will be attached. The system does support dual power supplies.

"i will also change the OS in some point to win 7 and of course im going to try win 10 in it too. if im going to need any drivers, i believe its best to look latest windows server drivers?"

I doubt that you will find Windows 10 drivers for a 5 year old Proliant. Bear in mind that these are server systems, not desktops. You will need the appropriate OS especially if you want to make use of the RAID controller. HP has a server matrix for determining what OS are supported:
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/products/servers/management/operating-environments/os-support-matrix.html

HP officially supports only Server versions of Windows on the ML series. Any other OS and you are on your own.

[brodbobot]

Since this is a retired product, you can probably get some of the parts a lot cheaper.

Please see attachment.

[AZWädi]

I know that I'm posting onto a year old thread but decided to make use of some extra time last week and recyle some parts and successfully used the ML350G6 with 64GB ECC RAM as a powerful desktop with very minimal fan noise ( it lies just inches away from my own bed 24x7 ).

[AZWädi]

Attaching more images

[AZWädi]

And finally:

PCI-e GT610 Passive 35W ( Dual Screen 21" and 32" displays, HDMI Audio is also great )

Aureon Dual USB Audio Adaper ( I am using TOSlink for it )

Renesas USB 3.0 card ( no ext. power required though socket is on the card ) - card still works great.

Multi Card Reader

1TB 2.5" SAS to P410i - boot volume W10 x64

( I also tried Samsung EVO 840 120GB SSD to the onboard SATA II - perfect for me. This was then "ghosted" onto the SAS disk and with a bit of adjustments, the SAS drive now triple boots on its own )

The Oct 2016 SPP was applied. All drivers resolved within 3 days ( thanks to 3DpCHIP ) and even got the ILO2 going.

I am mainly running Win 10 x64 Insider Preview ( very latest ), with an emulator for WhatsApp ( MeMU ), VMware Workstation 12 with a couple of VMs ) and Office 2013 x64.

So yes, it is possible to use an ML350G6 of 2009 today in 2017 as a full desktop with no issues whatsoever.

[Nemmasis]

Hello HPE World,

I am Nemmasis ; of NemmasisFullySteamed,

I added "Portal 2 " to my " Steam WishList " and landed HERE!!!  ;)

Amazing what happens when you add sence-of-humor to Tech! LOL!

Refreshing to see others are like mined about "OLD SERVERS" and a better way to recycle is to filter down to Gamers and ventures into thoughs of us on SSDI Disability achive goals where no sence-of-humor has gone before.. My first system build was a TRS-80 then 286 then 386 then 486sx...upgraded to 486DX-100 sold to "Joe the Mason" next door he said I made "Faster than his IBM Pent. (kool! Right! ) Now have 9 total Servers; most HP, re: ML350 g6, 2x xeon 5620, Kingston R 4gb = 32 Gb Total XFX R7 240 Radeon W/Hypermem capable , 3 SAS 72gb Raid0 Win7 Ulimate Boot Drive., And 2Tb Seagate Constillation Enterprise Sata, for storage. can't wait for compatable HDD's for my WD DX 4000 NAS. ; 2 Noblis Socket 1366 x2 Servers are yet to be set up. as well as my 3 ML350 G5's; I need to learn Linux and Load Balance Clusters with ALL GPL Type Licence. Any Help here as to best way Forward. Also ??? Pci-e x8 Slot cut plastic on back of slot, plug Pci-e x16 in = GPU Server  Sli/Crossfire (up to PSU limit) (slot power requirements) True/False?