MicroServer N40L (N36L) no sleepmode ACPI S1 S3 in BIOS

[JeromeP]

I have an new HP Proliant MicroServer N40L ( new model after the N36L).

It seems it doesn't support sleepmodes (S1 S3) in the bios, even the newest one I flashed.

I want to use it privately with WHS2011 and not 24H on, but in S3 when the server isn't in use.

There is hibernation-suspend but that takes a long time to "reboot".

Will HP work on a bios that enables sleepmode ACPI S3?

Any other suggestions?  

[SealedAirNZDS]

I'm in exactly the same boat. I've used the original Windows Home Server on a custom build since it was in beta, and decided to upgrade to an N40L running WHS 2011 two weeks ago. I was thrilled with the build quality and general set-up of the N40L but with the nasty revelation that it doesn't support S3 sleep/standby my happiness with it has taken a nose-dive. 

I don't understand why HP are refusing to implement this. As far as I can see the chipset and CPU support the various sleep states just fine, so it's only the HP BIOS that's causing the issue. With a fairly simple BIOS revision the Proliant Microserver could be pretty much the perfect WHS hardware; affordable, economical and quiet.

The only thing I can suggest is that all N36L and N40L customers lodge this as a support fault and keep complaining until it's fixed. I bought the N40L as a replacement for an IBM M-Pro Intellistation, which sleeps and wakes just fine and is nearly a decade old. For new hardware to not support a standard chipset feature is inexcusable, particularly one designed to save power.

[SealedAirNZDS]

I'm creating a support ticket for this issue at the moment, but a colleague has just raised an interesting point. HP claim (http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/energy_star.html) that it "has the world's first Energy Star qualified servers" , which is odd as a) this is a server and b) according to the Energy Star site (http://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/revisions/downloads/computer/Industry_Low_Power_WOL_Slides.pdf?84c8-ee52) and another document from Dell's site (http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/optix/EnergStar5.0_SpecSheet.pdf) "

Energy Star 3.0 criteria:
- Enter sleep mode
(S3) after 30 minutes of
inactivity
- If shipped with network
capability, shall sleep on
networks and respond to

wake events"

So I read that as S3 is mandated to be classed as EnergyStar compliant. All of which doesn't reflect well on HP if they want to claim to be 'green' and energy-saving. We'll see what they come back with.

[SealedAirNZDS]

My support case is still in progress with HP Support (which is vaguely hopeful) but in the meantime I've at least managed to get the MicroServer to hibernate when not being actively used. Opening an admin-level command prompt in WHS 2011 and typing 'powercfg -h on' enables hibernation, which was then available as an option to Lights-Out. It's good from the point of view of my electricity bill, but hibernate does have the drawback of being rather slow to go to or boot back up from.

I've also found a bios modding site where there's active work creating a home-brew bios release that might allow sleep, but there's no real results so far and, even if there were, I'd be reluctant to risk my new box on an unsupported bios release.

[JeromeP]

You shouldn't feel to hopeful because I filed a ticket in October and had a chat with no effective results. Maybe when we all stalk HP they will do something. There was an online petition (for the N36L etc.) for this but I can’t remember the site. Hibernation works very well with LightsOut and is running here for months without a problem and serving 6 computers. S3 however gives a much better response when a client wakes up the server. It’s a pity HP won’t cooperate yet.