Compaq Prosignia 300

[Court Nederveld]

I have a prosignia 300 that was pulled out of service. Is there compatible boards, cpu's etc that might move this server into the 21st century or is this perhaps beyond salvage? Currently the only use I might have for it is as a file server but it currently only has a
1 gig drive in it and a 90 mhz processor. Any suggestions for upgrades, usage or anything else before it joins the dustbin of history?

[Imad]

The max. that this server can take is a 90MHZ processor, so as you said earlier, join it to the dustbin of history.

If you need more info about this server please go to :

http://h71025.www7.hp.com/support/reference_library/viewreferencelibrary.asp?countrycode=1000&catid=750&famid=5367&prodid=227|ProSignia+300

Regards,

[Ernest Ford]

Depending on what you want to use it for - it can be upgraded. However you'll have to determine for yourself if the upgrades are cost effective - eBay helps!

I haven't found a way around the 208Mb RAM limit, but a PowerLeap processor upgrade will get you up to roughly 360MHz, and you can stick an Adaptec 2940UW host adapter into one of the PCI slots and hang whatever SCSI disks you can lay hands on in there. 3 bays x 36Gb will give you 108Gb of storage, Ultra160 drives will work.

[John Gill_1]

I have a Prosignia 300, and it has a P-120 processor. Not much better, indeed. I have Linux installed, and works well as a utility server - files, DCHP, DNS, etc.

What was the overdrive processor mentioned ?

[John Gill_1]

I have a Prosignia 300, and it has a P-120 processor. Not much better, indeed. I have Linux installed, and works well as a utility server - files, DCHP, DNS, etc.

Oh, did I mentioned I bought it on EBay for $9.99 ?

What was the overdrive processor mentioned ?

[Ross Pettibone]

The max that this box came with was a Pentium 150 MHz - and the RAM ofcourse 208MB. Mine has a DAT tape drive. I picked up a 4.3 GB Seagate Barracuda used for $25.00 - if you want to get fancy follow the other advise about the Adaptec SCSI controller card as the SCSI-2 drives are harder to find - but cheap!! Also: You'll never guess what O/S my Prosignia is running - Yep Windows 2000. Works just fine and easier to live with than NT 4 Server which I've installed on my other Server - and yepp - they are cheap on Ebay (I bought one there for less than the cost of shipping - and one in town for $175 bucks). Compaq built them for heavy use - and their quality isn't found in todays PCs. Throw a PCI video card into it and you can run whatever you want on a cheap monitor!

[Ernest Ford]

The PowerLeap upgrade that I used was the PLProMMXPlus, which is essentially an AMD-K6/II sitting on top of a voltage regulator/socket adapter card that get's its power from a diskette drive connector.

End result - a 360MHz Prosignia server - mine runs Win2K Server, along with 208Mb RAM and 2 x 9GB Ultra160 drives.

[P Creighton]

Hello I as well have Compaq Prosignia 300 with overdrive on and max out ram that has come out of service has raid 5 with 3 3gig drives,
I am trying to install W2000 pro, can get boot to CD however when I get to install it says I have no hard drive, please advise what am I missing - I believe it must be an old scsi card driver any suggestions on where I can find them?
or what type I need

[Ernest Ford]

A Prosignia 300 with RAID & W2KPro? That's gonna be a real fun install!

Essentially the problem you're looking at is that Compaq doesn't make the W2K RAID drivers available for download because MS includes them with the OS, BUT MS doesn't put the RAID drivers on the W2KPro CD only on the server CD.

Also Compaq never approved W2K anything on the Prosignia 300.

Although it's theoretically possible to copy the drivers off a W2K server CD to a diskette and add the appropriate .inf file to make it work at the F6 prompt, I've never tried and don't know anyone who has - my suggestion, unless you specifically need RAID - is to pull the array controller out, and connect the drives to the integrated SCSI controller. The W2KPro install should see that without a problem.

[P Creighton]

Thannk you

I tried win2000 server and it did not pick up the scsi raid either says it finds no storage device, Perhaps if I try with NT4 server and an upgrade, I ran it in operations as an Nt4 exchange server for years and it worked fine.

[Ernest Ford]

Are you using a Compaq RAID controller?

[P Creighton]

No, I did a little more research (open up the case) it is Adaptec AAA-131B not supported beyone Window NT4 according to Adpatec website.

I will have to decide to pull the card as previously suggested ditch the raid drive. Or find the Adaptec Array 1000 Family Mannager Set driver diskettes and reinstall with NT4.

Unless someone else has a suggestion that doesn't include spending much money

[P Creighton]

okay so here is what I did changed the Raid /Adaptec from A133 that does not support beyond NT4, went with Adaptec 2940 gave up the Hardware Raid installed W2000 Pro - have not decided to go with software raid or just use as 3 seperate harddrives.

Regards

[Ernest Ford]

Are you using 50pin (8bit or narrow SCSI) or 68pin (16bit or wide SCSI) drives? If you have the narrow SCSI, you might as well stick with the onboard SCSI, the 2940 won't give you any increase in performance.

I would also suggest that you avoid software RAID (striping with parity) it puts a tremendous load on the processor.

[P Creighton]

68pin (Ultra 2 Connector) drives? will this not any increase in performance?

I did change my mind on the RAID 5 software for that reason.

I believe now that the system done, it is time to donate to the local Church

[Ernest Ford]

If you DO have 68pin - wide SCSI drives, then you DO need an additional SCSI host adapter - the onboard SCSI only supports 50 pin, and yes, it does double the throughput to give you increased performance