Compatible Xeon CPUs for my 4x Proliant ML10 v2 servers

[Nessy1958]

Dear all

First post - so apologies in advance if this 'cry for help' is in the wrong place, or has broken some sort of rule.... 

I'd like to upgrade my 4x HP micro servers to use one of these Xeon CPUs...

• E3 1246 v3
• E3 1265L v3
• E3 1275 v3
• E3 1276 v3
• E3 1271 v3  (* no integrated GPU with this model CPU)
  
  

Is there any reason why any of these CPUs will not work in the ML10 v2?
If a CPU will not work, what is the reason why it would not work??

I have not been able to find a full and definitive 'white list' that tells me what is / is NOT compatible and suitable for the ML10 v2

Many thanks in advance for you help & support.
regards

Pete

[Sjoerd69]

Any of those should work fine...

Look for 1150 socket and

E3-12x1 v3 for CPU's with no GPU, and

E3-12x6 v3 for CPU's with GPU

They should all work with the ML10 v2. You just have to look at price, cores, and hyper-threading...

E3-1231 v3 seems to be a popular choice at good performance vs price point, if you don't need the GPU.

[returnofcompaq]

They don't all work

Going by the advice from HPE we tried Xeon E3-1220L v3.

It did not work.

However, Pentium G3240T and G3250T, i5-4570S, i7-4790T and many others not listed on the compatibility list work fine. 

What about all the Xeon E3 V4 and V5 socket 1150 CPUs?

Now many vendors advertise claims like "Single socket H3 (LGA 1150) supports Intel® Xeon® E3-1200 v3/v4, 4th/5th gen. Core i7/i5/i3 processors" with i210-based Haswell boards.

Why is HP not adding these processors with BIOS updates or at least clarifying vague claims? It is impossible to find any clear infor, esp considering so much is now so buried under legal poultice inside the hpe.com site.  There are now likely many other CPUs that could run in the ML10v2 board- as other boards that run these CPUs can.  It seems HP is only doing security updates for hardware now.

[ucliker]

I am surprised that the Intel Xeon E3-1220L V3 didn't work in your Ml10 V2. I know its a low power CPU but most ship with the E3-1220 v3. I am currently running an E3-1245 v3 in my ML10 v2.

[leighG]

Can you confirm that the i5-45470S will work in a ML10V2? I do have access to one of those. Will it be better than the G3240?

[bmucklow]

Does anyone have a definitive document from HPE of supported processors by the HP Proliant ML10 V2? Mine came with the i3-4150 and I'd like to upgrade it to a Xeon.

The best document I can find is this list but it lists the E3-1220v3 but a previous poster said they tried the 1220v3 but it did not work. https://support.hpe.com/hpsc/doc/public/display?docId=emr_na-c04619142

I found a really good deal on a Xeon E3-1220 but its not the v3 version and like to find a definitive answer before buying a new processor.

[returnofcompaq]

I was too confused by the compatibility claims also. HPE and its vendors claim compatibility across CPU families and sockets when you are buying their servers.  Intel started it, but it is lazy: Using families and design codenames is just tech shorthand and is bad practice.  The definitions of these change over time (and only the engineers really know the latest definition), so using it in documentation is madness as it goes out of date once intel add new cpu models.  These new models have invariably had features shoe-horned in, often around efficiency, and thus break the previous assumed limits/conventions. 

The reality is HPE never cared to be more specific, so their customer facing staff adn others trying to help can't answer basic questions about it.  All you get is obscure links to long pdfs that only touch on your query.  This is the way it has been for years, ever since the Gen8 machines.  I mean come on, its been 6 years and still noone can tell anyone else what works in these things other than a few models of cpu that actually came with them.

As of end of 2018, HPE still hasn't relased a BIOS that will work with E3-1220L v3 or any of the other L series CPUs.  It'd be great if the first person to try a E3-1240L v3, and a 1265L v3 would post their experience here.  It may be that L versions aren't supported in the cpu settings, or just some voltages used by some models added to the E3 v3 family later on. Eg the 1265L the 1268 and 1275L, 1276 and 1280, 1286? Eg the faster and later ones?  I am pretty sure the ones above 1220L v3 will work as they don't use its super low voltages.

Many i3, i5 and i7s will work.  The people that design the board would know exactly what should work, and what won't.   The community could then verify these if HPE can't be bothered to support its enterprise kit properly.  Anyhow, I'll put together a list and put it up so people have something to actually work off

[returnofcompaq]

Re E3-12xx and E3 12xx v2:
I am pretty sure v2 and earlier will not work- they work in 'Gen 9' machines only, IIRC.

I know Pentium G3240, G3240T, G3250T work in ML10v2.

Most E3-12xx v3 will work, so 1220, 1225, 1230, 1231, 1240, 1241, 1260, 1265, 1268, 1270, 1271, 1275, 1276, 1280, 1286 (not tested) Just not sure about the L series and some of the last ones Intel made.  EDIT (See below, the 15W E3-1220Lv3 is now verified working)

The same gen i3, i5, i7, eg i3 4150, i5 4570S, i7 4770T, i7 4790T - these we know work fine But be sure to make sure the thermal output of the cpu can be taken care of by the heatsink and fan you use.

Don't ask me if any E3-12xx v4 will work, I don't know

Note: When changing out the CPU, always add up the total current draw of your configuration, the power supply is only small (350W standard), so be careful if you have a >65W cpu and more than 2 disks.

Oh yes, and the rear case fan is small and fast as they tunnelled its drawy through the cpu heatsink to get rid of  the cpu fan. It is quite noisey and there is no way in the BIOS to reduce it enough for office or home use.  From what I can see, it needs better cooling solution if you go above a 65W cpu too. And if you want the CPU to be certified by HPE, few of the above are, or aren't. LOL.

If you want vmware certified, I think they all are.  But that doesn't mean they've been tested in combination with an ML10v2, so there are no guarantees that means your chosen cpu/system combination will actually work, AFAIK.

[paganig]

I am running a xeon e3-1220L v3 in my ML 10 v2 without issues

with server idling @room temperature 20C cpu runs at 40C fan 12% (chipset at 44C for comparison)

ilo 2.61, SPS Firmware 3.0.5.80.C, system ROM J10 (02/02/2015)

[returnofcompaq]

Interesting, are you running the standard unbufferred ECC DIMMs for this machine, or have you used something else?

I tried it with a E3-1220L v3 some time back, and it didn't startup at all.

[returnofcompaq]

Thanks for posting @paganig.  You prompted me to try again, so can confirm E3-1220L v3 came up fine on the J10 (21/5/2018) BIOS too.  Previusly I may have used an earlier BIOS, or simply not waited for the multiple boot cycles to sucessfully get past HP's on/off again POST routine. 

So we can be fairly sure that other low voltage v3 Xeons (1230L, 1240L, 1265L) will work too.

Will be interesting to see how much quieter the system fan to a low throughput one and see how noisey it is under load.  I may be tmepted to downgrade the fan to one that shifts less air and is less noisey, as now the thermal loading will be up to 55W lower than it was designed for.

I'm using 240pin unbuffered ECC modules:
2x4GB HP DDR3 and
1x Kingston KVR16E11/8i, single 1x8GB (DDR3L), and the original
1x4GB HP PC3-12800 UDIMM the ML10 came with. 

A hotch potch, but all reliable sticks so for the moment, using the memory I have

[DKtucson]

Sorry to necro a somewhat older thread but I too am looking to go from the base model i3 to a xeon E3-1220v3. Should these be "plug & play" or was a bios upgrade needed? My current bios is BIOS: HP J10 02/02/2015

[returnofcompaq]

Yes, the E3-1220 v3 is supported out of the box on all BIOS versions, and on J10 our experience is that you can choose pretty much any of the E3 series.  Not sure about E3-1284Lv3 and 1286Lv3, but HPE says the E3 family is supported.

[CSS99]

Another apology for bringing an old thread back to live but I also have an ML10 v2 that's still running with the stock i3-4150. I'm doing more video transcoding on it than I had previously and there are so many used Xeons on ebay for cheap I'd like to see if I can get just a bit more horsepower out of this thing (ideally also with support for Plex's GPU-based transcoding as well).

I'm on the J10 BIOS already. And since I'm not really clear on all the "generations" of this, the product ID is 835266-P01 (product name ProLiant ML10 v2), just to be sure I've got the same model mentioned in this thread...

Basically can anything with built-in graphics here work on this server at this point?

https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/series/78581/intel-xeon-processor-e3-v3-family.html

Power consumption isn't a huge issue for me, but maybe avoiding the 80W+ TDPs would be a good idea I suppose (this already has 6 HDs and 2 SSDs on the stock PSU, it draws around 150W going full-bore according to my UPS).