Is there any way to get a ProLiant 800 PPro server to recognize OverDrive?

[Bruce Carney]

Apparently, it claims not to support the 512k cache, but there doesn't seem to be good reason. Similar board in ProLiant 2500 accepts them fine. Thank you, Bruce

[Bruce Carney]

Is there a BIOS work-around?

[JohnWRuffo · Accepted solution]

I have several 800 series servers running dual Intel PPro 200 /512 cache chips. I know it will init the processors and use the 512 cache. As far as overdrive chips... I dont know. Be sure to have the latest bios installed:
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/locate/20_1131.html#4

G'luck!

[Bruce Carney]

Have latest BIOS for my P02. Tried using the others, but they are incompatible. There's nothing on the case diagram that says there's a switch for cache size, just CPU speed. I found the combination that sets it to 333MHz, but it still complains unsupported. Something must be in BIOS about stepping for cpu family?

[JohnWRuffo]

Oh yes... very much so. You can't mix and match the steppings. If you do and it "does" boot, I am aware of folks who have seen them "Black Screen" in the middle of operations.

[Bruce Carney]

I meant, the fact that the Overdrive CPU is actually a P2 rather than PPro. They're a matched pair, but there's gotta be something to get this board to recognize them. I've gotten a 2500 to, a SuperMicro dually, even an AMI Merlin board, which Intel's site says has incompatible BIOS.

[JohnWRuffo]

Bruce:

Check out this thread:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=292926

Interesting...

[Bruce Carney]

That is interesting, but the Proliant 800 simply says System Halted. No option to press F1, or anything else, to continue. So weird, because they do support PPros with 512K cache and they do support 333MHz. Anyone know how to massage a BIOS file to remove this restriction?

[Dallas Widing]

Bruce,

I had a similar situation about 2 years ago -contacted Compaq Support - NO GO.

There is no updated bios or no DIP Switches that can be set.

How -ever - if you have access to a 2500 - it may work as I did have a 2500 overclocked to 300 on PPro200 Chips.

Good Luck.