Back in time - HP servers all generations G1 to Gen9 (PWJ89)

[@WalterFabian]

Excellent as usual. The comparison is really interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[@miner49er39]

HEH brings back memories... i started out with the HP LH II and have had every generation server since... threw all my old ones out tho ! thanks for the video Joe

[@PlaywithJunk]

Ouuhh... the HP Netservers! I'm so glad that HP has given up that product line in favour of the Compaq Proliants. The Netservers were pretty unreliable. Many problems with that labyrinth of connectors. But they were easy to fix....

[@TodorTashev]

I watched the video end-to-end. That is such a wonderful review of all HP/HPE DL380 Servers. I haven't seen anyone else putting all this information together. Thank you very much for all the time and effort that you put to compile all of the information in one video. Great stuff!

[@PlaywithJunk]

Thank you for watching the whole video 🙂

[@matthewghali2987]

Other interesting changes.. Disappearing floppy drive Appearance of the UID button Cdrom to dvd to dvd-rw(?) Onboard ethernet: 10/100 to gigabit PCI slots, PCIe appearing, PCI disappearing On-board solid state boot- was there CF before SD? Loved the series! Never stopped to think of how long these guys have been around, making me wait for them to POST :)

[@gjnieuwenhuis2440]

Matthew Ghali Don’t forget the evolution from the old RIB boards to the onboard ILO. There was actually a predecessor to the DL380 but I’d have to check which ProLiant model that was again.

[@stevec00ps]

Ah love it - worked on all of these over the years :)

[@RyanSchweitzer77]

Being a service tech who works with HP (now HPE, or HP Enterprise) and other makes of servers (especially the HPE DL360 and 380 machines), this is fascinating to see the evolution of the DL360 servers over the years. (Just replaced a motherboard and CPU on a DL360 Gen10, the newest model, earlier this week! :) ) At 58:43, I've replaced a few battery modules like those for customers, (mainly due to age, most of them were over 4 years old and simply worn out), they're basically 2 18650-type Li-Ion cells and a circuit board to control the batteries' charge and discharge. But HPE's ML310 desktop-case-style servers still use the supercapacitor packs for their disk controllers--I've had to replace a handful of these as well (they had a few years on them as well), and all of them that failed have the tell-tale bulging tops that failed caps have. Thanks for making this video, this is quite interesting to watch!

[@ChipGuy]

Congratulations to 10K subs. Wow! Always interesting to watch!

[@--Zook--]

Very cool, its interesting that the servers get bigger while components get smaller. Loved seeing the old compaq stuff.

[@tad2021]

The HPE splitoff has been such a headache. Couple years later and they are still lots of dead links on HPE the point to failed redirects on HP.

[@imeakdo7]

Archive.org is your friend

[@brunoleonardo3315]

Pretty nice video! I think the PSU issue on G5's are mostly because of the bad airflow design - CPU's hot air get blown directly into the PSU's air intakes. Considering the chassis can work with some pretty hot chips (up to 120W), things inside the PSU should've become quite toasty under heavy loads.

[@SaberusTerras]

And the original PSUs didn't have caps rated for that heat. PSUs with the orange dot on the label were refitted or redesigned to use higher temp rated caps that could stand up to the heat.

[@techstuff7414]

I love the Gen8 servers. I've got a whole rack full of them at home. They're old enough that they don't cost much to buy, but new enough that they're still fairly powerful and support newer technology like HTML5 remote console. And best of all, there's a hacked iLO4 firmware which lets you manually tweak the fan speed curves. After a bit of work you can get a DL380 Gen8 to be close to silent while idling.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Gen8 servers are great. They only have one big problem.... the failing of the iLO flash chip that contains logfiles and Intelligent Provisioning software. This is also a problem on Gen9. The good news is that the server will run perfectly when the chip failed, just iLO and Int.Prov. will not work anymore. G5 were notorious for failed power supplies. So the most reliable HP servers are G1 to G4 and G6 + G7. Gen10 is still crap... they can't get the firmware issues fixed.

[@TheSeanUhTron]

25:50 - I've only worked on G6's. I'm willing to bet that the issue with the PSU's overheating is due to the fact that hot air from the CPU's is being blown directly into the PSU's. The G6's have the CPU's center mounted, so their air goes towards the rear exhaust rather than through the PSU's.

[@davidplaster4576]

I remember the G1, ran that at home back in 2002. It was my main file server for documents, print sharing, and music/movies. God I remember those days setting it up, how times have changed. Now I have been rocking the Dell Poweredge 2950 Gen 3 for the last 5 years doing a whole lot more. Both of these servers have been rock solid, running 24/7, and not a single issue.

[@ximenoworks]

I still have my Compaq DL380 G1 that I purchased it for $20. back in 2003. It had 2 1gig CPU and I dont remember as the other stuff at this moment but what I can say is that I had to retire the very reliable machine because of software. The OS that I had installed on it was Mandrake (Linux) and quickly found that the fans are software controlled. Back then Linux was not as supported as it is now. Found the fan program and went on from there. I had a 14 bay storage array hooked up to it at the end.

[@rakmanyt]

dy was HP's R&D group, and there were several products sold with the dy logo. Some computer related, but mostly instrumentation. I forgot to add the group's name was dymec

[@PlaywithJunk]

I have seen voltmeters with dy logo and was surprised that this actually exists. I thought this was a joke...

[@jw5031]

Cool video man! Thank you for uploading this!

[@rabidbigdog]

Great vid! Changes from parallel PCI to serial PCIe I think during G5 -> G6. Also the G9's missing the diag panel annoys me, but we don't use it much I guess.

[@user-tc2ky6fg2o]

G5 already has the PCIe by default, but you could even order a PCIe riser (cage) for the G4 (and probably PCI for G5 exists as well)

[@GutnarmEVE]

picking up a gen5 for my home lab next week - this video gave me a really good perspective of what mess i'm getting myself into ^.^

[@robertthomas5906]

The Gen 5 is starting to age out now. I've had two since 2012 and vmware won't let me upgrade anymore because of the CPU. RHEL 8 doesn't like the raid either. Very good machines. They just run. I think I've blown one power supply and one 300 GB disk. No sweat, replacement and it never missed a beat. For RHEL 8 you can get a driver from elrepo.

[@victorbart]

Nice video and overview!! I really want a DL380 gen1 for in my rack! Maybe a gen2 also and skip gen5. But gen 6 or 7 is really interesting to pick up for cheap 😃

[@robrocksea]

What are Old Gen 2 '$' vs Gen 6 '$' vs Gen 7 '$' on used market today?

[@stevec00ps]

Oh I've just had flash backs of horrific complex rail kits from the early models. So much better now.

[@douro20]

iLO is like AMT on steroids; it uses an FPGA to allow it to monitor and control everything on the system board. It even handles system graphics if there is no dedicated video card connected, and it has a built-in DSP which encrypts the video stream over the Ethernet port using AES.

[@brunoleonardo3315]

iLO (or Dell's iDRAC) is a IPMI (industry standard) implementation. Most server-grade motherboards come equipped with it. From the many features they have, the remote KVM is one of the greatest of them, allowing you to have a console that is accessible even on a hung system and power/reboot options. Some of the manufacturers even add ISO mounting capability so you can use a utility disk to check up or redeploy from a clean image.

[@PlaywithJunk]

That's right but you need an iLO Advanced license to use the remote KVM console. At least on the normal servers. Blade servers have that feature enabled by default or else it would not work with the OA.

[@tad2021]

Bruno, iLO is only a rebranded IPMI on some of the lowest end servers. Unless it changed in G9, iLO uses custom silicon.

[@rakmanyt]

@@PlaywithJunk If one of the ILO3 or 4 equipped servers has a license, you can copy it to any dl series

[@AmitChaudhry27]

congo on 10k subs man u really make awesome video with awesome stuff

[@MikeHarris1984]

one thing to point out - The RED tabs mean its "Hot Swappable", so you can repair without power down. Blue tabs mean that component needs to be power down before removal.

[@------country-boy-------]

kick ass video ! after watching this i think i will stay with Dell PowerEdge Servers!

[@PlaywithJunk]

haver you ever seen the old dell servers? not much better

[@Centar1964]

A 2.6 volt zener diode (1N5227) across each capacitor would fix the supercap problem (that was probably what was meant to be on that PC board but manufacture cheaped out) ...thanks for the info as I have a Gen8 in route to me right now... BTW> Awesome video...still waiting for a "Installing Centos 7 on a HP DL360e Gen8" video...;-)

[@PlaywithJunk]

Fun fact: On the capacitor PCB is unpopulated space for two resistors (or diodes). For some reason they decided not to use them...

[@mglmouser]

I have a DL380 Gen4! Well built. Still runs well. It's my home GIT and media server. Picked it up dirt cheap. Very noisy though. Wish all server hardware was that accessible. Would really love myself some Sun systems.

[@Phobeuscz]

I've also had one, used it for two years with ESXi and sell for twice more than I bought it :D

[@Rob2]

It also wastes a lot of power! you can cut your electricity usage at least to 1/4 by replacing it with a more modern server, or to 1/10 by replacing it with some NAS.

[@CobsTech]

45:53 Interesting on all of my G8's, none of them show this screen. Instead it's just a full screen HP logo which shows for a moment before disappearing and booting the OS. Wonder if it was removed in newer firmwares.

[@PlaywithJunk]

I have never seen another screen than this one. Maybe your servers have a custom logo? Have you tried to reset the BIOS settings to defaults? Or you simply have the oldest firmware ever... :-) You should update iLO firmware as well because below 2.60 it will kill the iLO flash chip due to excessive writing.

[@techstuff7414]

Funnily enough I've got multiple Gen8s, some of them show this screen and some show the full screen HP logo like yours. They all have the same BIOS and iLO version installed. No idea what the difference is...

[@seitenas]

The win2k shutdown on Gen1 server is probably due virus. There was a virus corrupting RPC service in windows back in the day, which caused that shutdown message.

[@PlaywithJunk]

That is possible. I remember when I set up a Windows2000 system and 1 minute after connecting to the internet it had that virus. Maybe I should install a Windows2003 or 2016 just for fun? :-)

[@brunoleonardo3315]

I thought the same when I saw it, but when he dragged the dialog up, you could see that the shutdown has been started by the server manager utility.

[@frankvanriet2963]

A pity he is missing the 'ancestor' of the DL380 : the Compaq ProLiant 1850R..

[@glenslick2774]

Dynac used an upside down HP logo. Look for images of the Dynac Model DY-2500 from 1956 on the net.

[@FoxMccloud42]

the new hp logo turn up side down looks like showing someone the middle finger.

[@count0nz]

Nice Video I have a HP DL380G7 here.. Sold my G5 to someone cheaply. Still a great server. just need to get 2nd cpu and more Ram + upgrade from 4 core to 6 core cpu's

[@djangoryffel5135]

Zu 30:00 gab es nicht, auch als SL Modelle verkauft, welche die die ganze Front mit SFF Slots belegt hatten, also auch das Infoteil weg.

[@arndpeter]

06:39 the box is open - causing the cooling issue

[@elektrokinesis4150]

I have a dl380 g5 in my closet, I used it as a PC for the longest time with 2x Xeon E5450 CPUs and 16GB of FBDIMM-5300 with a bank of SSDs and an SSD on a separate 6gb/s sata controller for the OS, and 2x Radeon RX-580 GPUs connected to it (one internal and one external :p)

[@arfurmo8844]

35:05 engines spooling up. ... 35:35 waiting for clearance, Clarence. ...

[@willemkossen]

Do you sell these types of servers or only disassemble? I might need to upgrade my server one day.

[@ChipGuy]

Gen 8: What are thos 10 pole Molex connectors on the riser cards for?

[@PlaywithJunk]

This is a power connector for PCI-e cards, for example a large video card. The same as a PC has.

[@cbrunnkvist]

G2->G3 do have some important 😅 differences aside from the screwless rail mounting mechanism and builtin iLO: on the front there’s a highly convenient USB slot!

[@Zuchtkatzendaddy]

Nice vid! I'd die to work with such old but fancy gear. Keep it up.

[@HuntersMoon78]

Some people loving looking under the hood of a car - me I love looking under the hood of a computer.

[@liliwinnt6]

11:50 two 1.4GHz processors, are they Tualatin Pentium 3?

[@PlaywithJunk]

Intel Pentium III FC-PGA2 1.40 GHz Processor (DL380 g2 Quickspecs)...Google

[@liliwinnt6]

@@PlaywithJunk yes they are tualatin processors, i like them

[@LellePrinter82]

Interesting video, I never liked the Generation 5 psu's. Because, as u said they overheat. I had a ML350 G5 tower, and one of the psu's failed because of overheating. The remaining psu did get awfully hot, I call that a poor construction with almost no air to flow through at all. I also have ML350 G6 tower, which I rarely use. These G6 psu's are so much better.

[@DanielRowe]

Very good video. Thanks.

[@opiniononion919]

My G7 got twin 1200W PSUs but that might be something they did since I got it used. (Also it draws apparently just 347W under full load)

[@PlaywithJunk]

You will only need a 1200W power supply when you add some GPUs, full memory and all possible hard disks...

[@FotatoPotato]

Hey @Play with Junk I love your videos so much and I was wondering where the heck you get all these machines from?! Everything on eBay is wayyyy to expensive to buy just to take apart and I don't even want to know how much shipping will cost. Thanks :)

[@TheSpatialTheory]

FotatoPotato he works for/owns a recycling company, he mentions this in one of his videos

[@PlaywithJunk]

Not recycling. We are in the maintenance business. Having all machines in stock for our customers and sometimes they stay there.... until we clean up.

[@hawkinssherpherd7869]

I have a DL380G6, bought in early 2016, still works fine.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Why not... G6 was a good machine. Better power supplies than the G5 which break down a lot becuase of excessive heat.

[@hawkinssherpherd7869]

@@PlaywithJunkIt just cost me 2000 RMB. With one E5645, 28G RAM(32G originally, one memory stick broken before I deploy it), one 72G SAS drive and one 1T SATA drive. A affordable machine for who wants a experiment platform.

[@chrisridesbicycles]

Interesting how the G9 starts to look like a normal PC again from the inside. I think the G1 is not that old since the PIII was introduced in 1999. Do you have this old machines around because customers are still using them or is it more a museum thing?

[@PlaywithJunk]

some because we still need them and some because nobody cleans up the basement (except me) :-)

[@cyberjack]

Very interesting..thank you

[@glenslick2774]

I have an HP Integrity rx2660 Server ia64 box. From the outside it almost identical to the DL380 G5. Probably at least use the same power supplies, and maybe the same fan assemblies. When I play with the rx2660 it really is playing with junk.

[@PlaywithJunk]

We have those too. Very complicated to repair because everything is licensed. You cannot add parts without code.

[@jamespriest7328]

God I miss seeing that 2000 load screen. 😥

[@dgoeloe]

"Noise generator generates noise" 🙏

[@PlaywithJunk]

Thank you! 🙂

[@eanhutchison9849]

On the Gen 9, is the RAID battery made up of two 18650 cells? It looks like it may be, which would be great if it needs to be replaced.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Yes it is. The problem here is that the electronics fails but not the battery cells. I tried to repair a few, the batteries were all good.

[@SaberusTerras]

Gen 9 made the move to system wide storage batteries to support multiple FBWC modules and NV-DIMMs.

[@phillipboucher4338]

Does anyone know how to read the post diag led's on the DL385 G6 as I have one with the critical error lamp on red ?

[@EliezarZ]

wow ! great video ! thx !!!!!

[@zaprodk]

Any info on why this series of servers is called '380'?

[@PlaywithJunk]

HP has different server families. The 100 series is a low cost PC like thing, 300 are midrange and it goes up to 900 with 8 processor machines. There are many models in the 300 series (320 360 385-AMD and some more)

[@NurdRage777]

I have two working G3 servers. Sucks that those are power hungry servers that make a load of sound.

[@someguy4915]

And only 32 bit, what could you possibly have that warrants those G3s? Loved them but man that's so many years ago.

[@muchosa1]

The 380 gen 1 didn't originally have LVD drives.

[@SaberusTerras]

I dealt with those card-edge 'butterfly' drives it used to have before the Universal Carrier U2/3/320. Such a pain to get both clips to disengage.

[@artisankatstudios7902]

I'm always considering buying a Proliant to use a s a normal desktop, but I am not sure about the fan noise. I heard that they can be slowed down via a resistor.

[@PlaywithJunk]

I would not recommend a server as desktop computer. The newer models are very silent but when CPU power is needed the will turn loud. The server also checks fan RPM, if you make them slower, the server will report errors and shut down.

[@PlaywithJunk]

This will not work. The fans are checked for speed and current consumption. And you need a certain amount of airflow or your server will overheat. This is not a PC!

[@artisankatstudios7902]

Yes, I had read that it would cause the machine to shutdown if the fan RPM fell below a certain level. Ah well. I am making some PCB wallets :D I will email you a photo when I am done.

[@douro20]

Lighter isn't always a good thing...

[@PlaywithJunk]

That's right, i think the Gen9 is already a bit flimsy.

[@martinmeyer6341]

cool Video!

[@hoddelkind]

I would have loved to see how the iLO has changed in Time

[@PlaywithJunk]

good idea! An idea for a future video....

[@Drforbin941]

Where do you get all this stuff?

[@djangoryffel5135]

Hab auch "noch" nen G5er rum liegen, aber mit 8*8 GB Modulen. Mag ja gar nicht erst wissen, wie viele Nieren man dafür damals abgeben hätte müssen...

[@gabest4]

Watching this on a Jade notebook!

[@theunitedfederationofgamer4697]

I like the generation 6,7,8 and 9 they look really cool

[@joanandkuharajasekaram6738]

Gen8/9/10 has bezel option, which were missing on the previous models. It looks sort of cool with the bezel.

[@rigglestad8479]

I can't stop laughing over the intro. Sub'd, alarm'd, upvote'd, the whole 9-yards. What is it with the German-speaking Welt and digging disassembly?

[@MsJinkerson]

I got one from e-waste and it burned out and I can't get another one because he band me for no reason I did a lot of things for him and gave him $300 pus

[@TonyAnytime]

Every generation gets louder too.

[@Sine1040]

Looking at stuff in the background ... You indeed have some Junk .... eeh I mean prehistoric stuff (Speaking in computer years) I know companies sometimes still use very old machines, but some of this stuff looks like it is from the early 90's, reliably as these machines are ... that must be getting problematic to keep running. If possible I would love a tour of the place ... looks like there is some interesting stuff there.

[@jamespriest7328]

@Elevating Computer I was manager for Walgreens and yes they do, so old, shitty and unsecure. For God sakes they use wep for the wireless.

[@joanandkuharajasekaram6738]

My biggest concern: The old server used way more energy compared to computing power. A Dell PE 2960 Gen1 uses around 300W and has less computational power compared to HPE 380 Gen9 with around 80W.

[@microcerto]

Compaq G1 is good times!

[@djangoryffel5135]

Irgendwie finde ich ja, dass die G6/G7 Front am schönsten aussieht, nur die neuen FestplattenCaddys sehen ab G8 hübscher aus.

[@benitoabreu4785]

Are you scrapping the Gen 8 server? If so, are you willing to donate/sell it to me? I'm willing to cover any and all costs to obtain it.

[@PlaywithJunk]

Ah.... no! Sorry but we still need the Gen8 servers. Many of them have problems with the onboard flash device now. We need spare parts :-)

[@benitoabreu4785]

Thank you anyways!

[@Centar1964]

Loaded HP DL360 Gen8's are $200-$300 on ebay shipped...

[@Agakir]

Our old HP servers had Alpha processors.

[@PlaywithJunk]

I have some of them too... DEC/Compaq/HP Alphaservers. And don't forget the Itanium episode.

[@Agakir]

@@PlaywithJunk quite efficient piece of the past 24/7 non stop was working under HP-UX, later also with the Oracle database system. Server HP N-class

[@MsJinkerson]

the only thing I don't like is pci slots they are all differant

[@PlaywithJunk]

yeah... 33MHz... 66MHz... 3.3V... 5V.. PCI-x...

[@JakeJoris]

first gen is from 2000-2002

[@TheSnaiku]

No it was pre 2000. They just updated system rom for so long...

[@michaelloving8004]

hp dl380 g6 riser is a pain I like the g7 And g8 looking to buy g9

[@PlaywithJunk]

Gen8 and Gen9 have a problem with the iLO/Intelligent Provisioning flash chip. Most reliable generation so far was Gen7. Gen10 has a horrible BIOS/UEFI firmware full of bugs. Maybe that's the reason why Gen11 is not ready, they first have to solve the Gen10 problems. But Gen10 plus is now shipping.... what a funny idea!

[@dashtesla]

27:04 - Simpsons voice XD

[@marcelnl1979]

Try to find a HP netserver LH 3 or so

[@PlaywithJunk]

A HP LH3 is on my list for a next video.... Would you like to see it? I think I could make that next time.

[@PlaywithJunk]

I'm sorry to say that the LH3 is already scrapped.... too bad.

[@Gooberslot]

Disappointing that there's no Opteron CPUs.

[@PlaywithJunk]

That would be the DL385 series. 0 for Intel 5 for AMD. But there are not so many models.

[@tombruton]

literally just thrown away a box of those kvm converters

[@PlaywithJunk]

The PS2 version is worthless but the USB ones still have a value of $40 each.

[@tombruton]

@@PlaywithJunk was a mix of both, just didn't think people would still be using these especially with the newer gens of ILO using .net and not some old version of Java that you need to be on exactly the right version ( a version which is typically insecure)

[@tombruton]

Included the switches aswel

[@sergatmel8242]

👍

[@Goasler]

*.* i LOVE the DL380 G5 Version *.* hmmmmmmm i want one .... :/

[@PlaywithJunk]

If you get a G5, make sure you get some extra power supplies. These things run too hot and fail often.

[@cricketshine1160]

My G2's have UID lights

[@PlaywithJunk]

UID started with the G2... my server has it too.

[@zettaker2181]

38:49 о~о"

[@render8]

38:50? was that overlaid or was that real?

[@5argetech56]

Moore's Law has produced tons of Computing Garbage.... :)

[@kbhasi]

"dy" servers 😆😆😆😆😆

[@lecercle6390]

ewww #HasProblems servers, the compaq was a good one :). Sadly the went bankrupt & bought.

[@slesru]

servers were good at compaq time, hp(e) is shit as usual

[@StuffJason437]

Stuff,Stuff,Stuff.