Compaq Proliant Ml350 G1

[cyberfox]

Hi, everyone, I have an old Compaq Proliant ML350 G1 server, which acts as a backup server for the computers in my house, it only gets turned on about once a month, and has done for the past couple of years but now every time I turn it on it comes up with a message on POST saying

"Default Server Feature Card configuration installed!

Run BIOS setup utility to view/modify settings."

I then have to press F1 and it will reboot and then boot the operating system fine, I thought maybe the battery on the Feature card was flat, so I have replaced that but it is doing the same thing, could the Card be dying on me?

thanks

Edited October 22, 2012 by cyberfox

[digip]

Few things, make sure the battery you replaced is good, and also that it is seated properly, probably is dead and needs to be replaced, even if you just replaced it, it could be a dud battery(or in upside down?).

But that sounds like the BIOS battery is not working to save bios changes. If you are only using it once a month or so for backups, you would probably be better served with either an external HDD over USB for backups or eSATA if your main machine has the capabilities, or getting something like I did, which was an icyDock, to put multiple drives in and buy the pci-e card that lets you do eSATA for reading multiple drives off one eSATA port. Without the proper eSATA port capabilities though, the dock only reads one drive at a time unless you use USB, which is too slow for multiple drives to be used as software raid, but even just 1 or 2 external USB drives for doing backups would probably work just as well, are cheap, and use less power than a full blown server thats only used once a month. Some of the external raid docks, also feature ethernet access(mine doesn't) but once configured and setup, can be reached over the lan like a NAS without need for a whole server or OS to be loaded on them.

This is the one I have, but like I said, can only ready one drive of the 4 bays over standard eSATA. To get all 4 seen by Windows at the same time, you need the pci-e esata card that allows multiple esata connections over one cable. For that, I bought a $20 card off amazon by startech. Still need to install it, just haven't had time to power down the machine and put in the card or money for more drives yet. I ended up pulling the extra drive that it couldn't see, and putting it inside the main workstation to replace a failed drive(which was why I bought the dock in the first place to start backing up data anyway, but the one drive died right after I got all the stuff off it). http://www.newegg.co...rnal-Enclosures

They have one in black too, but know, that that one doesn't have external power, and requires using USB to power it. Its a few dollars cheaper, but since no external power, I chose the white one and have it plugged into my UPS. USB alone is flaky to begin with and the cord constantly causes the issues with it, so go for the eSATA + eSATA multiplier card if you want to get away from the whole server for storage array setup. Having a DOCK also means being able to take it with you to other places a bit more easily than moving a whole server too.

Edited October 22, 2012 by digip

[cyberfox]

hey all,

I have just got round to sorting this problem out it turned out to be the backup battery on the motherboard and the feature card I bought to brand new batts and it is now up and running again, I am planning on getting rid of it now, I am in the middle of upgrading my main server so the old HDDs are going in to another machine which is faster and better which will back everything up, plus I can put the drives is raid 6