Every so often I visit Pricewatch to take a look around at prices. Mostly I've been looking at laptop, desktop, and server prices, with occasional visits past the CPU+Motherboard combo page. One day I stumbled across an ad from Hyper Microsystems for an IBM eServer 325. This was a dual-Opteron 240 1U server with 1GB DDR333 ECC memory and a 120MB ATA disk - for $189. This sounded too good to be true, so I did a little research.
The basic story
This machine is actually not just based around another company's motherboard, but it's actually another company's computer! This server was actually produced by MSI, and sold as the K1-1000S. Besides being the basis of the IBM eServer 325, HP also used the motherboard in their Proliant DL145. This is not unusual for IBM, and they don't really make PC servers any more, only rebrand and sell them (most of them are from MSI.) IBM has been divesting themselves of their hardware manufacturing as quickly as they can (although they don't trust most of what they have left in their name to third parties, e.g. the mainframes and workstations) which has turned out to be a smart decision for the company, if insensitive to employees. This machine is built quite well, however, and the fact that it is not built by IBM is no cause for alarm.
Arrival
The system came nicely packed with the corners well-protected, and the additional memory well-contained in bubble wrap inside the box. I installed the memory, hoping that all would go well and the system would be all that I'd desired (within my budget.) It turned out that these systems are actually fantastic. They can accomodate up to 12GB of memory with 2GB DIMMs (6 slots) and these units (IBM type/model 8835-W11) apparently shipped with 2GB memory and two hard drives. These systems were for a while popular in scientific computing because at the time they offered the absolute best price-performance ratio, even at a price around three thousand dollars with one CPU and 1GB memory. They were offered either as an IDE or SCSI model, the difference being that the SCSI unit takes sleds and provides hotswap. Both IDE and SCSI models have the controller onboard.
What sets this machine apart from other, lesser servers is the high level of integration. A fault LED on the rear of the unit is lit whenever a serious hardware fault occurs, and a LED on the system board is lit to integrate the faulty component (which could be a CPU, a DIMM, or one of several other onboard items.) There is a system management controller providing IPMI services, allowing some management functions to be carried out remotely over the network or a serial cable (or for that matter, serial-over-LAN.) What set it apart for me, however, was the price - at this price it only made sense that I should buy one. It replaces no less than four lesser systems in my house, which I will no longer ever need as I can fulfill their functions in virtual machines on this new system.
IBM actually supported RedHat and SuSe on this system at one time, so there are drivers provided for some earlier versions of these systems. I found every bit of hardware to work on Ubuntu; the only caveat was that I had to manually load modules for IPMI. There is no apparent way to tell the system to ignore keyboard and mouse errors, but it will display them for a few moments and then attempt to boot anyway. (Plugging in a USB keyboard and mouse will stop the errors from occurring.)
IBM Superseded this system with the eServer 326, which as far as I can tell is basically the same thing but with two dual-core Opterons.
Specifications
| Main Specifications | |
|---|---|
| Processor Support | Opteron 24x series processor (any) |
| Processor (as shipped) | 2x Opteron 240 (2.0 GHz) |
| Memory Support | DDR333 ECC SDRAM DIMMs (256MB-2GB capacity each) |
| Memory Capacity | 12GB (with 2GB DIMMs) |
| ECC Type | Chipkill |
| Chipset | AMD 8111 |
| Expansion Bus | 2xPCI-X, 133MHz, 64 bit 1 full length, 1 half length |
| Onboard Peripherals | |
| Video | ATI Rage XL PCI 8MB |
| IDE | In Chipset |
| SCSI | Single-Channel LSI Ultra320 |
| Network | 2x Broadcom BCM5704 10/100/1000 Ethernet |
| USB | 2x front panel and 2x rear panel USB 1.1 |
| Included Peripherals as Originally Shipped | |
| Optical Drive | 24x slim cdrom (IDE) |
| Hard Drive | 2x 120GB IDE (Hitachi Deskstar 120GXP IC35L120AVV207-0) |
Diagrams
This is the front panel of the system. At the left is the cdrom drive, and the space where the eServer 335 (dual Xeon) has a floppy drive. To their right you will find the two drive bays; on the SCSI model these are hotswap sleds. On the IDE model there is a single plastic bezel here.
Here is the rear of the system. On the left is the power connector, then the half-length PCI-X slot, followed by the full-length slot. Underneath the slot are the serial and VGA connectors, followed by the rear USB ports and the Gigabit Ethernet connectors.
lspci output
Please note: SCSI controller is disabled.
00:06.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 PCI (rev 07)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 LPC (rev 05)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 IDE (rev 03)
00:07.2 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 SMBus 2.0 (rev 02)
00:07.3 Bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 ACPI (rev 05)
00:0a.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 12)
00:0a.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X IOAPIC (rev 01)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X Bridge (rev 12)
00:0b.1 PIC: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8131 PCI-X IOAPIC (rev 01)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
00:19.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] HyperTransport Technology Configuration
00:19.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:19.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:19.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:00.0 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 USB (rev 0b)
01:00.1 USB Controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-8111 USB (rev 0b)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL (rev 27)
02:01.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
02:01.1 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5704 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 03)
IPMI
IPMI, the Intelligent Platform Management Interface, is a system for system health and management. IPMI can be implemented by the host in software (with partial functionality) but full compatibility implies a BCM or Baseboard Management Controller, a simple and standard onboard computer which operates even when the system is turned off. This machine can be used to monitor and control the host system.
Some IPMI Output
$ sudo ipmitool mc info
Device ID : 0
Device Revision : 1
Firmware Revision : 1.48
IPMI Version : 1.5
Manufacturer ID : 2
Manufacturer Name : Unknown (0x2)
Product ID : 34869 (0x8835)
Device Available : yes
Provides Device SDRs : no
Additional Device Support :
Sensor Device
SDR Repository Device
SEL Device
FRU Inventory Device
IPMB Event Receiver
Bridge
Chassis Device
Aux Firmware Rev Info :
0x88
0x00
0x00
0x00
$ sudo ipmitool sdr
Planar Temp 1 | 28 degrees C | ok
Planar Temp 2 | 31 degrees C | ok
CPU 2 Temp | 39 degrees C | ok
CPU 1 Temp | 43 degrees C | ok
Planar 12V | 12.47 Volts | ok
CPU 2 VCore | 1.55 Volts | ok
CPU 2 2.5V | 2.54 Volts | ok
Planar 5VSB | 5.15 Volts | ok
CPU 1 VCore | 1.54 Volts | ok
CPU 1 2.5V | 2.51 Volts | ok
Planar 5V | 5.10 Volts | ok
Fan 2 Tach | 7662.84 RPM | ok
Fan 4 Tach | 7836.99 RPM | ok
Fan 1 Tach | 5747.13 RPM | ok
Fan 3 Tach | 7836.99 RPM | ok
Fan 5 Tach | 7662.84 RPM | ok
SEL Capacity Log | 127 messages | ok
PS Fan Fault | 0x02 | ok
CPU 2 Detect | 0x02 | ok
SCSI Status | 0x01 | ok
SCSI Fault | 0x01 | ok
SEL Pwr Down Log | 0x01 | ok
DIMM Fault | 0x01 | ok
BIOS POST | 0x01 | ok
BIOS Critical | 0x01 | ok
BIOS Step Detect | 0x00 | ok
DIMM 1HR LOG | Not Readable | ns
DIMM 24HR LOG | Not Readable | ns
IPMI Tricks
You can use the "identify" feature of the server to locate it in a rack. You can do this from the local system with ipmitool:
sudo ipmitool chassis identify
You can optionally follow this command with a number of seconds the light should remain lit, which defaults to fifteen seconds.