[PLUG] HP Netserver Conversion

Aaron Burt aaron at bavariati.org
Sun Oct 24 02:41:09 UTC 2004


On Sat, Oct 23, 2004 at 06:48:17PM -0700, Piet van Weel wrote:
> Greetings...
> 
> I managed to get my hands on an old HP NetServer LD Pro..
> 
> Yes it's an old beast with a Pentium Pro 180Mhz, ~168MB ram, SCSI out the
> wazoo, Hot Swapable SCSI drives (2.1 gig, 4 gig, and the third isn't
> working) and generally speaking it works...  ;)

I might be able to dig up more drives.  

> (Knoppix 3.6 Boots up just fine on it...)
> 
> I've got several things I'm looking to do...
> 
> The first thing to do is get LINUX up and running on it... :)
> Just to actually use it as a server...

Should go pretty well.

> Second: Replace these blasted fans with something quieter...

Good luck.  Often they use weird sizes, and a lot of the noise has
more to do with case design; put something directly in front of a fan
and you'll get a fair bit more noise.  I think Marketing tells the
engineers to make the things as loud as possible so the customer
thinks they're getting more for their kilobucks.

> Third: Replace the Power Supply...
> Fourth: Replace the Motherboard, Memory, etc...

Custom case and hardware, so it's hard to fit standard ATX components.
Will likely take some drilling and hacksawing.

> Any ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?

Sounds like you want to keep the sheet metal and throw away everything
else.  It's fun to get a beastie like that up and running your
favorite OS as-is, but I'd save the case re-engineering for something
more interesting, like an old microwave or something.

FreeGeek recycles lots of old weird computer hardware, and I've been
wanting to find a way to get some of the nicer examples into the hands
of folks who'll do strange and wonderous things to them.

Thinking how to stuff a PC into an old Tek oscilloscope,
  Aaron



More information about the PLUG mailing list