I purchased a used ex470 on Ebay. The seller advised that the onboard USB (SMI) flash memory had been reformated when they installed Linux. I have a homebuilt VGA cable (constructed per instructions on this site). The USB (SMI) partition was restored without problem using an Acronis image taken from my other ex470.

The system serial number and UUID were missing in the bios, I reflashed the bios with a copy of the bios from my other ex470 and used a bootable DOS USB flash drive with the dmi.cfg program (also provided by this site) to change the system serial number from ********** to the serial number from the HP sticker on the ebay ex470. For now I've left the UUID = FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF FF.

The WHS operating system installed (via server restore disk) without problem, but there are some hardware problems.

- Both fans would only run at about 600 rpm, I extracted the pin with the blue (PWM fan speed control) wire from both fan connectors which made them both operate at full speed (about 2500 rpm).

- The 4 hard drive LEDs are always off (the cable from the backplane board to board for these LEDs is connected & appears to be in good shape)

- The LAN and health LEDs at the bottom (front side) of the case are always off, the power LED does work, the LAN LED on the rear of the case works.

1. Can anyone advise if anything can be done / checked that might restore proper operation of the fans and LEDs?

2. Is there anyway to determine what the original UUID setting was? I assume it could cause problems if I set it to be the same as my other ex470, will I need to set to something other than all F's?

Thanks,
pffinman

Just a thought or two.
It is my understanding that if one pulls the bios battery the bios will go back to defaults, which is where it needs to be and (might) fix some of these problems, although, some of these problems you have could just be failures, you wouldn't know unless you could swap out parts that were known good.

The ex470 fan addin is very cool and might help ya with the fans, I wish it could have worked for the newer servers, but they switched fan control to the bios.
http://www.mediasmartserver.net/add-ins/#MSSFanControl

I saw you said your other 470, while I can't fault someone for trying to breath life back into a server, it sounds like this one has had a very hard life and might be more suited as "for parts". God knows I have a few "just for parts".
Anyway, good luck maybe these will help. Can't help with the ID stuff.

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On the EX470 the LEDS are controlled by the HPMEDIASMART Service. If its not running you will have all sorts of other issues not just with the LED's but also with the health monitors for the CPU, Temperatures and PSU voltages. It was this same issue which brought me to this site several years ago but my issue was more of a hardware related issue so I just reconfigured the file which has the monitor settings so that I would not have to see those alerts all the time. I continued to run that server for several months before retiring it for parts and I still have that motherboard. I converted the enclosure to be an MSS Port Multiplier and lifes good.

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Exploring the possibilities!

Migrated from WHS2011 to WS2012E: HIGHLANDER

~ Norco 4220 Enclosure
~ Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD5
~ AMD Phenom II X4 995 3.2 GHz
~ 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~ 3 Supermicro AOC-SASLP-MV8

Thanks for the advise. Could not get the fans above 600 rpm with the MSS Fan Control Addin, HPMediaSmart service is enabled. Tried pulling the battery but I think maybe I didn't leave it out long enough as the bios held the current date. I try pulling the battery and leave it out longer next time.

Thanks again.