How to make my HP server boot faster?

I have an HP ProLiant DL370 G6 server that I am using as a workstation. It takes 60 seconds during reboot and cold boot before screens post with a discrete Radeon HD6xxx GPU. What can I do to make it boot faster?

I have had a chance to use HP Gen8 server. It posts quickly and shows various CPU/memory/QPI initialization steps. Still takes a long time, but at least I can see what's going on.

Solution 1:

There's no option here. Since the advent of the Nehalem and newer CPU's, the POST time on HP systems has grown tremendously.

I see that you're using this as a workstation. Is there any option to leave the system running and take advantage of some of the BIOS power management options?

Solution 2:

Nothing. HP's proliant servers simply are very slow at booting. G7 is even worse and G8 (just testing them now) hasn't improved things either. It looks shinier, but is slower still to boot.

Solution 3:

Use kexec to reboot your server. This skips the pre-boot procedures entirely, and reboots into a Linux kernel at the end of the Linux shutdown process, rather than resetting the hardware and going to POST.

Unfortunately kexec is a bit cumbersome to use, so I wrote a script to make it easier to work with: kexec-reboot will allow you to choose a kernel from your grub boot list, or simply kexec the latest available kernel.

Solution 4:

My preferred solution to the horribly slow G8 bios boot time is to install the the free VMware vSphere Hypervisor instead of running the OS directly on the server.

http://www.vmware.com/go/get-free-esxi

Solution 5:

I had a problem where the first white "HP Proliant" screen wasn't showing up for about 5 minutes. Clearing the NVRAM solved the problem.

Clearing the NVRAM will clear out all "BIOS" settings, so if you don't want that to happen, then you don't want to clear your NVRAM.

Try clearing the NVRAM:

1. power off the machine, unplug all PSUs
2. open the case and find the DIP switch with 10 switches, and flip switch 6 (right) with a paper clip.
3. plug in the machine and power it back on for 3-5 minutes. power off the machine, unplug all PSUs
4. open the case and find the DIP switch with 10 switches, and flip switch 6 to off (left).
5. turn the machine back on.

I did not simply try removing power to allow all components to discharge for any period of time, so it's possible that removing power alone resolved the problem.

ref:

• https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/553777-hp-dl380-g5-server-bootup-issues?page=1#entry-3634843
• https://serverfault.com/a/558023/88350