HP L1500 & L3000 (rp5430/rp5470)

Overview
Internals
External connectors
ROM update
References
Operating systems
Benchmarks
Physical dimensions/Power

Quick Facts
CPU	1-2 (L1500) 1-4 (L3000) PA-8600/ PA-8700/ PA-8700+ 550-875 MHz
Caches	1.5-2.25 MB L1
RAM	8 GB (L1500) 16 GB (L3000)
Drives	5 SCSI
Expansion	8 PCI (L1500) 12 PCI (L3000)
Bandwidth	CPU 4.3 GB/s (L1500) CPU 8.6 GB/s (L3000) System 4.3 GB/s Mem 4.3 GB/s I/O 2.1 GB/s (L1500) I/O 3.2 GB/s (L3000)
I/O	2 SCSI 3 serial 100E 100E console

Overview

The second incarnation of the L-Class servers are, similar to their direct predecessors L1000 and L2000, 7U rack-mountable servers with either 1-2 or 1-4 processors, 8 GB or 16 GB RAM and a large set of I/O options and expandability. The internal system architecture of the L1500 and L3000 is different however with central parts of the processor/memory and I/O system being a modified Stretch chipset, also used in the rp7400 N4000 servers.

The L1500 features the same chassis and mainboards as the L3000, with a number of interfaces (I/O, memory, processors sockets) being deactivated in hardware, limiting the L1500 to about half of the L3000’s expansion options.

These systems only run 64-bit versions of HP-UX — 11.00 and 11i (v1 and v2).

The L1500 and L3000 could be upgraded with board swaps (main board, processors) to Itanium 2-based rx5670 servers.

Introduced: 2001-2002

L1500-36, L1500-44, L1500-5X, L1500-6X, L1500-7X, L1500-8X: rp5430
L3000-5X, L3000-6X, L3000-7X, L3000-8X: rp5470

Internals

CPU

The rp5430 (L1500) support up to 2-way and the rp5470 (L3000) up to 4-way multi-processing (SMP). There are several classes of possible processors, both shipped with the systems or later upgraded.

Both the L1500 and L3000 came with different system boards supporting different processors:

L1500 (rp5430): up to two CPUs, system boards support all processors from 550 MHz to 750 MHz
L3000 (rp5470): up to four CPUs, with the processor type depending on the exact model number [unsure which models support the 875 MHz PA-8700+]:
- A6144A: 550 MHz processors
- A6144B: 550 MHz, 650 MHz and 750 MHz processors
- A6840A: 550 MHz, 650 MHz and 750 MHz processors
- A8328A: 550 MHz, 650 MHz and 750 MHz processors

Processor types are indicated with the following suffixes:

-5X: PA-8600 550 MHz with 512/1024 KB on-chip I/D L1 cache each
-6X: PA-8700 650 MHz with 768/1536 KB on-chip I/D L1 cache each
-7X: PA-8700 750 MHz with 768/1536 KB on-chip I/D L1 cache each
-8X: PA-8700+ 875 MHz with 768/1536 KB on-chip I/D L1 cache each

Mixing different processors/speeds is not supported.

Chipset

The chipset based around the Stretch chipset:

Stretch chipset consists of:
- Prelude memory controller attaches the memory via two memory buses to the two main system buses; Prelude is the main crossbar of the system
- DEW Runway converters (probably two) attach the Runway-based CPUs to the main system buses
- IKE I/O controller connects the PCI bridges to one system main bus
rp5430: Seven Elroy PCI bridges, attach PCI buses to the IKE I/O controller
rp5470: Ten Elroy PCI bridges, attach PCI buses to the IKE I/O controller
Two HP Diva Serial [GSP] Multiport UARTs
DEC 21142/43 Fast Ethernet controller (Tulip)
Dual-channel Symbios Logic 53C875 16-bit Ultra-Wide SCSI-2 controllers
Dual-channel Symbios Logic 53C896 Ultra2-Wide SCSI-3 controller

Buses

Two Itanium system buses, 133 MHz DDR, each 2.1 GB/s peak, combined 4.3 GB/s aggregate. Both system buses connect to the central Prelude memory controller.
1. system bus connects I/O and two CPUs
2. system bus connects two CPUs.
Runway+/Runway DDR CPU buses, each 2.1 GB/s peak. Either two or four buses depending on the number of CPUs, with a combined aggregate 4.3 or 8.6 GB/s
Two memory bused with combined 4.3 GB/s peak. 133 MHz DDR at 64-bit with ECC
rp5430:
- Eight I/O channels, each 133 MHz 256 MB/s — 2.1 GB/s aggregate
- Five PCI-64/66 I/O buses for expansion slots
- One PCI-64/33 I/O bus for core I/O
rp5470:
- Twelve I/O channels, each 133 MHz 256 MB/s — 3.2 GB/s aggregate
- Eight PCI-64/66 I/O buses for expansion slots
- Two PCI-64/33 I/O buses for expansions slots and core I/O
SCSI-2 Ultra-Narrow single-ended bus
Two SCSI-3 Ultra2-Wide LVD main storage I/O buses

Memory

ECC SDRAM DIMMs
256 MB, 512 MB and 1 GB modules supported
16 slots
rp5430: 8.0 GB maximum (the system will not boot if more than 8.0 GB of memory is installed)
rp5470: 16.0 GB maximum

Expansion

Two Twin-Turbo PCI 64-bit/66 MHz slots, each on an independent PCI bus, each connected via two I/O channels (aggregate 512 MB/s), hot-plug capable
rp5430:
- Four Turbo PCI 64-bit/66 MHz slots on three PCI buses, each connected via one I/O channel (256 MB/s), three of four slots are hot-plug capable
rp5470:
- Six Turbo PCI 64-bit/66 MHz slots, each on an independent PCI bus, each connected via one I/O channel (256 MB/s), hot-plug capable [two of these slots are not active on the rp5430]
- Two PCI 64-bit/33 MHz slots on a shared bus, on one I/O channel (256 MB/s) [these slots are not active on the rp5430]
Two PCI 64-bit/33 MHz slots, reserved for LAN/SCSI and GSP (management) cards, on a shared bus, on one I/O channel (256 MB/s)
All PCI slots are 5 V keyed
Slot layout (counted from bottom up):
1. PCI-64/33, pci0, reserved (LAN/SCSI)
2. PCI-64/33, pci0, reserved (GSP)
3. PCI-64/33, pci1, shared [not available on rp5430]
4. PCI-64/33, pci1, shared [not available on rp5430]
5. PCI-64/66, pci2, Turbo, hot-pluggable [not available on rp5430]
6. PCI-64/66, pci3, Turbo, hot-pluggable [not available on rp5430]
7. PCI-64/66, pci4, Turbo, hot-pluggable
8. PCI-64/66, pci5, Turbo, hot-pluggable
9. PCI-64/66, pci6, Turbo, hot-pluggable
10. PCI-64/66, pci7, Turbo, hot-pluggable
11. PCI-64/66, pci8, Twin-Turbo, hot-pluggable
12. PCI-64/66, pci9, Twin-Turbo, hot-pluggable

Drives

Four trays for 3.5″ Ultra2-Wide LVD SCSI hard drives with 80-pin SCA connector, hot-plug
One tray for a half-heigth 5.25″ 50-pin Ultra-Narrow SE SCSI drive, external accessible

External connectors

50-pin HD SCSI-2 Ultra-Narrow single-ended
68-pin VHDI SCSI-3 Ultra2-Wide LVD
Three DB9 male RS232C serial (local console, remote console, general purpose)
TP/RJ45 10/100 Mbit Ethernet
TP/RJ45 10/100 Mbit Ethernet Web Console

ROM update

There is an firmware update available which contains the latest version (44.12).

PF_CARIW4412.txt has details about the contents and installation of the patch.
PF_CARIW4412.tar.gz contains the patch.

There is also an firmware update available for the revision A GSP service processors on the A6144A L3000 which contains the latest version A.01.12.

PF_CPREGSPA0112.txt has details about the contents and installation of the patch.
PF_CPREGSPA0112.tar.gz contains the patch.

There is also an firmware update available for the revision B GSP service processors on the L1500 and L3000 which contains the latest version B.02.20.

PF_CCANGSPB0220.txt has details about the contents and installation of the patch.
PF_CCANGSPB0220.tar.gz contains the patch.

References

Manuals

User Guide rp5400 Family of Servers (PDF) Hewlett-Packard Company (November 2002, first edition, product number 5981-2650EN)

Articles

hp server rp5400 series entry-level UNIX servers technical whitepaper, Hewlett-Packard Company (August 2002) [did not find an appropriate URL for this PDF document —Ed.]

Operating systems

HP-UX: 64-bit 11.00, 11i v1 and 11i v2
Linux

Benchmarks

Model	SPEC2000, int	SPEC2000, fp	SPEC2000 rate, int	SPEC2000 rate, fp
L3000-5X rp2470	388	376	4.5 2-CPU: 8.9 4-CPU: 17.4	4.4 2-CPU: 8.3 4-CPU: 14.5
L3000-7X rp2470	581		6.7 2-CPU: 12.9

Compare these with other results on the Benchmarks page.

Physical dimensions/Power

368×482×775mm height/width/depth
Rack-mounted: 7U height, 482×775mm width/depth
68kg net weight
Up to three hot-swappable power supplies (one is standard)
Each has 930W max. power input

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