Processor reorg

We ordered a new processor for a server (capacity increase) a few weeks ago. We did it long enough ago that we thought the thing would be here before our outage last week, but it got lost in the shuffle and the order got delayed. The processor got to campus on Thursday.

I gave the end user the option of picking any time before this next Wednesday to schedule their downtime to get the processor in. (They really wanted it in, they have been having pretty severe performance problems.) They picked this morning, so I found myself in the Data center trying to get the databases down on the server at 5am this morning. It was very early, between sick kids, Netflix, and playing games, I only got about an hour sleep before that.
Anyhow, I got the job done, with the help of this processor installation tool, pictured here. The tool shipped with the processor. I saved them a few hundred dollars by doing the installation myself, rather than paying HP to do it. You'd think they would at least buy me breakfast to thank me for doing the work, but no, I had to go home and have shredded wheat with bananas. At least I got a cool little tool out of it that I may never use again. It's kid of fun to spin at least...

A couple of years ago, we decided that we needed to reorganize the processor layout in some of our really large servers. I volunteered to do that one too, but I didn't have one of these tools, when I got into the server, I found that I lack a "secure Torx" and a long allen wrench to get the job done. I ended up finding a long allen wrench over in my office, but I had to have one of the DBA's drive in with their tool set, they had some secure torx drivers. (Secure Torx is a torx with a little post in it. It's kind of annoying, actually.) Another time, when moving some processors around between some smaller machines, I had the processor come apart from the heat sink and fan. The glue was just melted, the thing just popped off without the processor. My jaw dropped open, I figured I had a $3000 problem on my hands. ($3000 at that time, anyway) I was able to remove the processor, and get the heat sink stuck back on. We haven't really had a problem with that processor in the machine it ended up in, so I guess I did it right.

I figure the same thing about today, the machines booted back up, and haven't crashed in the 9 hours since, so I must have done it right. I'm not sure HP would be happy to hear these stories, but here they are. (I think our field engineers would be ok with them, though. They are perfectly happy with me doing things like this, it means they don't have to come down to visit us in the middle of the night...)