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IBM NetVista 2800 Hacking

Similar to the x330 SATA mod, I have some NetVista 2800s that I need 5v/12v accessory power from. I’m doing some experimentation with the Asterisk open source PBX and wanted to interface with the house phone lines. I purchased a Digium TDM400P for this task.

Digium TDM400P

This is a modular card, with up to 4 lines. Any combination of FXO or FXS modules can be used. FXS modules to interface with analog telephones require 5v/12v power. The NetVista 2800 has a 4 pin power header, labeled “Hardfile Power” at J11.

NetVista J11 hardfile power

The connector we need this time is a Molex 43025-0400. Here’s the pin out:

NetVista 2800 Power Connector

I also found an IBM part for the xSeries 300. Note that this is not wired correctly for either the x330 and Netvista 2800. It will require reworking for both application. FRU 24P0622:

xSeries 300 Hard Drive Power

And that brings me to my final point. I found a really cool product today that would be useful for both the NetVista and 1U servers.

UpgradeWare HD25-I

It takes power from the PCI bus to power a 2.5″ notebook hard disk. There are a few different models with different SATA and PATA connection combos depending on your needs. The fact that this product uses a PCI slot is its greatest advantage and disadvantage. PCI slots are usually scarce on machines where this would be useful. None the less, at around $25 it is basically the same price as the IDE adapter you would otherwise need to use a notebook drive in a desktop machine.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 9:38 pm and is filed under Computing, Hardware, Projects. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “IBM NetVista 2800 Hacking”

  1. Gilles Says:
    December 11th, 2007 at 9:02 pm

    Hello

    I just bought an IBM Netvista 2800 8364-EXX off eBay to do the exact same thing: Build a small, quiet Asterisk server with a TDM card to handle a PSTN line.

    At this point, it complains that no mouse/keyboard is plugged in, although they are, but besides that, I have a couple of questions for you:
    - would you recommend buying the HD25-I or is a CF card good enough?
    - is installing Linux and Asterisk on this thing doable by a semi-experience Linux user, or is it a bit more involved?

    Thank you
    Gilles.

  2. Devin LaSalle Says:
    October 21st, 2008 at 1:19 pm

    Hi Kevin -
    Were you actually able to run a 2.5″ hard disk in the HD25-I carrier in the Netstation machine?

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