Inside a HP Proliant DL360 G5 Motherboard Swap

Installing the replacement motherboard is a simple reverse of the steps to remove it.  

1. Place the motherboard in the chassis and slide it towards the back of the chassis until it locks into place.
2. Install the PCI Express riser bracket as this will prevent the board from moving around both from the expansion slot and two Torx screws that secure the board to the chassis.
3. Install SATA power and ribbon cables.
4. Install the RAID module taking care to not damage the socket or pins.  Twist the plastic locks to secure the module.
5. Install the three fan modules taking care to make sure they are seated and flush with each other.  Not having them seated will cause a failure on the diagnostic panel.
6. Install the CPU and PSU fan shroud.  If you removed the Torx key now is time to replace it.
7. Install the power supplies.
8. Replace the top cover
9. Power on and test.

I noticed that the system board was running a BIOS dated back in 2007 and would need to be updated both to resolve critical system issues and to support the Quad Core microcode.  At this point I downloaded the windows flash utility from HP and updated the system bios to the latest edition.

Replacing the CPUs is no different on this server than it is on your typical LGA775 system, in fact there is an article on Ninjalane.com describing how to install a LGA775 processor.  As a point of contention the suggested HP method for swapping processors is considerably different and requires a special tool to drop the CPU over the exposed socket.  While this process may work for warranty purposes I find it to be a little overkill for what really needs to be done, and well, I like my way better.

Five dots of thermal paste later and the heatsinks were replaced, memory was upgraded and with a flick of the power switch and I was running Dual Xeon E5410 "Harpertowns" on a stable platform and ready to be placed in the datacenter.