How about (untested)

sub get_loc {
    chomp $_[0];
    my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:tracker:12.34.56.78",
                           'myuser', 'mypassword',
                           {RaiseError => 1});
    my $a = $dbh->selectall_arrayref(q/SELECT location FROM servers WH
+ERE name=? LIMIT 1/, undef, $_[0]);
    $dbh->disconnect;
    return $a->[0][0];
}
[download]

I've no idea why in your example you'd return before disconnecting as even though your $dbh goes out of scope you had error checking on the disconnect. RaiseOnError causes a die on error avoiding all those "or die". finish is not required if you fetch all off the result-set. selectall_arrayref is less code than prepare/execute.

Do you really want to connect and disconnect each time? If you were doing this alot you could prepare the query once and pass the sth to selectall_arrayref.