Sargies Server Project

[Sarge104]

So, I'm not sure how fast this project is going to be completed and as of right now I don't even have a budget set up for parts...

That being said with my personal tower being regulated to being a GPU power house I thought I would start to build up a little CPU army...cus, you know, eight just isn't enough ;), I was helping a friend clean up his house to get ready for an open house and he offered an old server box to me. It took a lot of effort but I managed to not tap my fingers in maniacal glee and scamper away with the goods in tow for immediate dismantling and Frankenstein-like stitching together. After returning home I finally made some time to unlock the case side and look inside:

3 ST336607LW Seagate Cheetah 10K.6 Hard Drives
2 1024MB pc2100 ram sticks
1 Dell 120mm JMC/Datech 1238-12HBTA Dell 3 Pin Connector
1 JMC 9232-12HBTA-6 90mm x 35mm 3Pin Case Fan
1 DELL NPS-250 250W
1 Hard drive controller
1 CD/floppy drive controller
1 JMC / DaTech 6025-12HBA Server - Round Fan

I cannot figure out the Mother board from the numbers onboard, unfortunately I ran the Model # and Serial # and I'm not finding out much:

Serial # 55cbn21
Model # MMT
MFG Date: 040703


Will power it up soon to see what I've got for software and hopefully more info on hardware. I'm hoping the case itself is large enough to support upgraded Motherboard and supporting hardware. Should be a fun adventure!

[zombie67]

What kind of box, rack mount or tower? Post some pictures. That will help a lot.

[Sarge104]

LOL, was taking pictures when I turned the tower to do a front shot...batteries died in the camera...:D I got my answer though, its a PowerEdge 600sc. (http://www.dell.com/downloads/emea/products/pedge/600sc.pdf) I still need to boot it up to see if that is the P4 in there or the more powerful Xeon. I'm betting on the P4 being in there :(. I just hope that I have enough room to replace the board and locate enough funds to put a good chip/chips.

[Sarge104]

Plate (http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sarge104/1100638/150730/150730_original.jpg), Internal (http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sarge104/1100638/150847/150847_original.jpg).

[DrPop]

Well, Sarge, I've seen a lot worse from Dell and those companies. ;) At least this looks like a fairly standard case with a MicroATX sized motherboard in there.

If you get another motherboard / CPU for it, I would not settle for anything less than either an Intel Socket 1155 MicroATX motherboard and either a SandyBridge or IvyBridge CPU, or even better the newer Intel Socket 1150 MicroATX motherboard with a Haswell CPU. If you can spring for the Haswell I would do it, because Bryan has confirmed a pretty big increase in performance with AVX2 instruction set, and 2 projects are already using that. I'm sure there will be more optimizations like that in the future.

Anything else just burns too many watts / puts out too much heat for that MicroATX size case, and you will not be happy with the credits per watt burn. I know because I just recently went down this path with a little MicroATX size Acer rig someone gave me, and ended up returning an AMD FX-8350 that didn't work out.

Hope that helps a little! And congrats on the new rig. :)

[Mumps]

Plate (http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sarge104/1100638/150730/150730_original.jpg), Internal (http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sarge104/1100638/150847/150847_original.jpg).
Well, based on your serial number, that system was shipped from Dell with the Celeron.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/product-support/servicetag/55CBN21/configuration

[Sarge104]

DrPop, Mumps, thanks for the info. I knew it was pretty old when I picked it up and it might be an interesting upgrade process. I'm going to try and get a little bit more research done and see what I can stuff in the box. I'm not really interested in messing with the hard drives but I'll probably upgrade the power supply to at least 500watts in anticipation of getting a new mother board in there.

With the board area being so small it will limit my options but I will try and see if I can get a fair number of cores in there, maybe even try my hand at case modding to provide a bit more air flow if I do try and stuff some house heaters in there. My goal in the project is at least 8 cores and if possible 16, time, budget, and my own skill level will tell if I make anything of it. :D

[Sarge104]

Just picked up a Athenatech 550W and ThermalTake750W 80Plus for $120 from the LCS due to a moving sale. Might browse some more of their stuff to see if I can score some good upgrades for the cases I'm putting together.

[Fire$torm]

Just picked up a Athenatech 550W and ThermalTake750W 80Plus for $120 from the LCS due to a moving sale. Might browse some more of their stuff to see if I can score some good upgrades for the cases I'm putting together.

:-bd

[Sarge104]

Update on the server box. Pretty much turned it into a desktop. Put some of the older stuff from my tower:
Processor [== Quad Core ==] AMD Phenom™ II X4 965 Black Edition Quad-Core CPU
Motherboard Gigabyte GA-MA770T-UD3P -- AMD 770 Chipset
Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 – 1GB

Fit the 750W power supply in the box and I've got pretty much everything hooked to power excluding the diskette and floppy storage drives. Had to move the hard drives from what is in the picture up a single slot so I could get them all hooked to the hard drive controller and give the video card a bit of room.

Current issues are I've got no RAM to boot the system with, will solve that sometime this month or next, and I've got no front panel connections for the power buttons on the front of the case, just need to do some wire snipping.

Might get adventurous and try to cut a hole in the side of the case to get another fan installed. I really don't feel comfortable with just two fans in a case. Plus there is a spare connection on the mother board available.

1754

[Fire$torm]

Question: Do you have the AIO cooler fan pulling air from the outside or exhausting air from the inside?

[Sarge104]

Question: Do you have the AIO cooler fan pulling air from the outside or exhausting air from the inside?

Learned from my experience with the current tower and have it exhausting.