Dell Poweredge Server €149 exVAT

Esel

My friend's box arrived today; expecting to see mine when I get home later, as both ordered on same card and had same the delivery date (19 Dec) on Order Confirmation.

Hearty thanks to the OP and to all the posters who posted valuable info/techniques to this thread.

Collecting a Creative Audigy 2 ZS and a Samsung 913N 19" LCD tomorrow (thanks to www.adverts.ie !). A new or s/h graphics card and a wireless USB desktop from Tesco for €20 are next. Will swap an external SATA 250GB HDD for one of the drives. Probably stick a DVD RW drive into it at some stage.

An older PCI graphics card and installed HDDs will probably do for friend's setup - mainly business/office use and Internet. They went for the DVD/CDRW upgrade for about €35 extra.

Just a quick question on slipstreaming - am I right in thinking that if I already have a full XP SP2 CD, I don't need to slipstream - just install as normal?

kaizersoze

esel wrote: »

I don't need to slipstream - just install as normal?

Correct.

Monotype

Could anyone tell me how easy it would be to stick in a new motherboard in there? I haven't seen any recent dells, but some of them had an entirely different structure from the standard.

Saruman

You might have a problem, if for no other reason than if you got the xeon upgrade, as a lot of us did... your average home mobo will probably not accept a xeon cpu. I could be wrong, i have never looked into putting a xeon in a home system.

Oh i got mine on monday, so far i have taken it out of the box and took a quick look inside. No controller card, i do have the xeon sticker so i assume i will have a xeon inside

I will power it on at the weekend and decide what to do with it.. damn bargain.. i had no need of this at all At best i can replace my media centre with it as it might make a little less noise.

zod

Just modded the PCIe slot and stuck in a 7300GT ( €50 on dabs.ie )

now getting the following score on Windows Vista experience meter :

forbairt

zod wrote: »

Just modded the PCIe slot and stuck in a 7300GT ( €50 on dabs.ie )

now getting the following score on Windows Vista experience meter :

Cheers for reposting ... and good to hear its working well

I've no experience with vista ... what is a good score with the experience meter ?

tadgh

Any chance of a pic of the modded PCI-e slot?
And details of the best method to use in performing the mod.

zod

I've no experience with vista ... what is a good score with the experience meter ?

I believe 6 is the highest you can get .. so well chuffed with the card.

tadgh wrote: »

Any chance of a pic of the modded PCI-e slot?
And details of the best method to use in performing the mod.

Its actually really easy .. used two knifes .. one with a serated edge and the other with a plastic handle.

Heat the knife with plastic hanldle on a cooker or whatever

Basically saw at end of slot and then clean out with the hot knife .. repeat three or four times and presto!

See here for pic http://thebsdbox.co.uk/photos/d/4954-2/DSC_0006.JPG

and here for more info http://thebsdbox.co.uk/?p=21

pavelpro

zod wrote: »

Just modded the PCIe slot and stuck in a 7300GT ( €50 on dabs.ie )

now getting the following score on Windows Vista experience meter :

Which video card u used

This one ?
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB DDR2 PCIE DVI TVO

Or that one ?
Dabs Value NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 128MB DDR3 PCIE DVI TVO

Thanx

zod

pavelpro wrote: »

Which video card u used

This one ?
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB DDR2 PCIE DVI TVO

Or that one ?
Dabs Value NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 128MB DDR3 PCIE DVI TVO

Thanx

The Dabs value one .. http://www.dabs.ie/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=43G4



Manufacturer : DABSVAL
Product : GF 7300GT 128MB DDR3 PCIE TVO
Quicklinx : 43G4WS
Quantity : 1
Price exc VAT : 45.85 EUR
Price inc VAT : 55.47 EUR

u can run two monitors off of it if you need to also





Total costs to date

PC : €188
Video Card €54 + shipping = €59
Sound card €8 + shipping = €18
Ram 2GB + shipping €60

total €325 .. now whats a good game to test it with ??

Lord Deco

zod wrote: »

The Dabs value one .. http://www.dabs.ie/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=43G4



Manufacturer : DABSVAL
Product : GF 7300GT 128MB DDR3 PCIE TVO
Quicklinx : 43G4WS
Quantity : 1
Price exc VAT : 45.85 EUR
Price inc VAT : 55.47 EUR

u can run two monitors off of it if you need to also

Total costs to date

PC : €188
Video Card €54 + shipping = €59
Sound card €8 + shipping = €18
Ram 2GB + shipping €60

total €325 .. now whats a good game to test it with ??

Meh

PROCESSOR Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E4500 Processor (2.20GHz,800MHz,2MB cache) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition - English edit
HARDWARE SUPPORT Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support edit
MONITOR Monitor Not included edit
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024] edit
HARD DRIVE 320GB (7200rpm) Serial ATA/100 Hard Drive with 16MB DataBurst™ cache edit
GRAPHICS CARD Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100 edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 16x DVD +/- RW Drive edit
KEYBOARD Dell™ Entry Quietkey USB Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY) edit
MOUSE Dell 2 Button USB Optical Mouse

E-Value Code
305-D122003

€337.12 delivered

8400gs €47

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4M63&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,11,43990000,4294953682

€384....

kaizersoze

zod wrote: »

I believe 6 is the highest you can get .. so well chuffed with the card.

5.9 is the max so you're right on the money there.:)

Saruman

Lord Deco wrote: »

8400gs €47

http://www.dabs.ie/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4M63&CategorySelectedId=11137&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11137,11,43990000,4294953682

You know, this card is not as powerful as the 7300 GT according to the specs. Everything about the 7300 is faster.

Lord Deco

Saruman wrote: »

You know, this card is not as powerful as the 7300 GT according to the specs. Everything about the 7300 is faster.

Its not as powerful,but both cards are crap in terms of performance tbh....its €10 cheaper too,with better hd playback

LawnMower Man

Got a 256 meg graphics card today that I bought on ebay and performed surgery with a steak knife on the 4x slot, luckily I have a gas cooker, had the job done in 5 minutes and the card worked first time! even though 3/4 of the pins were hanging out over the slot.

Thanks lads for the best bargain of 2007 !

Esel

Just a couple of questions:

Do I cut the regular PCI slot?

What is the best card to get and where?

btw, Tesco have a USB wireless keyboard and mouse for €20 (Techniks brand).

LawnMower Man

Hi,

No dont cut the white PCI clots.

Theres 3 black slots, a small, a medium and a large one.

I cut the end ( Not the whole end just the bit of plastic in the middle of the end of the slot) off the medium one so as to allow the card to slot in, you will find half of the pins of the graphics card are hanging in mid air but it works.

The big black slot seems to involve more work as there is a couple of more dividers in there to be cut out.

Easy Job 5 minute work

shanethemofo

jaysus

€ 764.00 Now

MayoForSam

Another successful upgrade to report here (typing on it as I speak)!

Just received a 7600 GS graphics card I got on Ebay for 35 euro (passive cooling). Cut out the slot using a soldering iron with a fine tip, used a box cutter blade to clean up the debris. Plastic melts out real easy, no problem, about a 10 minute job.

Stuck in a cheapo PCI sound card and hey presto! Both 7600GS and sound card worked first time (Ubuntu install off the CD, recognized and installed hardware drivers first time, I can see some advantages of open source already). Machine is running pretty quiet, might be tempted to use it as a media PC, I have a big sideboard unit downstairs beside my TV into which the unit should fit. I will be upgrading the 2nd 80GB HD (it's disabled by default) to a 320 GB or larger unit in a week or two. Also might do a dual-boot install of Windows and stick in an extra GB of RAM (ECC only apparently).

All-in-all, an excellent bargain alert and a fine way to start the New Year .

newrossman

A couple of things to point out.

The are loss makers to get more customer on board
The pcie is/was a x16 but reduced via bios/adaptor to x8, you can mod the slot but then the bois drops to x1 speed.
The x4 slot works fine with any pcie card once you mod it.

Come on guys do you really think Dell are that stupid to give this stuff away for free!.


Ohh also this will work on all cards up to 8800 gtx pcie x 16.
http://www.orbitmicro.com/global/pciexpressx4tox16adapter-p-4568.html

Esel

Guys,

Will this RAM work? http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=41687

or do I definitely need ECC RAM?

I will be removing the existing 2x512 sticks btw.

Do-more

esel wrote: »

Guys,

Will this RAM work? http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=41687

or do I definitely need ECC RAM?

I will be removing the existing 2x512 sticks btw.

You can use non-ECC ram as long as you don't mix ECC with non-ECC i.e. take out the 2 original sticks.

BTW. Does anyone know of a usb soundcard that is supported by Vista? Any I can find only list up to XP. (I finally got round to fitting a Graphics card but it's conflicting with the sound card I'd already installed and I can't resolve the confict, so I figure the safest bet is to go USB.)

Oracle

newrossman wrote: »

A couple of things to point out.
The are loss makers to get more customer on board....
Come on guys do you really think Dell are that stupid to give this stuff away for free!.

I agree with your thinking newrossman, Dell don't give stuff away for free. I'd say they never make a loss on anything either. Their profit on this server might be small, but even ordering through EPP they're still making a profit. It's because they can make and ship the PC so cheaply, they can sell at what seems to be a loss making price. It surprises me that people still seem to think Dell can get "caught out" on what has to be too low a price or a pricing mistake. I believe Dell never make pricing mistakes, all their pricing is strategically planned and decided in advance. This is the worlds biggest computer maker, a giant corporation, when it comes to pricing Dell know exactly what they're doing.

zod

Do-more wrote: »

You can use non-ECC ram as long as you don't mix ECC with non-ECC i.e. take out the 2 original sticks.

u sure .. thought I read somewhere it wouldnt take non ecc-ram

http://www.poweredgeforums.com/showpost.php?p=22623&postcount=34

Esel

zod wrote: »

u sure .. thought I read somewhere it wouldnt take non ecc-ram

http://www.poweredgeforums.com/showpost.php?p=22623&postcount=34

Based on that thread, I'm not going to risk it. Thanks.

Do-more

esel wrote: »

Based on that thread, I'm not going to risk it. Thanks.

Sorry, based on that I wouldn't use it either! :eek: I was going on info from checking compatability on one of the Memory supplier websites (can't remember which one.)

MayoForSam

Just get 2 sticks of this and add it to whats there already: http://www.memoryc.com/memory/TS512MDL5207.html

You'll then have 2 GB, good enough for most things......

bazual

Bought the 7300 from Dabs and cut into the middle sized block on the board to fit it. It slot in perfectly so booted up the server.
Installed the drivers that came with the card and rebooted.
It recognised the card and stated all the details in the top corner before booting.
When windows xp launched, I tried to change the display settings but it would not let me change. The most I could get was 800x600 and 4bit. When i tried to increase it gave an error message saying display was invalid. Then it wouldnt allow me to move the bar from 800x600 or increase the colour. I have tried reinstalling but still no joy. When I disable the card it goes back to the normal standard on board graphics which is better than what i am getting with the card.
Any suggestions on what to do?

Thanks
Bazual

zod

bazual wrote: »

Bought the 7300 from Dabs and cut into the middle sized block on the board to fit it. It slot in perfectly so booted up the server.
Installed the drivers that came with the card and rebooted.
It recognised the card and stated all the details in the top corner before booting.
When windows xp launched, I tried to change the display settings but it would not let me change. The most I could get was 800x600 and 4bit. When i tried to increase it gave an error message saying display was invalid. Then it wouldnt allow me to move the bar from 800x600 or increase the colour. I have tried reinstalling but still no joy. When I disable the card it goes back to the normal standard on board graphics which is better than what i am getting with the card.
Any suggestions on what to do?

Thanks
Bazual

What does device manager say about the card ( right click my computer.. manage .. device manager )

bazual

Thanks for the reply Zod,

My internet is down at home at the mo, so I am writing from work and going from memory.
When I checked the device manager there was no issue with the card, it showed up fine in the display adapters.

There were 3 devices under other devices these were
Ethernet Controller
Video Controller (VGA Compatible)
not sure what the third was but I dont think it was important.

I tried to find drivers on the computer for all 3 but to no avail, but i dont think this has to do with the graphics card. I have downloaded the latest drivers today and will try them when I get home and let you know what happened.

Thanks
B~