feipoa wrote:

Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? I don't really want to keep buying 1130CA cards until I find one which works, so I gave up until more information surfaces.

The ARO compatibility information seems pretty sparse to say the least. Your Dell Precision 410 workstation does appear in the compatibility list for the ARO-1130U2, but not for the ARO-1130CA or SA. So maybe you need a U2 card?

My motherboard doesn't appear anywhere in the compatibility list, and I can't find any information on the Adaptec AIC-7895P chipset that is present on the board.

Woolie Wool wrote:

What prevents consumer Windows versions from running on it?

I think what he/she means is that there's not a whole lot of software outside of the server/workstation market that uses Symmetric Multiprocessing (SMP).
Windows 98 doesn't support SMP, but it'll run fine on this system; it just doesn't detect the second CPU. Windows NT & 2000 both support SMP, but there's not a whole of software that uses it. However, you can set the processor affinity so that different processes run on different CPUs; so you could have one application running on CPU0 and a different application running on CPU1.

The U2 is just the retail version of the 1130CA, so... I suspect either the CA's BIOS isn't right for my system, or there is a HDD size limit. The retail U2 costs too much to tinker with.

Phosgene, did you have to make any provisions for hooking up the PSU to the mobo? Seems like a fairly recent 650 watter, no problems with modern connections?

Always wondered about putting in modern "beefy" psu's in retro pc's and how they perform.

If you don't like the airflow for the front of the case, get a bi metal hole saw and make a 92 or 120mm fan opening, and I'd also cut out the same size in the front bezel and place a wiremesh painted to match the case, should help airflow

feipoa wrote:

The U2 is just the retail version of the 1130CA, so... I suspect either the CA's BIOS isn't right for my system, or there is a HDD size limit. The retail U2 costs too much to tinker with.

So the OEM CA cards might have been shipped with a BIOS specific to the system they were sold with? That's a pain. 😵

buckeye wrote:

Phosgene, did you have to make any provisions for hooking up the PSU to the mobo? Seems like a fairly recent 650 watter, no problems with modern connections?

The main issue is with the ISA slots. Modern ATX power supplies no longer have a -5V rail (which is now the "not connected" pin 20 on the 20/24 pin connector) that has since been removed from the ATX12V standard. The ISA slots are the only things that need -5V on this motherboard, and thankfully my ISA sound card doesn't use -5V.

So the only thing I see is a warning during POST to "check system health!" while it's doing the memory test, but there's no system instability or anything.

If your ISA cards do need -5V, then you'd need to splice in a +5V to -5V converter (maybe something derived from an LM2664?) into the ATX power cable.

buckeye wrote:

Always wondered about putting in modern "beefy" psu's in retro pc's and how they perform.

They're beefy in different areas. Modern ATX power supplies are very beefy on the 12V rail, but not so much on the 5V rail; while the opposite is true for older ATX power supplies. You might find that even really beefy modern ATX supplies have trouble running some Athlon XP systems that really flog the 5V rail. That said, a P2 shouldn't push a modern PSU much at all.

candle_86 wrote:

If you don't like the airflow for the front of the case, get a bi metal hole saw and make a 92 or 120mm fan opening, and I'd also cut out the same size in the front bezel and place a wiremesh painted to match the case, should help airflow

The chassis has a front mounting point for an 80mm fan, it's just the plastic front bezel obscures it, so I'd only need to hole saw that. Maybe it's time for a little case mod? 😎