VOGONS


First post, by chinny22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Another machine I salvaged from the industrial printers

Front.jpg

Looking at the logs this was used up till 2016 although not very often in the final years in the CAD dept
As you can see it had a hard life. The drive bay door is missing and a big crack on the "shield" covering the front intake.

I couldn't check the specs as it didn't have a standard video port and unsurprisingly the adapter is no where to be seen.
Back-Before.jpg

Even though the case been plastic this thing is built solid and feels like a quality product, It's a bit strange though as you open it like a book.
Inside-Before.jpg

Once back home I swapped the video card, fired it up and this is what I had
CPU: Dual Xeon 2400 SL6GD
RAM: 3GB Non ECC
HDD: 2 Fujitsu MAS3367NP 23GB SCSI
Video: AGP ATI Radeon E-G012-01-3614 (B)

Like most servers and hard worked machines this was so dirty I needed a shower after working on it. So first step was to strip it down and give it a good clean. I'm not after spotless but now I'm not covered in crap whenever I work on it.
Inside-After.jpg

Then it was time for upgrading.
CPU's were maxed out with a pair of 3200's SL72Y only £7 each 😀
RAM was Upgraded to 4GB ECC, that cost around £100 🙁
Video was swapped out for a TNT2 M64 I had spare, nothing special but fine for what I have planed.
I kept the HDD's but put them in a mirror.

MB.jpg

And OS? NT4!
Thats right this will be my NT4 mess around server. Dell still has NT4 drivers on its web page So the on board sound works.
I've installed Backoffice 4.5 so I can mess around with Exchange 5.5, Proxy 2.0 which I used to share my dial up internet years ago and then maybe SMS server one day. As well as Office 97.

Few issues installing NT.
First you have to tap F6 as soon as the blue screen shows during setup to specify the SCSI card, if you end up at where it detects the IDE controller and asks if you want to specify another device, its too late and setup will crash. You can make a driver disk with R52201.EXE

Also setup crashes with 4GB RAM. 3GB is fine. I think my CD has SP1 slip streamed so maybe slip streaming a later service pack fixes the issue, but I just pulled out a stick of ram and didn't put it back in until SP6 had been applied.

And here it is next to its younger brother
2Dells.jpg
Cant quite remember the specs' its my daily driver Dual 2Ghz and about 12GB RAM, mostly built up from parts stolen out of servers I still have in storage running Windows 7 but mostly just acts as a media server for my smart TV
Not sure how long the 650 has left, it does have a few swolen caps but I doubt I'll use this often and It'll probably sit months on end without been turned on so I'll pretend I didn't see them for now.

Reply 1 of 8, by Scraphoarder

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Nice workstation. Like the looks of this better than the Optiplexes for the same era. Speaking of missing or broken plastic parts is woould be awsome if a library of 3D scanned parts existed so that we could make them if needed.
As a Compaq/HP fan i wish had the Compaq EVO W8000 (socket 603) with similar specs, but with RIMM instead of DDR memory.

Reply 2 of 8, by Fusion

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

This machine seems very similar to the workstations we had in high school for video editing etc. MAN could they run Quake 3! I mean, Adobe Premiere...

Pentium III @ 1.28Ghz - Intel SE440xBX-2 - 384MB PC100 - ATi Radeon DDR 64MB @ 200/186 - SB Live! 5.1 - Windows ME

Reply 3 of 8, by m1919

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member

Looks like the board has a bunch of bloated caps above and below the dimm slots.

Crimson Tide - EVGA 1000P2; ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS; 2x E5-2697 v3 14C 3.8 GHz on all cores (All core hack); 64GB Samsung DDR4-2133 ECC
EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3; EVGA 750 Ti SC; Sound Blaster Z

Reply 4 of 8, by chinny22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++
m1919 wrote:

Looks like the board has a bunch of bloated caps above and below the dimm slots.

chinny22 wrote:

Not sure how long the 650 has left, it does have a few swolen caps but I doubt I'll use this often and It'll probably sit months on end without been turned on so I'll pretend I didn't see them for now.

What did I just say, your not helping here! But will give you points for a keen eye

Reply 5 of 8, by xjas

User metadata
Rank l33t
Rank
l33t

What was the original video card with the weird port? I have a bunch of HP-branded adapters for that.

twitch.tv/oldskooljay - playing the obscure, forgotten & weird - most Tuesdays & Thursdays @ 6:30 PM PDT. Bonus streams elsewhen!

Reply 6 of 8, by chinny22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Pretty sure it is a Ati Radeon 7000 32MB going off the P/N 109-81100-02
Its in my ewaste bin now, your adapters are probably worth more then the card itself now!

Reply 7 of 8, by m1919

User metadata
Rank Member
Rank
Member
chinny22 wrote:
m1919 wrote:

Looks like the board has a bunch of bloated caps above and below the dimm slots.

chinny22 wrote:

Not sure how long the 650 has left, it does have a few swolen caps but I doubt I'll use this often and It'll probably sit months on end without been turned on so I'll pretend I didn't see them for now.

What did I just say, your not helping here! But will give you points for a keen eye

Oops, missed that last sentence at the bottom.

Gonna recap when the time comes? I've looked at a few of these dual P4 Dell boards in the past, but recapping and laziness preventing me from picking any up.

Crimson Tide - EVGA 1000P2; ASUS Z10PE-D8 WS; 2x E5-2697 v3 14C 3.8 GHz on all cores (All core hack); 64GB Samsung DDR4-2133 ECC
EVGA 1080 Ti FTW3; EVGA 750 Ti SC; Sound Blaster Z

Reply 8 of 8, by chinny22

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Of course I'll recap it! (is what I tell myself)

Will see where I'm at when the time comes, but if I'm honest with myself It'll probably go in the ever growing things to do later list.