So I have a few LGA775 systems lying around. I got this Micro-ATX LGA775 motherboard from a buddy after we upgraded him to a new Ryzen 5 6-core/12-thread gaming rig. Yeah, it had a dual-core Pentium in it running around 2.4GHz. But recently I got into running PLEX on my computer at home and I've spent the last 3 weeks ripping DVDs onto my 3TB hard drive. Still going strong with my anime collection right now. Anyway, I was thinking "Hey, didn't Phil's Computer Lab do a video on modifying an LGA771 Xeon to work on a 775 board? Isn't it supposed to be cheap?" So I was like "Hey, let's try that sh*%!"

I just got the adapter stickers today. I modified the CPU package to go into the socket without having to cut the tabs off the socket itself over a week ago with a dremel tool. I also hacked the BIOS to add the microcode myself and then reflashed the MB around the same time.

Current build:

ASUS P5G41-M LE [LGA775, Micro-ATX]
Intel Xeon E5450 [3.0GHz, 12MB L2, 1333MHz FSB]
4GB DDR2-800 (2x2GB G.Skill)
No discrete graphics card
No discrete audio card
500GB Seagate Barracuda 7,200RPM SATA
3TB Western Digital GREEN SATA (pulled out of a MyCloud USB 3.0 enclosure that had questionable reliability)
Ubuntu Server 18.10
Plex Media Server
Samba File Shares

I've spent the last 4 hours messing around with this. Having a blast - also frustrating as all hell. But very satisfying.
The idea was that when the WD Green drive was connected directly to a computer via SATA, the drive was 100% functional. But all the data was encrypted by the USB 3.0 controller card in the USB enclosure. So first I had to get that drive to power on successfully with my computer, then dump all of the files to my 3TB drive, then rip the drive out of the enclosure and stick it in the Ubuntu server box, change the DOS file system to GPT, create the 2.7TB partition, format it ext4, then place it under /data. Then install Samba, create the user accounts, passwords, document everything, get the shares in place... dump the files back to the server (which I'm currently in the process of doing as I type this), etc. Then I gotta worry about migrating my PLEX server off my desktop and onto the server. I've already tested out streaming and the vast majority of my content was encoded h.264 and there was more CPU hit on my network drivers than there was on the PLEX process, so I'll assume at this point that it doesn't have to do anything to the files while streaming to my TVs in the house.

This should be VERY EASY on this quad-core Xeon. I'm really only asking it to be a file server and a PLEX media server.

Doing this is getting me really hype and I wonder if I'll be able to go to sleep at the appropriate time...