Got Windows 2000 installed, used an 80GB IDE drive. Runs very well on Visualize P500 with two Katmai @ 500 MHz.

Next: Put in Geforce mx460 in place of the Elsa GLoria Primergy AGP. Will post benchmarks soon. The P500 is still slightly loud with its 2 or 3 fans, I might need to look into getting quieter ones.

As an aside: I am using the W2K as SMB share for the various other Windows PCs. To use a Windows 3.11 (WfW) client with Windows 2000 server sharing a directory, I had to add the Win 3.11 "user" as local user to Windows 2000 with short (under 😎 password. Now I can mount the Windows 2000 share through the W3.11 file manager as drive E and use that for transferring files.

VLIW wrote on 2024-10-31, 15:46:

As an aside: I am using the W2K as SMB share for the various other Windows PCs. To use a Windows 3.11 (WfW) client with Windows 2000 server sharing a directory, I had to add the Win 3.11 "user" as local user to Windows 2000 with short (under 😎 password. Now I can mount the Windows 2000 share through the W3.11 file manager as drive E and use that for transferring files.

This is how it worked for me as well.
I've found for my retro network to keep things easy make all computers part of the same workgroup, use the same username on all PC's and a simple password as some things don't like blank passwords.
I find 1 makes a great password 😉

VLIW wrote on 2024-10-31, 15:46:

Got Windows 2000 installed, used an 80GB IDE drive. Runs very well on Visualize P500 with two Katmai @ 500 MHz.

Next: Put in Geforce mx460 in place of the Elsa GLoria Primergy AGP. Will post benchmarks soon. The P500 is still slightly loud with its 2 or 3 fans, I might need to look into getting quieter ones.

As an aside: I am using the W2K as SMB share for the various other Windows PCs. To use a Windows 3.11 (WfW) client with Windows 2000 server sharing a directory, I had to add the Win 3.11 "user" as local user to Windows 2000 with short (under 😎 password. Now I can mount the Windows 2000 share through the W3.11 file manager as drive E and use that for transferring files.

If your Visualize P500 uses standard fan connectors, you can get small adapters to reduce the fan speed.
As far as i can tell, those adapters are actually only adding a resistor in one of the lines, so the fans get less voltage. I use those adapter cables in my IBM Netfinity 5000 and the noise of the two P III 750 are now bearable.
On my TYAN S2505t the fans on the tualatins are now also much quieter. I bought 10 of those cables for about 10 bucks, so a noticible improvement for a very small investment.

Skorbin wrote on 2024-11-06, 22:35:

If your Visualize P500 uses standard fan connectors, you can get small adapters to reduce the fan speed.

Thanks for the idea. However the P500 does not use CPU fans but has two case fans (front and back) and air shrouds.

I am in the process of replacing the backside fan with a quieter one, the bearings sounded shot. They use 2-pin connectors.

VLIW wrote on 2024-11-07, 08:03:

Skorbin wrote on 2024-11-06, 22:35:

If your Visualize P500 uses standard fan connectors, you can get small adapters to reduce the fan speed.

Thanks for the idea. However the P500 does not use CPU fans but has two case fans (front and back) and air shrouds.

I am in the process of replacing the backside fan with a quieter one, the bearings sounded shot. They use 2-pin connectors.

HP using the fan power draw to calculate the fan speed, so you can reuse the old fan connector and that should be fine as long as the replacement fan power draw is in the same range as the original fan.

Note though that modern fans are less air pressure and more airflow given the mesh nature of modern performance cases.

Kayak cases weren't so 'porous' yet and as far as I understand since the two thermal areas are separate the only 'in' are vents at the top of the case.
Of course, it seems you don't have the usual couple of 10k rpm drives (yet) to pre-warm the air going to CPUs, but you do have a couple of Katmai CPUs in there.

I'd still suggest to take static pressure into consideration when selecting new fan. Your old fan could very well be more than 4.5 mmH2O air pressure.

Will take that into account, thanks. Not sure though if these are really the original fans, which I kind of doubt. They don't look OEM but I wasn't able to find out what HP shipped the P500 originally with either.

Dwaco wrote on 2024-11-07, 19:34:

I'd still suggest to take static pressure into consideration when selecting new fan. Your old fan could very well be more than 4.5 mmH2O air pressure.

The existing backside fan, which is surely not the original, is a NMB 80x80x25mm (3110KL-04W-B50-D00), 3250 RPM and 38.8 CFM, with 3,81mm H2O.

I will replace it with a slightly larger SUNON 92x92x25mm (EF92251S1-1000U-A99), 3000 RPM and 51.5 CFM, also with 3,81mm H2O. I also have a slightly slower one with 2400 RPM. However I wasn't able to find out what the OEM spec of that fan was.

Makes me want to pull my HP Kayak out of the garage and set it up but I am to LAZY.

VLIW wrote on 2024-11-09, 11:58:

The existing backside fan, which is surely not the original, is a NMB 80x80x25mm (3110KL-04W-B50-D00), 3250 RPM and 38.8 CFM, with 3,81mm H2O.

I will replace it with a slightly larger SUNON 92x92x25mm (EF92251S1-1000U-A99), 3000 RPM and 51.5 CFM, also with 3,81mm H2O. I also have a slightly slower one with 2400 RPM. However I wasn't able to find out what the OEM spec of that fan was.

For 80mm it sounds OK. I don't know what is the original fan specs since my fan is 120mm one in XU800.

Intel486dx33 wrote on 2024-11-10, 06:07:

Makes me want to pull my HP Kayak out of the garage and set it up but I am to LAZY.

It calls to you from the garage. It tells you: "I need to be booted every once a while. I need to be upgraded."

VLIW wrote on 2024-10-27, 07:37:

A Visualize X-Class 1 GHz with SCSI was offered recently close to where I live. Maybe I should've jumped on it, nice config.

I am divided on 1GHz X-class.

Sure, it has ServerWorks chipset which sounds cool.

... but to get those 8 RAM slots directly on the motherboard they had to shift CPUs up compared to Kayak XU800 and CPU air flow guide didn't fit anymore hence ugly CPUs cover with fan.

And there is no SCSI on motherboard, SCSI is a PCI card.
And I understand unlike Visualize X500 and X550 it doesn't seem to have Xeons but regular P3s.

Feels kinda full of compromises.

Dwaco wrote on 2024-11-13, 20:36:

For 80mm it sounds OK. I don't know what is the original fan specs since my fan is 120mm one in XU800.

Managed to finally exchange the fans now, took a while with cabling and what, 92mm fits much better.

However the P500 now complains about the missing (optional) I/O card fan after I installed another PCI card. So need to get another new fan (80mm) now to get rid of the red LED.

I used the time to exhange the video: Permedia AGP out and mx460 in.

Also added an Initio SATA adapter with TB SATA harddrive, worked like a charm.
Next: Install SCSI CD writer, then it should be complete-ish.

The Visualize P500 is almost complete now: three case fans, it apparently requires the I/O fan when more than 2 PCI/AGP cards are installed? Proper loud now after booting Windows.

Initio SATA PCI and the 2 TB SATA harddrive work well under Windows 2000 for storage. Also got the LSI PCI SCSI adapter and Ricoh working easily under W2k, drivers were all onboard. However, it took ages to find a proper Nero Burning ROM version that was not OEM and supported the Ricoh SCSI burner.

However, completely forgot what a science CD burning had been in the 2000s. The 6x Ricoh only likes burning the CDs I bought at max 2x. Will need to find some other CDRs to test.

My Kayak-XU has Dual Pentium-III@500mhz
512mb SDRAM
Matrox G450 Dual head for dual monitor support.
Iwill 66 or High point IDE adapter for adding Zip drive
Onboard Fast wide SCSI
Dual Seagate Cheetah SCSI hard drives
HP Night director Network card
Parallel adapter for adding an additional paralell port. I had a total of 3 paralell ports for 3 printers.
8mm DAT tape drive
WinNT 4,0 and Win2000

It was my Everyday driver from 1998 thru 2005
Rock Solid Performance and Reliability
.