Dell Precision 650 workstation

[garethace]

Guess we'll see a division of memory manufacturers as to what will/won't actually perform with a i865PE or i875.

 

It is like you made a point before about storage devices like zip and ls120. The memory standard that wins is not necessarily the best one for the industry longterm, but rather the memory standard that the industry decides to back.

 

I remember when their stock was upwards of 140+ USD per share before it plummeted to abysmal levels.

 

One that makes material for hours of discussion on Aceshardware i can assure you. But yeah, it is bad from a point of view of investors, who are really the people who employ engineers, designers and tech brains at the end of the day - to provide the consumer with a good product at the end of it all. If we mistreat the investor and economic side of industry, we will stay in the rut the industry is in at the moment. Read some of these comments:

 

http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=95029431

 

Always nicer to have Standard ATX components in your machine, increases the value of the computer, plus allows you to use manufacturer specific updates, instead of waiting for Dell to fix something.

 

Aces guys often recommended a take over by Alienware of the Silicon Graphics company would be a great move. Still though with servers, power supplies, pin sockets, memory, OS, it is all non-standard and that is why OEMs make such a huge margin on servers. Interesting to know how alienware and newisys, SUn, Dell etc will deal with the new Opteron product from AMD. Which i think will introduce a new level of sense to the server/workstation as a design.

 

Interesting you should talk so much about Dell NOT being standardised though - that is a very interesting insight to me.

 

I have a link somewhere to a Dell web cast, where they discuss in great depth the idea of parts becoming more standardised, allowing greater and greater volumes of production. But i cannot find it at the moment.

 

http://judiciary.senate.gov/oldsite/dell.htm

 

http://www.dell.com/us/en/gen/corporate/press/pressoffice_news_2002-04-03-nyc-001.htm

[Sawyer]

Originally posted by Greg Hess:

If your running Windows 2000, you'll have to move over to Windows XP to gain full support of the hyperthreading capabilities of your CPU's.

Are you telling me I need to get my hands on "the lastest piece of ms ass?"

 

I love that quote

 

Originally posted by Greg Hess:

If its yes to both of those, it could be a power supply flucuation, or processor heat issue.

 

I just recently troubleshooted a Dell system that's Xeon temps were at 55C IDLE, and were actually throttling down cause they would reach 70C+ under load. (These were Dual 1.8's). You can check the temps with motherboard monitor (do google search) or in your bios. If your temps are above 50C at idle, you may need to investigate upgrading the cooling system of the computer if you want stability extending past a full week.

Yeah I don't know why I just thought it might be a heat issue I haven't checked the temp however.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Greg Hess]

Interesting you should talk so much about Dell NOT being standardised though - that is a very interesting insight to me.

 

If your bored, do a search on google for "Dell ATX Standard"

 

You'll get a variety of articles.

 

Here's one of them.

 

http://www.upgradingandrepairingpcs.com/articles/upgrade3_01_01.asp

[garethace]

I got you that link i was looking for Greg:

 

Dell web cast:

 

http://webevents.broadcast.com/dell/announcement040302/home.asp

 

I can assure you, looking for that web cast just by going the usual www.dell.com route, would not get me even close to finding it. I must have originally picked up the link on some hardware forum or something. Give us an opinion on what you think about there 'plan to conquer the world'.

 

Compared to the Sun Microsystems web cast, which explains their server strategy, you can find easily from their home page????? I never know what is up with that Dell web site, and half the time the info is all wrong and mixed up. Which is amazing, since they only do very simple kinds of computer packages. I know of several cases where students bought new Dells and got the incorrect grade of cpu, vid card etc. Dell made these students pay to put in the correct cpu the students had paid for online to begin with.

 

I will take a good look at that power supply article from upgrade your pc web site Greg and thankyou very much. I just posted some new info about Intel cpus here:

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000153

[Greg Hess]

Dang,

 

The Dell sub pages from that aren't working. I don't have time to watch the web cast and take direct quotes from. If its the webcast that I think it is, this is what its saying.

 

The standard's their talking about aren't ATX standards, their dell standards. Dell makes alot of points about stability, compatibility, ease of use, better cooling etc. Thats all good and nice, but the truth of the matter is their using their own style of ATX so they can shave money off the top end, while reducing repair costs, and forcing the end user to go through them directly if they want to perform certain upgrades/maintaince.

 

Its much akin to HP/Compaq Desktops.

 

Of course this may just apply directly to their desktop line, but as shown in that one overclocker's link, their using non ATX PSU's and interfaces for both the PSU and the motherboard. Thats pretty major, as just replacing the PSU with an Antec could blow the whole board due to incompatibilities.

 

Here's some other links on the subject.

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=3243

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=3262

 

And Dell's response...

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=3301

 

(This was made AFTER the webcast)

 

You'll note this has been going on for quite some time.

[garethace]

It sounds as if Microsoft XP activation nucances, combined with Dell's proprietary builds are jointly becoming a pain in the ass for the IT world Greg.

 

I must have swallowed all the Dell speak like this,

 

Maximizing Flexibility and

Minimizing Costs: Dell's Enterprise

Computing Strategy

Analysts: Mark Melenovsky and John Humphreys

Executive Summary

Yesterday’s datacenters were built largely upon proprietary and

inflexible platforms requiring expensive, and often scarce, IT

management resources. Current enterprise datacenters are

pushing into a new environment built around open and industrystandard

hardware platforms, software, and services. Hardware

and software standardization, which is leading to the

development of more specialized servers focused on specific

tasks within the datacenter, can now deliver a more affordable

solution while maintaining the reliability and scalability

enterprise customers demand.

Because certainly wasn't aware that Dell made so many adjustments to basic system level design. But i have certainly changed my opinion of them now as a hardware maker. Another thing i don't like is the Flash USB key devices as oposed to Floppies, but that is just my opinion. The LS120 may have been a good way for hardware to go but its all history now.

 

Modifying the motherboard dimensions to allow for the most efficient way for service and support personnel to remove and replace a faulty board

Sounds like Dell 'expect' to be replacing alot of faulty motherboards!!! Perhaps if they performed more than no quality control, and more than 30 mins of testing on systems, this kind of statement would not be needed in the first place. The problem i think, having worked at Dell for 9 months, is noone there knows anything much about computers anymore. Most people working at Dell came in from other production plants, where mass production was brought to a fine art. The current management in Dell would prefer to have no quality control, no customer service, all larger sales figures, sales targets, and more market share from HP and IBM. Crazy motivation really.

 

Changing the orientation of the memory modules, processor socket, and other high temperature components by 90 degrees to allow for better front to back airflow

 

* Modifying the cooling solutions to accommodate a rear chassis fan to pull air across the processor versus the standard ATX specification that had air pulled through the power supply

Dell must know, Intel are reaching a brick wall now in MHZ, and Dell is trying to improve air cooled chassis design in a desperate attempt to coax Intel into supplying 130WATT 4GHZ Pentium 4 Desktop cpus, that Dell can pass off to the customer at huge mark up.

 

Have you heard the stories about P4 mobiles Greg? Things are going on fire while people have them on their knee in airplanes etc. !!!! There was one case where a kid even got badly burned in a school with a P4 laptop.

[Greg Hess]

Hey Garythace,

 

It sounds as if Microsoft XP activation nucances, combined with Dell's proprietary builds are jointly becoming a pain in the ass for the IT world Greg.

 

Tell me about it. I've been an admin for almost 3 years now, so I've dealt with everything from 97/98 dells to the new guys on the block. Besides the heatsink cooling systems on the old dell's, they were pretty good machines. The Case design was horrid in some cases (the amount of panels you have to remove to get out a floppy drive is rediculous), but generally they have enough bios updates to take most hd upgrades, and even processor upgrades.

 

I've had a few blown PSU's and had to replace them as well, worked great.

 

The new ones...you can really tell why their machines cost so much less. At first glance they look just dandy, but try to fit another motherboard in the case, or vice versa, and sometimes it won't fit. That combined with different psu connectors makes it difficult to do a lot of standard admin work. (They also seem to run rather hot in the cpu temp depart).

 

Now if the new dells have a problem, and it appears to be psu related/mboard related, I have to have one of their reps come by, cause I know I could blow the board if I start fiddling with other PSU's, etc.

 

It also seems they have trouble with some PCI/AGP cards...which is one of the other reasons they limit your purchase options on their website.

 

Sounds like Dell 'expect' to be replacing alot of faulty motherboards!!! Perhaps if they performed more than no quality control, and more than 30 mins of testing on systems, this kind of statement would not be needed in the first place. The

 

I've never really seen a dell guy do any troubleshooting. They usually come in, test a few quick things, then yank the board. They do it with laptops or desktops, doesn't seem to matter. Guess its just an efficency thing. You could find the source of the problem in 1-2 hours, or just juryrig fix it in 20 min.

 

Another big complaint I have with them is tech support. Their express tech support (which you pay extra for) is a 20-30 minute wait. (I called 1-2 pm EST). Makes me wonder what the normal wait times are.

 

I also had a big argument with them over a fried laptop. The laptop was maybe a whopping one month old, and the PSU kicked out. They wouldn't replace it cause they figured she dropped it or something. 800 USD to fix it. Man did I have to yell at those guys. (They eventually came and fixed it, rather quickly too)

 

Have you heard the stories about P4 mobiles Greg? Things are going on fire while people have them on their knee in airplanes etc. !!!! There was one case where a kid even got badly burned in a school with a P4 laptop.

 

GAAAAH!!! No I haven't. Maybe I should rethink my laptop buying decisions and get me a transmeta based one .

 

I'd say the best thing about dell is the speed at which they'll come and fix stuff...if they think your a big customer .

[garethace]

Besides the heatsink cooling systems on the old dell's, they were pretty good machines.

 

Ever use a full tower server chassis with nice big 120mm slow fans all over the place. It is almost possible to get a system as quite as a typical Dell, but much better cooled.

 

I think myself, cooling is essential to any good stable system. I use an 800mhz piii system for most everyday admin work, but i have a 1.5GHZ rated cooling system attached to it. That cost a bit and could be considered overkill for such an old system. But i was amazed at how many 'problems' i had just gotten used to living with disappeared comletely.

 

I now pay much more attention to hard drive cooling, blow holes on top are great,.... i end up mostly having to place the box on the floor rather than on the table like before - floor is better at dealing with the vibrations of alot of fans, drives ......,

 

couple of good comments here on your inquirer post:

 

http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=95030277

[Greg Hess]

couple of good comments here on your inquirer post:

 

Some good comments, although its quite easy to see our differences in positioning.

 

I don't consider having to "switch wires", "solder", or "redrill holes" generally acceptable parts of computer upgrading.

 

Now if your a modder, a system builder, or just a hardcore d00d, then of course thats acceptable .

 

Ya I have seen the 120mm fan units. They had the gold heatsinks on the slot1 guys right? Those are some of the ones I had problems with. One of the heatsinks was thermally adhered to the chip, and had extremely poor contact with the cpu. Freaking PIII was reaching 60C and locking up under stressful conditions.

 

Doesn't help that the heatsink is facing away from the fan shroud/exhaust.

[garethace]

You appear to have a really good instinct for system design Greg, no doubt based upon many experiences in the past. I can tell by your comments, that you actually have opened up a case or two. Not like some IT guys i know how start to shiver at the very idea of doing it. orangesad Do you know of any other good articles like this one on cooling and case design?

 

http://www.anandtech.com/IT/showdoc.html?i=1695

 

I have came across plenty myself all over the place, but for some reason i always end up going back to that one - something about the layout and presentation that is very thoroughly done i think.

 

Ever lapped a heatsink? Of course not quite as big a deal as drilling holes etc., but just as much fun i imagine. I could never get the finer grade sandpapers to do my heatsinks, but i believe the state of most commercially available heatsink surfaces is not really up to standard - that is by hard overclockers standards anyhow.

 

Well, i haven't done much multiplier overclocking, but i did some FSB over clocking with Pentium III cpus to test out the results. I lost a good deal of stability after a while, but still i found most software did appreciate the faster timed memory and FSB.

 

This is why i think the 800mhz fsb Pentium 4 could be great with dual channel 400 mhz DDR.

 

Twisting a CPU socket by 90°, would that help ?

The memory modules may be correct, but I dont see how this would affect ATX compliance. And if it does, at least it wouldn't stop upgraders.

Now that i think about it, my OR840 dual pentium III system had both the cpus and memory modules in a 90° orientation relative to most common desktop systems. With front and rear fans, unclutter by cables etc, i am sure it would help keep the cpus and memory better ventilated and therefore the system more stable.

 

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I think the poster at aces made a sound enough comment about the Geforce FX card though. If you like to get down and dirty with hardware Greg, you may find an interesting tibit or two of info here in this article about GeForce FX 5800 Ultra 128MB:

 

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gffx/gffx-ref-p1.html

 

[ April 23, 2003, 11:39 AM: Message edited by: garethace ]

[Greg Hess]

Not like some IT guys i know how start to shiver at the very idea of doing it.

 

Ya. I'm actually here replacing someone who never deals with actual computer hardware. His solution to any problem is a Dell one...replace the motherboard.

 

Usually what I do in most systems (especially old ones) is remove all heatsinks in the system, cpu/chipset/gpu, and clean them off with some acetone. Then I'll either examine the cooling effectiveness of the sinks in place, and either reapply them with a nice layer of artic silver, or replace them with a more efficent design. (Always bigger with slower spinning fans).

 

Its utterly amazing (as you mentioned in another post) the amount of problems which suddenly disappear as chipset/gpu/cpu temps drop down. Most people never consider alot of error messages problems until they suddenly disappear with some slight changes.

 

Most of my comments tend to stem from direct experience which is both good and bad, and it tends to lead me towards certain bias's towards dealing with certain companies/pieces of hardware. I try to keep an open mind, but when you on tech support hold with some of these systems, cause of one issue or another that can't be readily fixed, you really start forming rather strong opinions. Especially when they bounce you around tier 1 techs. Grr....

 

you know of any other good articles like this one on cooling and case design?

 

Ya I know a whole slew of them. I don't have any articles onhand per say, might have a chance to look for some later. The primary sites I use for cooling info are...

 

www.overclockers.com

 

I don't really recommend overclocking a workstation. Its just silly if you depend on stability for your workflow. I do however believe in building a system FOR the purpose of overclocking and then NOT overclocking. This tends to build a system PAST specifications, and gives tons of elbow room for various situations which creep up now and then. (Higher quality PSU = Higher Voltage Stability, Bigger/Quieter heatsink results in greater temperature curves under stressful situations, higher quality ram = greater system stability under stressful situations)

 

Of course if its a secondary machine, do whatever the hell you want to it . I'm going to be running a watercooled Canterwood i875 board with some help from www.cooltechnica.com.

 

This site also tends to follow a non BS method of reporting. If something sucks, they'll tell you straight out it sucks.

 

www.frostytech.com

 

Frostytech is one of the few sites to actually record the sound that the fans make of the units. Pretty great stuff if your looking for a quiet solution.

 

www.3dgameman.com

 

3dGM has video's of various cooling systems/noise reducers, which is great both for noise, and to see how things clear/mount.

 

 

r lapped a heatsink?

 

Not personally, but I have had a heatsink professional machine lapped. (At a machine shop). Some alpha 8045's. Damn those things are nice. I got one running on a old KK266 Iwill with a 1900+ XP, the damn thing is in the low 30C's idle. (With a silent 80mm)

 

s is why i think the 800mhz fsb Pentium 4 could be great with dual channel 400 mhz DDR.

 

The general consensus seems to be that if your even considering overclocking the Intel boards, to get the i875 boards. Intel is basically hand picking chipsets for i875, which should really influence the type of stability you'll get at higher FSB's.

 

I'll check out the FX article later. Thanks!

[Paulcalif]

You tech heads might appreciate this...

 

I have an Antec SX630II case. I hooked up the front firewire port jumpers according to the motherboard manual, and the silkscreen labels on the connector headers. I plugged in my digital camcorder, no connection. I double checked the connections, no change. I used the connector which came with the motherboard to verify the motherboard, it checked out. I then checked the Asus and Antec web sites for any info regarding the firewire ports. The Antec site has a small paragraph about this, which amounted to: "make the connections."

 

Determined to get the port working, and being a bit of a hacker, I. incorrectly reasoned that the silk-screened end must be fine. I flipped the other end of the cable, which plugs into the small circuit board to which is mounted the front firewire connector. Since this connector is not keyed, I assumed that an assembler at the factory got it backwards. Bad idea. This fried the firewire port on my camcorder. Bummer!

 

Being quite unhappy about my camcorder, I wanted to get to the bottom of the problem. I searched on the web for the firewire pin outs, and compared them with the motherboard info, using a multi-meter. Much to my surprise, the Antec cable was labeled incorrectly! The data pins are mislabeled. I promptly notified Antec's tech support via e-mail. No response. I re-send the e-mail. Several business days later, I finally get a response: "please call our 1-800 number." When I call the 800 number and tell my story, the person who took my call informs me that they can not help me, and forward me to a voice mail, where I leave a message. 24 hours later, I get a call from Antec tech support. I tell my story again, explaining that their cable is mislabeled. Their response: "oh yeah, we know about this." To which I respond: "then why isn't there anything on your web site about it?" No answer. I emphasized that had there been information on their web site, my camcorder would not be damaged. I then urged them to please put something on the web page to inform others who have similar, defective assemblies. They offered to send a new cable and connector assembly, assuring me that he would personally check to make sure I got a "good one."

 

Over three months later, there is still no information on the Antec web site about the bad assemblies. I have since confirmed that the are, and have been very aware of the problem. Also, I received my replacement cable/connector assembly, which the tech “personally verified,” and tested. It is identical to the faulty unit that came with my case.

 

Paul

[garethace]

Also, I received my replacement cable/connector assembly, which the tech “personally verified,” and tested. It is identical to the faulty unit that came with my case.

 

 

Scary, scary stuff Paul!

 

Ya. I'm actually here replacing someone who never deals with actual computer hardware. His solution to any problem is a Dell one...replace the motherboard.

 

I once had a friend in Dell technical support, and every once in a while, just to piss him off, i used to talk about my very unpredictable KT133A system i was building for a hobby at the time. You should have seen the look of disgust on his face, when i told him i actually wanted to build a system using a platform with so many glitches. I said to him, i works for gaming and gives me better value for my Geforce 2 Ultra in gaming framerates than a Pentium III cpu 3 times the cost would. He just didn't get it though. See down below.

 

Its utterly amazing (as you mentioned in another post) the amount of problems which suddenly disappear as chipset/gpu/cpu temps drop down. Most people never consider alot of error messages problems until they suddenly disappear with some slight changes.

 

I was introduced to a whole new level of stability in computer usage over at aces forum. Because there, most guys reboot their systems once or twice a year. They have maybe a hundred different windows/applications open on two monitors for all that time. In fact, with having so many windows open and a huge dragged out taskbar, they memorise where the programs are after a while. When for some reason they have to reboot their machine for some cause out of their control - they lose the head completely. It means they have to open up all those 100 or so windows again and try and memorise them all over again!!!!

 

 

I don't really recommend overclocking a workstation. Its just silly if you depend on stability for your workflow. I do however believe in building a system FOR the purpose of overclocking and then NOT overclocking. This tends to build a system PAST specifications, and gives tons of elbow room for various situations which creep up now and then. (Higher quality PSU = Higher Voltage Stability, Bigger/Quieter heatsink results in greater temperature curves under stressful situations, higher quality ram = greater system stability under stressful situations)

 

That is exactly my point, because normally in everyday work the only sytems which have this stability are servers, and i worst cases even those are badly set up and crash daily. I once was in a place where the server crashed twice a day! I once was in a place where the ups did not work and the power kept going off. I suppose, there is still a general perception out there, that desktops crash every half hour, because the best AutoCAD/VIZ user in the local architect's practice here restarts his spanking Dell Precision workstation system every time he goes for coffee!!!! More from habit than from actual fear of the system crashing - the perception is just there in his mind, of using crap systems that made 3DS MAX kneel over all his life. Perhaps MAX is the fault and not the system? I keep telling them to install good Quadro Cards with rock stable OpenGL drivers but they never listen, going for bargain Geforce ones instead. Uhhhhhh!!!! For my purposes, i will usually turn off my computer after a few hours working, but i now realise that alot of people out their almost never have to. Of course, these people always have great quality psus/cases/ups/firewalls.... this is just for desktop systems, so i guess this is where the saying, a workstation system is just like a server actually comes from?

 

Frostytech is one of the few sites to actually record the sound that the fans make of the units. Pretty great stuff if your looking for a quiet solution.

 

http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=95031960

 

This comment is particularly telling about chassis size, proportion, dimensions for dual MPs.

 

http://www.aceshardware.com/forum?read=95032136

 

 

Not personally, but I have had a heatsink professional machine lapped. (At a machine shop). Some alpha 8045's. Damn those things are nice. I got one running on a old KK266 Iwill with a 1900+ XP, the damn thing is in the low 30C's idle. (With a silent 80mm)

 

You had a KK266 too? I went for the KK266Plus Raid, and boy what i POS. Apparently, the bios for all the raid controller is crammed in with the main system bios (already taxed for space on the little ROM chip], so consequently, my KK266 Plus R never actually boots up without a couple of power cycles. However, the thing is once it boots i have never had any problems afterwards, so i leave the system on for days as a net rendering box. Your model the simple straightforware KK266, is the board i should have went for, and purchased a real pci raid controller with bios chip on the card itself. I tried the KK266 plus R with a new 100GB WD special edition a year back. When shutting down, the hard drive would cycle up again and re-boot the system!!!! Weird.

 

 

Intel is basically hand picking chipsets for i875, which should really influence the type of stability you'll get at higher FSB's.

 

Until they actually influence a whole re-design of the DDR400 memory standard i am sure.

 

[ April 24, 2003, 11:38 AM: Message edited by: garethace ]

[garethace]

In fact, another poster was asking about data management on the general forum, so i offered him some good links which have helped me personally deal with how i manage and organise vast amounts of project information. Because computers are getting so good now, and storage is becoming cheaper, actually keeping track of it all can become a real PITA.

 

http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=8&t=000021#000003

[Greg Hess]

Your model the simple straightforware KK266, is the board i should have went for, and purchased a real pci raid controller with bios chip on the card itself. I tried the KK266 plus R with a new 100GB WD special edition a year back. When shutting down, the hard drive would cycle up again and re-boot the system!!!! Weird.

 

Ya, I had a lot of luck with the vanilla KK266's. I build around four systems with that particular rev/chipset, and haven't had a single complaint from any of the owners. I've actually sold my old KK266 with the alpha to the university of maryland, (before I started working here) and now I admin the old fellow downstairs now and then (updates/maintaince). Been a few years with zero crashes. Running Mushkin PC133 with a 1900+ XP and that alpha, with a Geforce2 GTS.

 

Sorry you had so much problems with your raid version .

[garethace]

At least i manage to cut my teeth on the concepts behind using RAID with multiple drives using that board - it was just a learning exercise really and i am not disappointed about the functionality of the board as such.

 

I also learned things about the AMD platform, and using a cheap little duron processor, i was able to test quite alot of different softwares, graphics boards, hard drives, operating systems and so on.

 

I learned alot more about the importance of the Power Supply, the case, the heatsink,..... none of which i had ever really even encountered in my Pentium III Intel world - literally because with BX and Solano 815 or Carmel 840, those PIIII systems had been a piece of cake to put together.

 

I soon found out from my intro into the AMD world, there was more to built a good system than merely throwing in a board, a chip and a piece of ram.

 

My view, however still remains firm, that most or all cg software used to visualise architecture is disk subsystem limited like no other application out there. I have repeated my observation across so many different systems, i feel i have some justification in my theory - if not having any 'actual' benchmarked results.