Topcat's New Home System

[Topcat]

Well this one didn't last long....

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/showpo...&postcount=872

We had some severe weather pass though late fall and it got jolted.....got through multiple surge protection devices and got the NIC. I stuck a PCIe NIC in it....but it just hasn't acted right since......but I've been limping it along. I decided it's time to start working up a replacement.

First up is the case.....this came from the shop I cleaned out last October. This is an Enlight built server case OEM'd for Intel....and rebadged by Nobilis.

This is a magnificent eATX case, very thick steel and very heavy old iron server case from 2005.



6 bay hotswap bays...SCSI for now.



Rear shot.



Some intel dual skt604 server board...



Found in another box from the same shop....containing the SATA/SAS backplane needed to make the hotswap bays compatible with such. Lucky me!!



What will replace the IDE CDROM, the floppy, and the SCSI DAT drive.





Dismantling the case.



4x 73gb SCA drives and 2 with the dummy trays.



SCA backplane to be removed & replaced with the SATA one.



Motherboard coming out....



hotswap cage out first...



Air guides removed.



Pile growing...



The big worthless board....



Case empty.





The power LED & switch panel. This uses a flat ribbon cable proprietary to the board. I'll have to re-engineer this for use with standard wires....no problem.



As for what's going in this, it's still in development....but I will reveal that it won't be as per my norm; a dual socket. It'll be a single....I don't need massive computing power at home....I don't do much with it but just basic stuff that we all do...web, office, and some light gaming...but the fun is to come!!

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Day 2 (and completion) of case prep.

The SCA backplane removed from the housing. I have to give enlight (or Intel) credit, this was very well designed. I have to say it's on par with the quality of Supermicro.



Now the cage supports SATA & SAS.



Buttoned back up. The board to be used is on "Pat's Oven" cooking. I am also waiting for the IO shield to get here from China....so I just got the case ready.





Next I'll modify the front panel button PCB for use with standard ATX front panel wires/connectors.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Oh, I know about stuff getting "spiked" before! The first, was a U.S. Robotics 5699B 56K PCI modem (no dedicated processors) that I got in very-late-2002 and it got spiked during a T-storm on May 15, 2004. Afterwards, I couldn't use it, it acted like the firmware had a virus, LOL.

But, the good news, no evidence of the motherboard getting it. The motherboard at the time, purchased on November 6, 2003: Asus A7V8X-X (Via KT400 chipset)
It was merely a case where the 56K modem ended up eating it all, pretty much.

The second one, was 2017, when there was a T-storm, afterwards, the wifi-controlled LED lamp that I was testing, suddenly can't be found by the app/software anymore! But could still turn it on and use it at the default Kelvin rating.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Oh, I know about stuff getting "spiked" before! The first, was a U.S. Robotics 5699B 56K PCI modem (no dedicated processors) that I got in very-late-2002 and it got spiked during a T-storm on May 15, 2004. Afterwards, I couldn't use it, it acted like the firmware had a virus, LOL.

But, the good news, no evidence of the motherboard getting it. The motherboard at the time, purchased on November 6, 2003: Asus A7V8X-X (Via KT400 chipset)
It was merely a case where the 56K modem ended up eating it all, pretty much.

The second one, was 2017, when there was a T-storm, afterwards, the wifi-controlled LED lamp that I was testing, suddenly can't be found by the app/software anymore! But could still turn it on and use it at the default Kelvin rating.

Amazing you remember the DATE of a modem that got buzzed 21 years ago!! Your memory is definitely better than mine!!

The mothernoard for this build just spend 2 days in 'the oven' being abused. Passed with no issues.

FWIW, since DDR5 is becoming more standard, DDR3 is getting filthy cheap!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Amazing you remember the DATE of a modem that got buzzed 21 years ago!! Your memory is definitely better than mine!!

Yeah, I got it 20 years ago and it ate it 18 years ago. Whoops.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Yeah, I got it 20 years ago and it ate it 18 years ago. Whoops.

Good enough for government work!!

The motherboard to be used in this build has completed testing and has been removed from the oven. I won't reveal it quite yet, but I will say it's only a single socket 2011... Yea, I still run lower cost 'trailing edge' hardware these days. I'll let someone else pay the depreciation. It will run the V2 Xeon; which IIRC is 4th gen I-series with big caches and more cores....but yea...I'm just now reaching the SKT2011 era. Of course it's a Supermicro....the only real hold-up now is waiting for the IO shield to get here...and the deciding on HDD's; do I want to run SAS SSD's or just plain SATA SSD's...I can do either one. Right now I'm leaning toward standard SATA; this way there's one less controller to wait to init upon boot and less complication configuring/installing.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Ok, I'll have to spill some of her secrets here; as this plan is starting to shape-up. I was originally considering this little beast.......



...but I quickly ruled that out. It's 16 cores 32 threads 2x E5-2667 v2 CPU's@ 3.3GHz and 256gb RAM. What a waste for what I do with my home system....so I decided to run with a single socket 2011 (supermicro X9SRA); 8 core 16 thread Xeon E5-2687W v2 @ 3.4GHz. I chose this CPU as it's the fastest OCTA-core for this platform. These can be had with more cores and less clock or less cores and more clock....but this one was a nice balance of cores versus clock speed. The board came with the cooler, which was worth better than half what I gave for the board with teh cooler. I added the 64GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM that originally came in the dual board shown above.





Now back to the case.



The next trick is making this:



Use the interface cable for this:



...so I have to remap the ribbon... Not the first time I've had to do this, I'm sure it won't be the last. It's the front panel LED's & buttons obviously....being converted from Intel's proprietary interface to Supermicro's proprietary interface. The beauty of Supermicro's proprietary interface is that they make an adapter harness of normal wires for a standard motherboard as well....that is if I ever run a non-supermicro board in it....which is doubtful....but possible.



More as it progresses.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Today's fun was mapping the front panel button & LED board....then it dawned on me.... Supermicro made an adapter harness to convert their proprietary ribbon to work with a non-supermicro board.....hmmm, lets just do that in reverse!

I pinned out what goes to what on the panel itself and as if by some miracle everything was right next to eachotehr.....to even include the PWR LED being a 3-pin! Ok, sounds easy....and to just plug things in it was....but... There was some circuitry on this board, not sure what it was for....but it's no longer needed....so I removed and bypassed where necessary.





The ends of the proprietary SM ribbon. This ribbon came with a SM board I rescued for peanuts off ebay....as a matter of fact, it will be used as the test bed for this modified panel....incase something goes wrong, it wouldn't be much of a loss. All these connectors are the same on SM boards.....so if it works on this one, it'll work on any.



Plugged in...



Everything is working. Top LED is PWR ON. The top of the four lower ones is NIC1, the green one right below it is NIC2. The one below that is HDD activity. The last one *WAS* a 'status' LED, but will be using it for the OVH warn.



Reinstalled back in the case.





Now installing the board...or starting to anyway....





Slid the SAS cage back in, wanted to see what clearances were like. Very nice fit. I could have gotten another eATX in there, but would have had to use lower profile heatsinks; especially on the front-most CPU....but being a single socket, there were no clearance issues at all. Nice fit actually!







That was as far as I got.....

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Got this one buttoned up....not a bad one for as cheap as it was done...but it seems anything DDR3 these days is pretty cheap.

Air guide back in place & PSU connected. You'll also note the nice clean ribbon interface for the front panel.





Next up is a re-pinned 120mm PWM fan to replace the 3-pin 12v fan. It had to be re-pinned, as it was wired for a Dell connector...pulled from an Optiplex 330....I still have quite a few of those.



The old one and the new used one. The old one is a good air mover....but really loud!



Wired up....even has an external COM connector. Connector was original to the old Intel board....but the X9SRA has 2x COM port headers....and they're pinned the same.



I still think it's a nice looking case! I removed the Server 2003 COA from the top of the case....not easy to remove after nearly 2 decades stuck on there...but its done and not a bit of damage to the case. Soften it with mineral spirits and then careful plucking at it with soft plastic edge. Won't harm the case finish, but you do have to be patient.





Overall, went together nice. Good fit of hardware.



Butt shot of course.



Fired up!



This was part of the Enterprise experiment from THIS THREAD.



I am still tweaking this a bit....but it'll be deployed over the weekend most likely.

Specs:
Supermicro X9SRA Motherboard
Xeon E5-2687W V2 8-Core @ 3.4GHz
64gb PC3-12800
Quadro M5000 8gb GPU
960gb Kingston SSD

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Deployed without issue. The one thing I change was pulling the Audigy FX out of the decommissioned system and adding it to this one. I forgot how crappy an onboard realtek is in comparison!

Had to say goodbye to Server 2012 R2 on the home system (what was on the old one)... It's the 8.1 interface, like Win7, browser support is going to be drying up up and security updates end this year. Moment of silence for a great run with that OS.

[TechGeek]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Checking in from Windows 2000! The run's still going on this OS for me. Dell Dimension 2400 with a Northwood P4 + 512MB DDR + Soundblaster Live! running Windows 2000 USP5.1 and Extended Kernel 3.0e.

I may or may not pull the SB Live! and drop it into my main workstation, as its onboard Realtek audio has gotten to be rather noisy and hissy over the years.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

I like the dark theme!

[TechGeek]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

I like the dark theme!

Thanks! I've attached the registry file to import it. You'll need to rename the file (delete the .txt) and manually edit it and add your own SID (from HKEY_USERS) to get it to import properly.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Thanks! I've attached the registry file to import it. You'll need to rename the file (delete the .txt) and manually edit it and add your own SID (from HKEY_USERS) to get it to import properly.

I'll play around with that on one of my several W2k boxes... One thing I miss about the old world days of Windows that ended with XP was truly customizable themes.....with Vista to the present, modding was far more limited....but I kind of guess why....it was real easy to break things and I've seen themes so bungled up the system was barely usable...

[TechGeek]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

I'll play around with that on one of my several W2k boxes... One thing I miss about the old world days of Windows that ended with XP was truly customizable themes.....with Vista to the present, modding was far more limited....but I kind of guess why....it was real easy to break things and I've seen themes so bungled up the system was barely usable...

[TechGeek]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

And if you do the sethc trick, you can also customize the SYSTEM account's theme, too!

[bobajob]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Great photobook of your homebrew adventures so far TC, with what looks like a monster! Only read 8 odd threads, this place is super addictive already

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

I picked up an 8GB Quadro M5000 last week in a dropoff from an EDU. Tested it, its good. I stuck it in this system.

[TechGeek]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

I'll play around with that on one of my several W2k boxes... One thing I miss about the old world days of Windows that ended with XP was truly customizable themes.....with Vista to the present, modding was far more limited....but I kind of guess why....it was real easy to break things and I've seen themes so bungled up the system was barely usable...

Did you ever get around to playing with that?

[Uranium-235]

Re: Topcat's New Home System

Get some 2.5 to 3.5 inch adapters and put all SSD's in your bay. Set it up in raid 0