Topcat's XPS 625 Revival - X8SAX then K8N-DL and finally P6X58-E WS; First 2021 Build

[Topcat]

Ok, this one back in the news *again*!! ...but no system core swap this time. A few weeks ago, I was given an identical tower that had a factory Dell liquid cooling system in it. I never knew this was even an option for these, and thus it piqued my interest for this build....and I started looking for another of these coolers. Not easy to find with the Dell shroud that goes around it & proprietary mounts....but I finally found one complete for $30 shipped. There was a problem though, this system is now a LGA1366; not the LGA775 or AM2 as they were originally intended, so the cooling block brackets were not compatible. I did some more digging and found that the liquid blocks on these are actually made by 'ASETEK'.....and did even more digging and found *ONE* bracket for the LGA1366 socket that would fit this water block without having to buy an entire other cooler which may not fit the shroud!! Talk about a stroke of luck!!








I had to make one modification to the shroud; as the northbridge on this board wasn't in the same location as the original.....just had to trim a little off to allow the heatsink to fit around the shroud.



Very nice fit now!! The CPU is in about the same location as the one on the original board. The only real point of interference was the screwdown peg and the CPU fan header. They were VERY close....but cleared. Touching, but cleared.

.

Installed....like it was born there!!!!!! Very happy with the outcome; making this silly build even more unusual.



CPU Temps at first powerup.... 29*C



Under no load in windows.



Under CPU-Z's stress test loads:




Stupid me didn't take any pics of the same tests with the air cooler, and I wasn't swapping them back to retest it....I don't like bending those lines around any more than I already had to. The liquid cooler kept it an average of 10~15*C cooler at idle and under load than the air cooler did. This CPU has a TDP of 130W. Nice finishing touch for this weird one!

[Topcat]

Topcat's XPS 625 Revival - X8SAX then K8N-DL and finally P6X58-E WS; First 2021 Buil

What a fun build.....especially since I got to do it twice!!

Well....I get to do this one for a third time!! ....and this time it was a real gas!!! 2 years later almost to the day, I found myself redoing this one. I was never really thrilled with the K8N-DL setup; it wasn't really a good 'fit' for this case...but the X8SAX had to be pulled to go into a production rig and I didn't want to just leave it incomplete; hence the K8N-DL....

I came into an Asus P6X58-E WS LGA1366 some time back (forgot I had it actually)... I ran into it the other day and BAM, this case came to mind. I've been pondering for a while what would be a good matching for this case....and this board won by a mile over others I was considering. This board is very rare in that it contains 3x 16x PCIe slots all @ 16x capacity....so I'm sure you can figure out where this is going. These boards are nearly impossible to find now. I tested the board in the oven to verify function, it was good....and here we go!

First thing that had to be determined was the abilities of the power supply. If you looked at the oven test, you'll see this board is very 3.3v heavy, which I thought odd....I figured it would be a hefty 12v sucker....but its loads on the 12v rail were light. The power supply is a Dell branded 750W with a 30A 3.3v rail, plenty adequate, so onward (see page 1 for an interior view of PSU).

Case opened....and the K8N-DL Removed.






The new guts!



Easy peasy





Had to remove the floppy/card reader combo and replaced it with a Dell branded Teac card reader. This board doesn't have a floppy controller on it....so obviously no need for a floppy drive.





Now for the fun and why the three 16x slots were so important to this build!!

A 3-way SLI!! Ok ok ok SLI haters, I already know... SLI is a thing of the past by modern standards, but all this hardware is ~2010 era...just a soon-to-be neat piece of computing history. Boards capable of a 3-way SLI with 3x full speed 16x slots are not easy to find. The GPU's are GTX285's, all matching firmwares....a very good pairing for this board & CPU.



120gb SSD.



Now that's a butt shot!!



Partially tidied up. I have 24gb of RAM coming for it, I'll put the finishing touches on it when it arrives.



The lighting is still cool!!





POST'ed.



Installing Win7.



SLI is happy!



...and here we are...the version 3 of the goat barn find!!



So the specs are now:

Asus P6X58-E WS Motherboard
Xeon X5690 hexcore @ 3.46GHz (Westmere)
24GB ECC RAM
3x GTX285's in a 3-way SLI
120gb SSD
Dell 750W PSU - Not sure who makes it, but it's well built

The rest is already known. It has a decade or more to go to achieve 'retro status'....but it is definitely an oddity already between the case and what's now in it.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Is it just me or is the whole "upside down" motherboard thing absolutely brilliant and should be the norm? Even from an aesthetic perspective pretty much any GPU looks better that way.

I've always liked it better that way....very few cases did it.

...and here we go... As old as this system core is, I find it unlikely it'll ever be pulled to go back to work!! There were a few nice things about this; for one, the 'notch' in the board. Guess what that did? It allowed the original HDD cages to be reinstalled with just a very light shaving of the caddy guide tracks. Modding them for the X8SAX would have required cutting the entire corner out. I'm glad I opted not to do that! Both cages fit and clear the motherboard by a good 2mm.





This opened up an opportunity to make this a little more period-specific. I pulled the 480gb SSD and will use it on something else. I'll instead use my last 2 300gb Velociraptors in a raid1 on the onboard Silicon Image 3114 RAID controller. This controller is not the greatest, but by today's standard it's not like it really matters for what this thing is.



Yea, nice fit!! Since I am only using 2 drives, I only installed one cage. I'd rather have the air flow than a second empty cage.





The usual butt shot, showing off the shiny IO shield...



The front panel connectors are in a really grabastic place on this board, and the stock wires would not reach....I had to fabricate a small extension harness, but not actually cut/modify the originals. I just tinned the ends of the harness and slipped them into the plugs of the original.....and then a little electric tape. The new harness is encased in heatshrink tubing.



Not the prettiest.....but I can live with it.



So far so good!



GPU installed and wires tied up.... The GPU isn't very period-specific for this, it's about 3yrs too late...but I didn't feel like digging through the bin of nicer GPU's for one that would be more period-specific. I have a 9800GT around somewhere, that would have probably been a better choice...but then I'd have to go find it. So for now, it's the 560ti.



Assembled butt shot.



The usual Win7 install. The RAID controller never had an 'official' raid driver for anything beyond XP.....but me is crafty....



Compared to the hexcore Westmere that was in here, this is a huge downgrade....but it sure does look good!! ...and it's a lot closer to what the system originally was.



...and that's that!!



A couple screenshots:





The improvised system specs are:

Asus K8N-DL
2x Dual Core Opteron 890's; four cores @ a blistering 2.8GHz!!
6gb ECC RAM (supports 24gb, but this is what came with it)
GeForce GTX 560ti 1gb GPU (I may change that at some point)
2x 300gb Velociraptors in a RAID1

What a fun build.....especially since I got to do it twice!!

[shovenose]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Is it just me or is the whole "upside down" motherboard thing absolutely brilliant and should be the norm? Even from an aesthetic perspective pretty much any GPU looks better that way.

Just as suspected......PSU was bad. Fan did not quit, board works (can't say I wasn't a little nervous). Opteron 890 test was successful!

Oh man if I ever need 30 old GPUs with VGA I know who to call

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Hmm...
I see that's a board with nVidia nForce 4 chipset... so that could also be the reason why, especially if the chipset fan failed (somewhat common for those small 40 mm screamer fans.) And in general, I think anything nForce 3 and newer isn't very reliable... though nowhere near as bad as the nForce 6100/6150 and later chipsets like the 680 and 780 (all those "for parts" EVGA 680i/780i -SLI are a prime example of that.)

But fingers crossed yours is just down to a bad PSU.


That would be really nice. Should spare you (hopefully) some more hair pulling by not having to figure out how to make the original Alienware LED controller work anymore.

Just as suspected......PSU was bad. Fan did not quit, board works (can't say I wasn't a little nervous). Opteron 890 test was successful!

[momaka]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Of course! I was talking about what is bad for Antec PSU standards. (especially expectations)

Ah, noted.

Yeah, the CWT Antec PSUs weren't that great indeed. But FWIW in those days, they were actually OK (minus the crap caps obviously.) With good caps, I bet many of them would still be working fine today. Even more so, those old CWT designs did not have APFC or any other modern "exotic" circuits - just a simple half-bridge, IIRC, with a 2-transistor 5VBS. Very simple designs and not the most efficient by any means... but put good caps on them, and they last forever. Hence why I still choose to repair many older PSUs today.

Now, a PSU is usually on my ban list for having cap brands with a reported history of problems.

Well, you're missing out on a lot of good PSUs then - that is, PSUs that you can potentially get for cheap and fix up with good caps.

I'll buy 'em (used) if the price is right and if I can get decent caps to swap in.

+1
If you can pickup an older PSU like that for near scrap prices and put new caps in it, you get more bang for your buck... and I don't mean this in a pun way, like with PowMax or similar.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

I'll buy 'em (used) if the price is right and if I can get decent caps to swap in.

Still to this date don't have the proper supplies to even change a single cap properly!

It don't help that I'm planning to move my stuff to a bigger room in this house.

I currently have a room that gets cluttered when I'm working on other PCs, LOL.

[ratdude747]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

I remember back in 2008, the best I could afford, was a PSU with Teapo and Ost. (The FSP 500W that I had for 8 years, before I gave it away with a PC)

Now, a PSU is usually on my ban list for having cap brands with a reported history of problems.

I'll buy 'em (used) if the price is right and if I can get decent caps to swap in.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

The seasonics were about the same except the unit was a decent build with crap caps; usually a combo of capxon, teapo, and 'fukyyu'.....

I remember back in 2008, the best I could afford, was a PSU with Teapo and Ost. (The FSP 500W that I had for 8 years, before I gave it away with a PC)

Now, a PSU is usually on my ban list for having cap brands with a reported history of problems.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Could anything even be quite as bad as the CWT Antecs in the mid-2000s?
I regularly saw them with a bulging Fukyyu cap! LOL!

The seasonics were about the same except the unit was a decent build with crap caps; usually a combo of capxon, teapo, and 'fukyyu'.....

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Uhm... PowMax with Rulycon caps??
There are many worse PSUs than those Antecs, even today. You can still get $10< gutless wonders that blow up as soon as you hit the power button on your PC.

Of course! I was talking about what is bad for Antec PSU standards. (especially expectations)

[momaka]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Could anything even be quite as bad as the CWT Antecs in the mid-2000s?

Uhm... PowMax with Rulycon caps??
There are many worse PSUs than those Antecs, even today. You can still get $10< gutless wonders that blow up as soon as you hit the power button on your PC.

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

The PSU is an Antec HE650 (seasonic build), well known for failed caps.

Could anything even be quite as bad as the CWT Antecs in the mid-2000s?
I regularly saw them with a bulging Fukyyu cap! LOL!

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Hmm...
I see that's a board with nVidia nForce 4 chipset... so that could also be the reason why, especially if the chipset fan failed (somewhat common for those small 40 mm screamer fans.) And in general, I think anything nForce 3 and newer isn't very reliable... though nowhere near as bad as the nForce 6100/6150 and later chipsets like the 680 and 780 (all those "for parts" EVGA 680i/780i -SLI are a prime example of that.)

But fingers crossed yours is just down to a bad PSU.

I have a little inside information.... The PSU is an Antec HE650 (seasonic build), well known for failed caps. It was new when I built the system, I did not recap it....so I'm pretty confident it's the PSU....but if it's not, I won't let a pair of rare Opteron 890's go to waste....I'll find something else that will run 'em.

That would be really nice. Should spare you (hopefully) some more hair pulling by not having to figure out how to make the original Alienware LED controller work anymore.

That's the nice thing about the lighting in this one....without software loaded, the lighting just runs at its default settings. I have read that it won't install unless it somehow detects the Dell/alienware motherboard....perhaps the installer reads the BIOS....I guess we'll find out....the lighting is still super mad-tyte cool even if the software won't run.

[momaka]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

The source of the 'rebirth' is a workstation type system I built for a family member many moons ago. The system went kaput some time ago (became unstable), and has been sitting in his basement since. He ran it about 8yrs. Probably bad caps in the PSU (its an Antec of the right era)...I'm sure it's nothing that can't be fixed. He lives up near Chicago, so I probably won't see it until later this summer....but here's hint # 2: Asus K8N-DL

Hmm...
I see that's a board with nVidia nForce 4 chipset... so that could also be the reason why, especially if the chipset fan failed (somewhat common for those small 40 mm screamer fans.) And in general, I think anything nForce 3 and newer isn't very reliable... though nowhere near as bad as the nForce 6100/6150 and later chipsets like the 680 and 780 (all those "for parts" EVGA 680i/780i -SLI are a prime example of that.)

But fingers crossed yours is just down to a bad PSU.

I also discovered that through the use of Dell's AlienFX software, all the cool lighting in this case can be controlled....color, what's on and what's off, brightness....I haven't tried it yet (obviously can't now)...but if you remember from earlier in the thread, it all interfaces the motherboard (any motherboard) through a basic internal USB header!

That would be really nice. Should spare you (hopefully) some more hair pulling by not having to figure out how to make the original Alienware LED controller work anymore.

[ratdude747]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

Yea, I remember that build. I think a lot of hte 940 wonkiness is the chipset itself. For example, if you run the max 16gb of RAM supported (all slots populated, it's a ranking thing), it won't run stable @ 400MHz, you have to clock the memory bus down to 266...otherwise it would BSoD left & right....that was the worst of it, but the K8N-DL only supports 12gb (only has 6 slots), so it's not a factor.

I remember!

Hence why I only run 8GB RAM... the speed helps more than the size.

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

I do happen to have one sitting... with 285's and dual GTX250's no less. Other than weird BSODs right when I retired it, it was rock solid and did the job well. One of my favorite builds, actually (and my only one in a "small" EATX case).

Yea, I remember that build. I think a lot of hte 940 wonkiness is the chipset itself. For example, if you run the max 16gb of RAM supported (all slots populated, it's a ranking thing), it won't run stable @ 400MHz, you have to clock the memory bus down to 266...otherwise it would BSoD left & right....that was the worst of it, but the K8N-DL only supports 12gb (only has 6 slots), so it's not a factor.

[ratdude747]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

I built this thing circa 2008 or so, it was solid as well...or I'd have never released it to a family member. It's also a standard ATX (not eATX), which helps.... I've never had the pleasure of playing around with a supermicro s940 system, but I've been cursed to have had the displeasure of quite a few wonky Tyans.....

I do happen to have one sitting... with 285's and dual GTX250's no less. Other than weird BSODs right when I retired it, it was rock solid and did the job well. One of my favorite builds, actually (and my only one in a "small" EATX case).

[Topcat]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

I've had great luck with the socket 940's I've built... as long as they have SM mobos! All my others were Tyans and were either quirky or blew up. Still run twin 285's in my server...

I built this thing circa 2008 or so, it was solid as well...or I'd have never released it to a family member. It's also a standard ATX (not eATX), which helps.... I've never had the pleasure of playing around with a supermicro s940 system, but I've been cursed to have had the displeasure of quite a few wonky Tyans.....

[ratdude747]

Re: Topcat's XPS 625 Supermicro X8SAX Revival; First 2021 Build!

I've had great luck with the socket 940's I've built... as long as they have SM mobos! All my others were Tyans and were either quirky or blew up. Still run twin 285's in my server...