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

[sam_sam_sam]

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

TopCat

I would like to know what do you do with all the computer finds and friends that give you broken or no longer wanted them

I like reading your finds and what and what you do to them

[lti]

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

every civic owner's dream except it's a PC!

It's too fast for that.

[Topcat]

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

Ok, I had another bag of caps that I needed for the PSU and didn't realize it...so yay, got ahead! I'm still waiting on the SSD to get here, but I can go ahead and reassemble the rest of it.

If nothing else good can be said about this case, I do like the cable management for the big harnesses (24-pin and the 8-pin), which fasten in a galley under the motherboard. Pretty clever, I must say.







Now installing the motherboard.







Installed the GPU (GTX560ti 1GB)





POST testing....no problemo with the system core....but I did notice a noisy front fan....I think it's the first time I've ever seen one of those big bad boy 120mm double ball bearing fans fail. Thankfully I've got a gazillion of them.



Depinned the front panel connectors from its single-plug block and made individual plugs of them.



Ok, the corny lighting....









Booted Hiren's PE....







That's all until the SSD arrived. I've also come up with a better plan for now for the HDD mounting, this way I don't have to carve up the cages.....this way if anything changes later and this system core is removed, it won't be doomed to a couple hacked up HDD cages....I'll only be running a single drive in it, so this is a far cleaner option.....details will come in due time...

In the mean time....every civic owner's dream except it's a PC!

[Topcat]

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

I finally got this thing all disassembled.... It was a bit tricky, but it had to be done....that goat barn smell was stinking up my office, every piece had to be cleaned!! I didn't even break anything in the process.

Anyway....Apart!!



The bottom of the case.....grungy.



Front & rear bezels.



Case frame.



GPU that's still unidentified, the PCI 1gb NIC, and the lighting & fan controller.



Fan housings, front panel connectors/USB/audio, etc...



The beginning of washing. This took the better part of an entire work day to get through all these parts. I did the worst first; the case itself.



Front bezel with all the stickers removed (the AMD & Vista stickers)



Rear bezel with the Vista COA removed.





Fans very carefully removed from the housings; so not to tear/break their rubber standoffs...and of course thoroughly cleaned!



Now for the power supply....and this answered a few questions... I'm not sure who actually builds this PSU for Dell, but it is very well built and packed tight!! Examining this PSU, its obvious why this system was taken out of service....you guessed it, some bad caps! It would power up and POST, but odds are it wasn't stable. I did no testing of the original hardware beyond POST.

PSU disassembled.



They're 'Ltec' caps that failed. Note the Rubycon caps over in the secondary at the outputs....they're MBZ series 2200uF 10v. This is the first PSU I've ever seen a MBZ series in.... I always thought MBZ would be a bit too low ESR for PSU use. The UCC's shown are KZE and KHZ. I had to place an order for some caps, there were some values I didn't have....minor delay reassembling.



More filth...



The PSU shell & fans got washed. I did not wash the PCB's, I just carefully brushed them and blasted them with the air compressor. They cleaned up well.



Completion of cleaning.



The aluminum overall is in good condition. There are some scrapes & abrasions....one of the things I hate about aluminum cases....soft metal that shows every single blemish!



Beginning of reassembly. I wanted to get all the small intricate pieces all back together rather than wait for the completion of the PSU....this way I don't forget how crap goes...







Test fitting the motherboard. Only one standoff had to be modified.







Front panel fans, fan control & lighting control back in place. I removed the dongle for the firewire port, as this much newer motherboard doesn't have a header for it. I have never seen a firewire device anyway.



Rear bezel reinstalled.



Front bezel reinstalled.



Inside



Side back on.





The X8SAX has a floppy controller....what better to fill the 3.5" bay than a combo floppy & card reader!!





...and that's all she wrote today. I did order a SSD for this.....I'll resume when it and the caps needed for the PSU arrive....

[Topcat]

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

makes me wanna bust out the datavac duster and blow it all away! lol!

This one is well beyond that..... The only way to properly clean this one is a complete disassembly & washing with cleaners & hot water. I've been working on this since 9 this morning, and it's 12:30 now....and I'm not even half way through it.

I did find a suitable GPU though....not the best but certainly acceptable for the time being. GTX560TI 1gb.

[ChaosLegionnaire]

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

Filthy!!

Even more filth:

Cob webs...

yea the dust bunnies in the case and on the board as well as the layer of dust on the video card were an eyesore and getting to me quite a bit because of my ocd lol!

makes me wanna bust out the datavac duster and blow it all away! lol!

[Topcat]

So far, this year is starting off horrible....things are ok personally, but if you've read a newspaper the last couple weeks, you know the rest... So here's something cheery & geeky to take the load off; what better than another one of my goofy useless builds!

This was given to me today by a friend of mine.....he found it in some guy's goat barn, and rescued it with me in mind. You just can't buy friends like that!! Yes, it very much has the odor of a goat barn.....and a lot of dust! It will require the 'full treatment' as far as disassembly & cleaning. The HDD was missing, the card reader is missing, and the onboard NIC is dead. I did boot it off Hiren's and it did seem stable....but it's just a lame system. It will also need some new innards, it's an AM2; meh....but this is one I won't spend much on, so it'll be build with what I have on hand, which after evaluating my stash of more modern hardware happens to be a Supermicro X8SAX (from the "tree" a year or so ago). It's rocking a Hexcore Xeon @ 3.46 w/24gb DDR3; maxed out with CPU and RAM, x58 chipset....that sure kicks the creamcheese out of a dual core Athlon2 5600+!!

GPU at this point is undecided, not sure what I've got lingering around, but with a good GPU this would make a stellar workstation and even a pretty good gaming rig. I won't spend much on this, the only thing I plan to buy is a SSD...I wouldn't ruin this one with a spinner...

What intrigued me about this case was it's lighting, which was not overdone and was placed in practical places. Above drive openings and at the IO area. ...and here we go!!


Filthy!!




I've never seen one of these cases before....but very interesting.







Now we get into it.... Time to take this thing apart.....

Even more filth:





Cob webs...


No idea what GPU this is.....don't really care either.



Pile starts....

















The lighting & front panel controller. Thankfully this isn't dependent on the motherboard for anything. Just give it power and it works, so any modifications will be minor or nill.



Now the motherboard removed....

Clever design with that wire channel under the motherboard, but it'd sure be a PITA if you ever had to replace just the PSU!



Motherboard Removed.



CPU stuck to the sink and the backplate...





Test fitting X8SAX. The board is ~3/8" longer than the original, which clears everything just fine except the HDD cages. It will have to be modified, but the mod will be very minor.







This board works, but the NIC is dead. It had a PCI adapter in it....probably see if I can offload it somewhere for cheap.....but otherwise it's probably scrap.



Cover off the wiring channel.





IO shield area lights; otherwise a standard IO. A couple standoffs will have to be modified, but overall the mods to the case will be very minor.



...and this is where I'm leaving it today.....chowtime!!



More later.