Paxville or Bust! The Supermicro X6DA8 Project

[Topcat]

^
There are PCIe power adapters for that.... I've had this card for a while, I lowballed a guy on ebay ($19 shipped) for it, and he accepted. I tested it when I got it, it worked. I think its been in the parts cabinet for close to a year now.

[Topcat]

I chipped away at this one a little this morning before getting myself into construction-mode....

Removed all heatsinks and hotwashed the motherboard, it was filthy.



3.6GHz Irwindales that came with the board and 12gb RAM from my parts bin.



More junk....


Case stripped. The AFT lower motherboard side section of the 5.25" drive cage interferes with the back of the board & heatsinks....


Fixed!




3.5" Cage reinstalled. Clears everything.


The rest of the case cleaned up. I removed the "property of dent county" sticker goo. The county clerk actually removed the sticker (with a serial number on it), so they can clear it from their records. There was also a XP COA, I removed that and de-goop'd the case....then hotwashed everything.







I'll resume this again when I have a little extra time.

[Topcat]

Testing before assembly....and its a good thing I did. GPU interferes with the FET heatsink....





Trimmed. I had a slip with the angle grinder and took off a little more than intended....but it seems to be of no harm. After some load testing afterward, the FET's aren't overly hot. The GPU fan seems to pull air over the shaved sink.







Up & running.... Next step is to put it together.

[Topcat]

Going together.


I discovered that I am completely out of 80mm case fans, atleast ones that aren't complete crap....so I did order some to fill the 2x openings next to the IO shield.

A little config change.
2x 160gb Velociraptors in a raid0 on a LSI 9550 w/BBU & batt.





Used the last of the free "powerman" PSU's I got a while back.



Gotta love beige....


Not bad.


Winders 7...


CrystalDiskMark on the velociraptor raid0. The numbers were lower than expected, but I then realized this controller hadn't been powered up in a while and the battery was going through its test & charge process....which turns off write caching. I'll retest it when it finishes its song & dance.



This post made from it of course....I'll wrap it up when the fans arrive. I need to track down a couple more 9800GT's (they're cheap enough), for the 'netburst showdown'....so most things are on the same playing field.

[Topcat]

Reran CrystalDiskMark this morning since the battery is tested & charged....write caching is re-enabled.... Results are much better.

[Topcat]

The X6DAL sleeper is complete. I did a quick Novabench of this system, the others will soon follow.

Fans installed.




Buttoned up & installing the necessary stuff.




Novabench 3.04 results:


CPU score of a pair of single core 3.6GHz Irwindales is 277. I'll run the 3.8's and the pair of dual core 2.8GHz Paxvilles.

[Topcat]

The showdown:

System 1:
Supermicro X6DAL-XG
2x single-core 3.6GHz Irwindale CPU's
12gb ECC DDR1
GeForce 9800GT
3ware 9550 w/BBU
2x 2.5" 10k RPM velociraptors in a RAID-0


Novabench: CPU score of 277


CrystalDiskMark:




System 2:
Supermicro X6DAI-G2
2x dual-core 2.8GHz Paxville CPU's
16gb ECC DDR2 memory
Nvidia Quadro NVS 450
Adaptec 2405 SAS controller
2x 3.5" 15k RPM Cheetah SAS in a RAID-0

Novabench: CPU score of 331


CrystalDiskMark: I think I need to check controller settings, the write speeds should be much higher.


System 3:
Supermicro X6DA8
2x single-core 3.8GHz Irwindale CPU's
16gb ECC DDR2
Quadro FX4800
Adaptec 2120S U320 SCSI
Single 3.5" 15k RPM cheetah in JBoD

Novabench: I guess that 200MHz made no difference, CPU score is the same as System 1.


CrystalDiskMark: I will rerun this when I pick up a couple more drives to test some RAID configs.

[370forlife]

Ahh the X6DAL board. I had an X6DAL-G when I was in highschool as my main computer. I'm not sure what happened to that machine. I think it fell victim to my Dad's murderous computer recycling after I moved out. Sorry, that just made me really nostalgic.

[momaka]

Hmmm. What happened to the long post I typed and posted here a few days ago?
I guess the system ate it. Oh well, I'll retype it.

[Topcat]

^
I never saw it....you must have forgot to hit submit!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by Topcat

^
I never saw it....you must have forgot to hit submit!

Never happened before, but given the goof I am... it's possible

Originally Posted by Topcat

What better use for an old beige Aopen case...
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1525543396

Couldn't agree more.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Old mATX P4 system (momaka, let me know if you want it, it works).
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1525543396

Oh, cool, an AOpen motherboard!
With AOpen out of the motherboard business, it's pretty tempting to add to the collection. However, I think I should pass it up, mainly because I already have too many older motherboards sitting around and collecting dust. So it would be a shame to do that to it. I really do appreciate your offer, though! I guess if I come up with a plan to find a use for it, I'll let you know.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Fixed!
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1525713871

https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1525713871

Don't forget to debu.... oh, nevermind we talked about this before

Originally Posted by Topcat

I discovered that I am completely out of 80mm case fans, atleast ones that aren't complete crap....

Not sure what you're calling complete crap, but even most cheapo sleeve bearing fans from rock-bottom low-end PSUs and cases will last a long time one opened and their sleeve bearings cleaned+lubed properly.

The fans I call complete crap are the "long life bearing" ones - i.e. modern day sealed sleeve bearing fans that cannot be taken apart and fixed when they go bad. And yes, they do go bad fairly quickly - sometimes even quicker than the cheapo fans mentioned above.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Gotta love beige....
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1525902962

Originally Posted by Topcat

I need to track down a couple more 9800GT's (they're cheap enough), for the 'netburst showdown'....so most things are on the same playing field.

The 9800 GT's are great cards and quite abundant on the used market now. However, they tend to run a bit hot and also fail fairly often under heavy stress after a few years due to inadequate cooling - at least the ones with single-slot coolers.

For this reason, I prefer the Radeon HD3870 cards (and often grab them when I see one offered for under $15 shipped on eBay). While they don't perform as good in games as the 9800 GT, I think they do have more raw computing power (336 GFLOPs for the 9800 GT vs. nearly 500 GFLOPs for the HD3870), so they may score higher in F@H, mining, and other similar apps. The HD3870 also usually costs about the same and has the same power consumption. It's just a bit more rare. What I really like about the reference HD3870 is that it comes with a dual-slot cooler and can run really cool, once the BIOS settings are tweaked a bit (the stock BIOS fan curve tends to idle the fan too low, making these cards cook under load - a 5-minute fix with Radeon BIOS Editor).

And if you need more GPU power for the same money, the HD4850 will whoop both the HD3870 and the 9800 GT's butts (around 1 TFLOPs worth of computing power). That said, the reference HD4850 does have one thing I don't like: single-slot cooler that runs way too hot. It can be tamed with BIOS editing, but then the card becomes loud IMO. So unless you find a dual-slot cooler HD4850 with bigger fan(s), I can't say I recommend them over the 9800 GT, unless performance is really what you are going for.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Novabench: I guess that 200MHz made no difference, CPU score is the same as System 1.

On Netburst architecture, 200 MHz difference is pretty much nothing. Only once you go past 400-600 MHz, you start to see some. HT on the other hand, helps quite a bit more than an increase in the core speed, as you saw from your benchmarks

Originally Posted by ratdude747

^I have the PNY "energy efficient" version in my irwindale box... slighly less performance (underclocked a tad), but uses a slimmer heatsink and is under 75W (no PCIe power connector, which is good since that PSU doesn't have it).

Those are really nice cards. Essentially, you get almost the full performance of a G92 GPU, but at a much more reduced power draw. Just beware that some of them use cheaper heatsinks with crappy fans that tend to fail quicker than on the standard 9800GT's.

[Stefan Payne]

Originally Posted by Topcat

^
I never saw it....you must have forgot to hit submit!

Time for vBulletin upgrade?
Newer versions save whatever you were typing...

[Topcat]

^

NEVER!!!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by Stefan Payne

Time for vBulletin upgrade?
Newer versions save whatever you were typing...

Just for that feature? - Nah, not worth it, IMO. And even if it wasn't just for that feature, I still don't think it's necessary to upgrade.

If anything, I really like that fact that the forum almost hasn't changed in terms of looks and functionality in the last 10 years (wait, I've been here for 10 years?? ........ yup, just checked: join date was 4th of May in 2008. WOW! ). But what I like even more is that it isn't bloated with pointless features, unlike many newer/updated forums today. You can browse on a Pentium II or a Ryzen Threadripper, and it would still be blazing fast on both.

So I am with TC on this one.

[Topcat]

Just a little footnote for this thread for Momaka and his love of older PSU's... This one is an Enlight EN-470MP that was in the Enlight case from earlier in the thread. While I didn't use this PSU in this build, I did repair it for something else later on, which is to be determined....

Of course some pics....some bad fukyou caps...


Disassembly was a pain with this PSU...had to desolder a full heatsinks worth of transistors to gain access to the caps under the heatsink.





The shell...


recapped.



Going back together...


It's shiny!!


Reassembled and testing on an old lab rat board.....all was well.


that's all for now.

[Per Hansson]

That's quite the dedication to recapping a PSU.
I guess there are some drawbacks to beefy heatsinks
Looks quite allot nicer without all the dust bunnies too!

[momaka]

Originally Posted by Topcat

Just a little footnote for this thread for Momaka and his love of older PSU's...

Hehe, thanks!

Actually, if there is anyone that would enjoy this more than me, it is Mr. Pentium4, as he is the one that gave me my e-Power PSU (same PSU as this one). He said he had several of these PSU (recapped, of course) running in various systems, and they've been very reliable - each PC netting over 20 or 30k hours, IIRC.

So good thing you saved it. There PSU are kind of like the old CWT-built Antecs: good workhorses only downed by bad caps (thanks to Fuhjyyu! ). Unlike the CWT Antecs, these PSUs use a PWM chip for the 5VSB circuit rather than your typical primitive 2-transistor design of the CWTs.

Originally Posted by Topcat

This one is an Enlight EN-470MP that was in the Enlight case from earlier in the thread.

It's still a Topower unit, though, as evident by those "TOP" markings on each transformer. Unlike Zumax (which is what e-Power began to use after Topower), Topower-built units are pretty well designed and reliable.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Disassembly was a pain with this PSU...had to desolder a full heatsinks worth of transistors to gain access to the caps under the heatsink.

Yeah, that's the only downfall of PSUs with big heatsinks: you either have to remove them or work under the heatsinks. I recapped two very beefy FSP units for someone here, and they both took quite a bit of time to do due to the large heatsinks. One of them, I actually had to work the caps out without removing the heatsinks, as the PCB was dual-layer and very hard to heat up.

Originally Posted by Topcat

It's shiny!!
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1527227316

Lol, one of those units you have to work on with white gloves.

Originally Posted by Topcat

Reassembled and testing on an old lab rat board.....all was well.
https://www.badcaps.net/forum/attach...1&d=1527227316

Ha! Isn't that the old P4 AOpen mobo you posted in this thread?
I knew you'd find a use for it.

Originally Posted by Per Hansson

That's quite the dedication to recapping a PSU.

Yup. But it's one of those units you probably won't have to touch again for at least another 10 years, if not more.

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by Topcat

System 3:
Supermicro X6DA8
2x single-core 3.8GHz Irwindale CPU's
16gb ECC DDR2
Quadro FX4800
Adaptec 2120S U320 SCSI
Single 3.5" 15k RPM cheetah in JBoD

Novabench: I guess that 200MHz made no difference, CPU score is the same as System 1.


CrystalDiskMark: I will rerun this when I pick up a couple more drives to test some RAID configs.

Just a little update.....CrystalDiskMark of pair of 300gb 15k's in a raid0 on the same controller (Adaptec 2120S):

[Stefan Payne]

so a modern PCIe NVMe SSD has higher transferrates than the main memory of that system?

[Topcat]

Originally Posted by Stefan Payne

so a modern PCIe NVMe SSD has higher transferrates than the main memory of that system?

You do realize that it's 15yrs old, right?