I managed to get two new Dell Power edge 1600 sc servers each with a
Xeon 2.4 processor ( dual board ), 512Mb Ram and 160 Gb Drive for €
380 each delivered ). My plan was to combine both into a Dual Xeon
with 1 Gb Ram and 2 x 160 Gb drives ( I was going to add a 40 Gig
as a W2k boot drive ).

Most of my applications are standard business, the odd game, internet
etc etc, I do some Pohotgraphic processing not enough to demand such
resources.

Do I gain anything by combining the two systems for for my
applications should I keep them as seperate units.

The Dual Xeon MoBo's have no AGP port so it is get an AGP'd mobo (
expensive ) or get a decent PCI Grfx card ( or pair ) . I certainly
want to be able to ( even if I dont do it ) run someting as
graphically intensive as Halflife2. Recommendations.

Any views / suggestions appreciated.

Thanks....

Eddie

From:	Paul Cunnane
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 18:23:21 +0000

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:45:37 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:

> Any views / suggestions appreciated.

C'mon Eddie, you *know* you want to flog me one...

;)

--
Paul

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 19:21:53 +0000

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 18:23:21 +0000, Paul Cunnane
wrote:

>On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:45:37 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:
>
>> Any views / suggestions appreciated.
>
>C'mon Eddie, you *know* you want to flog me one...
>
>;)

Just trying to tease you Paul.! :-)

Eddie

From:	Ulick Magee
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:16:34 +0000

Eddie Wall wrote:
> I managed to get two new Dell Power edge 1600 sc servers

Lots of people didn't though, even though their orders were accepted,
and are none too happy about it

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/16/dell_customer_feedback/

U

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:49:35 +0000

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 20:16:34 +0000, Ulick Magee
wrote:

>Eddie Wall wrote:
>> I managed to get two new Dell Power edge 1600 sc servers
>
>Lots of people didn't though, even though their orders were accepted,
>and are none too happy about it
>
>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/16/dell_customer_feedback/

Actually the wrote to me and told me it was cancelled I wrote back
the following and Eureka... 2 days later I had the prettiest servers
you ever seen delivered...

_____________________________________________________________

On Tue, 14 Dec 2004 17:39:42 -0000, you wrote:

I beg to differ. I was in touch with your site and have a Dell order
number ############### and it was at stage 2 of completion
yesterday.

Now I have no idea if this was a badly structured sales gimmick or way
to stimulate interest in other products, but I can assure you I
complied with all the conditions... I ordered on the 9th you
acknowledged it you were to come back to me in 3 days and when you did
not I contacted you....

I was told my order was "Your order number (##############) has been
successfully registered with OrderWatch. We will monitor your order
and send you a notification email when your order has shipped."

This in effect as far as I am concerned means the order is in
progress.. and I fully expect to get it... I will have no problem
bringing this to the Consumer Affairs, The Department of Industry and
the Joe Duffy show on the national airwaves. I am incensed at this
treatment and have the time, money, broadband and energy to bring to
everyone's attention.

If this has happened to me, how many poor children could be
disappointed , when parents believe that they have placed an order
only to have it arbitrarily cancelled 6 days later, just 2-3 days
before delivery... perhaps on hearing this on the national airwaves
they will chose to cancel or not order because they want to be sure
their kid gets his present.

Kindly advise BY RETURN the date I can expect my order.

Eddie Wall

>
>Dear Sir/ Madam,
>
>Thank you for your recent request to purchase a Dell PowerEdge 1600 SC server(s).
>
>We regret to inform you that due to unprecedented demand on the day the offer was launched we have sold out of this product and will not be accepting or further processing your request to purchase this product.
>
>We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience caused.
>
>Under Dell's Terms & Conditions orders are only binding when accepted by Dell in a written Order Confirmation. While you may have received an Internet Receipt Acknowledgement, we have not sent you a written Order Confirmation to confirm acceptance of your order.
>
>We aim to offer customers the best possible customer experience and we regret we are unable to meet your request to purchase this product. Please refer to the Dell website at www.dell.ie for details of our other competitively priced server products.
>
>Once again, please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.
>
>Kind regards,
>
>Customer Care
>
______________________________________________________

"The squeeky wheel gets the grease"

Eddie

From:	P at draigBrady.com
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:47:54 +0000

Eddie Wall wrote:
> I managed to get two new Dell Power edge 1600 sc servers each with a
> Xeon 2.4 processor ( dual board ), 512Mb Ram and 160 Gb Drive for €
> 380 each delivered ). My plan was to combine both into a Dual Xeon
> with 1 Gb Ram and 2 x 160 Gb drives ( I was going to add a 40 Gig
> as a W2k boot drive ).
>
> Most of my applications are standard business, the odd game, internet
> etc etc, I do some Pohotgraphic processing not enough to demand such
> resources.

You mean €380 for BOTH delivered?
This was the £99 offer right?

Well the OS can split apps across the CPUs (and also app threads
which sophisticated photo apps support), so if you run apps
concurrently it's a win.

The drives you can raid for redundancy or speed.

Also working on one system is better than working on 2 :-)
Though I suppose you're asking whether it would
be more useful to give the machine to someone else,
instead of merging the 2.

I'm not a "graphics card" person myself, but
getting a good PCI card would seem feasible
given the comparison with AGP here:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/speeds

--
Pádraig Brady - http://www.pixelbeat.org
--

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:59:32 +0000

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:47:54 +0000, P@draigBrady.com wrote:

>I'm not a "graphics card" person myself, but
>getting a good PCI card would seem feasible
>given the comparison with AGP here:
>http://www.pixelbeat.org/speeds

It look like a PCI card is VERY slow compared with an AGP.... this is
not PCI-X just vanilla PCI... "I'm not a "graphics card" person
myself" me neither.!!

Eddie

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 11:55:53 +0000

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:47:54 +0000, P@draigBrady.com wrote:

>Eddie Wall wrote:
>> I managed to get two new Dell Power edge 1600 sc servers each with a
>> Xeon 2.4 processor ( dual board ), 512Mb Ram and 160 Gb Drive for €
>> 380 each delivered ). My plan was to combine both into a Dual Xeon
>> with 1 Gb Ram and 2 x 160 Gb drives ( I was going to add a 40 Gig
>> as a W2k boot drive ).
>>
>> Most of my applications are standard business, the odd game, internet
>> etc etc, I do some Pohotgraphic processing not enough to demand such
>> resources.
>
>You mean €380 for BOTH delivered?
>This was the £99 offer right?
>
>You mean €380 for BOTH delivered?
>This was the £99 offer right?

No they were € 149 for the basic Single Xeon and *0 gig Hd and 256 Ram
I paid the €70 for 512 ram and € 50 for 160 Gm HD add € 50 delivery (
oouch) and VAT... € 380 each...

What was the "99offer"?

>Well the OS can split apps across the CPUs (and also app threads
>which sophisticated photo apps support), so if you run apps
>concurrently it's a win.
>
Well everyi=one has apps running concurrently....... now I am
emialing, downloading, and have a number of other apps open like virus
protection, firewall, ad busters etc etc....

>The drives you can raid for redundancy or speed.
>
Thought about that.. theay are IDE's so I dont know if I will gain in
speed and I backup VERY frquently so data integrity is not reall a
priority BUT I am always interested in the other viewpoint.

>Also working on one system is better than working on 2 :-)

LOL.... I was thinking of implants :-)

>Though I suppose you're asking whether it would
>be more useful to give the machine to someone else,
>instead of merging the 2.

Exactly......

>
>I'm not a "graphics card" person myself, but
>getting a good PCI card would seem feasible
>given the comparison with AGP here:
>http://www.pixelbeat.org/speeds
>
Much appreciated Pádraig Thank you. !

Rgds

Eddie

From:	P at draigBrady.com
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 23 Dec 2004 12:32:22 +0000

Eddie Wall wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 10:47:54 +0000, P@draigBrady.com wrote:
>>The drives you can raid for redundancy or speed.
>>
> Thought about that.. theay are IDE's so I dont know if I will gain in
> speed and I backup VERY frquently so data integrity is not reall a
> priority BUT I am always interested in the other viewpoint.

Well for speed then you can setup software raid (striping)
(Linux does this easily so I presume you can do this on
windows these days?).
Striping splits reads/writes across the disks so that you
approach double the performance.

Pádraig.

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Fri, 24 Dec 2004 01:18:43 +0000

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:45:37 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:

>I managed to get two new Dell Power edge 1600 sc servers each with a
Anyone tell me how crap an " Embedded ATI Rage XL (8MB)" card is ?

Eddie

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:29:54 +0000

On Thu, 23 Dec 2004 09:45:37 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:

>I managed to get two new Dell Power edge 1600 sc servers each with a
>Xeon 2.4 processor ( dual board ), 512Mb Ram and 160 Gb Drive for €
>380 each delivered ). My plan was to combine both into a Dual Xeon
>with 1 Gb Ram and 2 x 160 Gb drives ( I was going to add a 40 Gig

Well the beast is up and running and it is very very nice.... those
fans sure shift a lot of Air though..... and it is significantly
louder than my old PC.. the ATI Rage 8MB is not good enough for
most games but does run some.. and picture viewing editing is
surprisingly fast. I just lifted the drives from my old system and
installed them and had very little tweaking to do.

Only problems :

Choosing the PCI Grfx card.... it seems it is not as straightforward
as it appears.

The drives default to ATA-33 ( they are all ATA 133 or 100 ) If I
choose ATA-100 in Bios, I get a message that the wrong cable is being
used..?! Have to say that I cannot see any noticeable difference...

Performance :

Before if I ran 3 particular programs concurrently the PC would grind
to halt, even if the programs were only working at 50% capacity. Not
only can I run those @ 100% and many many more, there is no lag /
delay. The CPU (s) highest I have seen full loaded ( even overloaded
) was 65%, before I was @ 100% all the time.

All tasks seem to be significantly quicker except one....... I was
burning DVD's in 8 min's on the old system, now it takes 10.... All
the drives and DVD are set to ultra DMA etc etc. and the drive
position is exactly the same as in the old system ( the Source HD is
not on the same IDE channel as the burner )

Any ideas why ?

Eddie

From:	Reader
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:18:30 -0200

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:29:54 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:

> The drives default to ATA-33 ( they are all ATA 133 or 100 ) If I
> choose ATA-100 in Bios, I get a message that the wrong cable is being
> used..?! Have to say that I cannot see any noticeable difference...

You need an 80 conductor IDE cable to run drives at ATA/66 and above.

> All tasks seem to be significantly quicker except one....... I was
> burning DVD's in 8 min's on the old system, now it takes 10.... All
> the drives and DVD are set to ultra DMA etc etc. and the drive
> position is exactly the same as in the old system ( the Source HD is
> not on the same IDE channel as the burner )

Possibly due to running the drives at ATA/33?

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:40:26 +0000

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:18:30 -0200, Reader
wrote:

>On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:29:54 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:
>
>> The drives default to ATA-33 ( they are all ATA 133 or 100 ) If I
>> choose ATA-100 in Bios, I get a message that the wrong cable is being
>> used..?! Have to say that I cannot see any noticeable difference...
>
>You need an 80 conductor IDE cable to run drives at ATA/66 and above.

Thanks for that. So Dell would supply a Brand New Server with cables
not suitable for ATA66 and above ? Seems strange.!¬

Eddie

From:	Reader
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:44:19 -0200

On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:40:26 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:

> On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:18:30 -0200, Reader
> wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:29:54 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:
>>
>>> The drives default to ATA-33 ( they are all ATA 133 or 100 ) If I
>>> choose ATA-100 in Bios, I get a message that the wrong cable is being
>>> used..?! Have to say that I cannot see any noticeable difference...
>>
>>You need an 80 conductor IDE cable to run drives at ATA/66 and above.
>
> Thanks for that. So Dell would supply a Brand New Server with cables
> not suitable for ATA66 and above ? Seems strange.!¬

Well I imagine most buyers of this class of server will be using high
performance SCSI drives in a RAID array. IDE probably doesn't get much
consideration - the specs are very focused on SCSI.

http://www.tornor.com/dell_p1600_specs.html

From:	Eddie Wall
Subject:	Re: 2 xeon servers make a dual or keep as individual. ?
Date:	Thu, 30 Dec 2004 05:07:24 +0000

On Thu, 30 Dec 2004 01:44:19 -0200, Reader
wrote:

>On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 18:40:26 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:18:30 -0200, Reader
>> wrote:
>>
>>>On Wed, 29 Dec 2004 12:29:54 +0000, Eddie Wall wrote:
>>>
>>>> The drives default to ATA-33 ( they are all ATA 133 or 100 ) If I
>>>> choose ATA-100 in Bios, I get a message that the wrong cable is being
>>>> used..?! Have to say that I cannot see any noticeable difference...
>>>
>>>You need an 80 conductor IDE cable to run drives at ATA/66 and above.
>>
>> Thanks for that. So Dell would supply a Brand New Server with cables
>> not suitable for ATA66 and above ? Seems strange.!¬
>
>Well I imagine most buyers of this class of server will be using high
>performance SCSI drives in a RAID array. IDE probably doesn't get much
>consideration - the specs are very focused on SCSI.
>
>http://www.tornor.com/dell_p1600_specs.html

Agreed, but the mobo is ATA100 so it seems a little strange to supply
a limiting ATA33 cable if that is the problem.. I will sling an enail
at their tech support, but if it is anything like their "Customer
service" I may as well ask Santa. !

Eddie