It's back! Dell SC420 server w/Celeron 325J and 40GB SATA $229 + free shipping

Dead! updated 3/19/05
Now with a free 160GB hard drive upgrade

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=sc420sapp&s=bsd


$499 - $270 instant off = $229 The Dell page doesn't say when the deals expire.

be sure to select the free keyboard, mouse and hard drive upgrade:
Standard Windows Keyboard,Gray
Logitech PS/2 2-button Mouse with Scroll
160GB SATA upgrade ("free quadruple upgrade")

The P4 520 (2.8GHz) is a $99 upgrade. The P4 3.4F (EM64T) is a $249 upgrade.

Last thread from December: http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=844957

SC420 Unofficial FAQ: http://www.aaltonen.us/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2058 ALL your questions about the system should be answered there. So read it before you ask basic questions.

Oh God...not again!!! Anyone care to predict how long this thread will get? My bet is 15+ pages. But anyways, for those that missed out on the last one...get your credit cards out. You have absolutely no excuse for missing out on this one.

Good Deal!

not as good as the last one, I paid $260 total with tax for the same specs + 512mb Ram + 80gb Hard Drive.

If only I didnt have too many computers already. Argh... must resist....

is it really ok to use a celeron processor with only 256mb ram in a server? seems like a week server to me but i guess it depends what kind of server this is.

Fantastic box, I got it with the 512MB and 80GB SATA, cost a grand total of $248 shipped, it's running a HL2 server right now, plus the SQL database for the collection of stats off the server, very well built.

You beat me to posting the return of the killer server part 2

peterhoang2002 said:

is it really ok to use a celeron processor with only 256mb ram in a server? seems like a week server to me but i guess it depends what kind of server this is.

Click to expand...

It depends on what you want to do. There was a time when 4MB and a 486 were enough to power a server .

Seriously though, I would never even consider using this as a full blown server with only the celeron and 256mb of ram. But I did say full blown. By this, I mean installing 2k3, setting it up as a domain controller, file server, print server, network services server, etc etc. This configuration is more than enough for a simple web/file server. I plan on slapping a raid5 card and 4 additional hard drives for a .75TB file server. The celeron should totally suffice.

peterhoang2002 said:

is it really ok to use a celeron processor with only 256mb ram in a server? seems like a week server to me but i guess it depends what kind of server this is.

Click to expand...

Truly.

A file server for a home user so that he can stream his mp3's across his network would be a great use for this.

A small server for a 5 user company.

Pair this box with a monitor, and a free o/s, and it makes a great task box. The drive is sata, there *is* a pata controller, there are 3 pci slots, 1 pci-e x8 slot, and a pci-e x1 slot. It's got onboard gigabit, and can take 4 dimm slots, only 1 of which is filled, so you can even add your own ram, instead of dells overpriced stuff.

80gb s-ata for $10 more makes this the real deal.

I bet you many a website [maybe not hardforum] is running on less.

My web servers are dual p3's with 4gb of ram. Our allocation allots up to 100 vhosts per server. 2ghz / 100 = 20mhz, 4gb ram / 100 = 40mb of ram.

You theoretically, could run SEVERAL websites off this, as long as they weren't ya know, getting 100,000 hits a day each.

Must. Resist. Spending. Money.

/touches wallet recieves electric shock

Nuc_E said:

Must. Resist. Spending. Money.

/touches wallet recieves electric shock

Click to expand...

Just apply for a Dell line of credit. Your wallet has no control of that.

P.S. This thread is well on its way to the 15 page mark!!!

I only have 1 Desktop and 1 Notebook I need another PC. I want a Linux/Game Server/File Server/Print Server.

Not to HIJack this but could I use Linux to share Files on Windows PCs and use it as a print server?

joecool234 said:

Just apply for a Dell line of credit. Your wallet has no control of that.

P.S. This thread is well on its way to the 15 page mark!!!

Click to expand...

Hmmm.
/Thinks about it
NO BAD!


Actually, I might do it if the interest rates are reasonable. I am short on 'fun' money this month.


/edit

I'm not a business so no go on the financing. I will just wait until they have another deal similar to this.

Ya think they'll have another deal similar to this in the near future (in like a month or two)? I'm interested in the deal but have vehicle issues which have cut my funds by a great deal so I can't currently afford this bad boy (although I'd really really like to pick myself up one).

Yea, dell is wierd when it comes to the separation between the home and business divisions. I had a line of credit with the home division, but was unable to purchase a system from the biz division with it. And besides, my interest rate was something like 28%.

It's not as good as the old deal. I'll have to check my ordered specs, but I believe the memory is more expensive and I think an 80Gbyte hard drive upgrade was free last time.....

Nuc_E said:

Must. Resist. Spending. Money.

/touches wallet recieves electric shock

Click to expand...

^^^^

Does the BIOS supports "halt on errors" or similar so it will still boot without a keyboard/mouse/monitor?

Is there a serial port?

Has anyone had a problem running *BSD on it?

How would this do for a CS server with 4 mb cable? How would it do for a college comp? thx for the post btw

Ety said:

I only have 1 Desktop and 1 Notebook I need another PC. I want a Linux/Game Server/File Server/Print Server.

Click to expand...

I haven't set up a print server, but Samba is seamless going from Linux-> Windows.
*using SuSE 9.2Pro

256MB DDR2, 533MHz,1X256, Single Ranked DIMMs
256MB DDR2, 400MHz,1X256, Single Ranked DIMMs [subtract $10]

Click to expand...

Is the Celeron 325J able to operate at 1066FSB?
or is the faster RAM just masturbation?

Hito Bahadur said:

It's not as good as the old deal. I'll have to check my ordered specs, but I believe the memory is more expensive and I think an 80Gbyte hard drive upgrade was free last time.....

Click to expand...

There was a free double memory offer last time and the 80GB hard drive upgrade was free. I ordered one of these in late December with a 3.4F, 512MB and 80GB.

----
It isn't worth upgrading with another ECC DDR2-3200 stick. If anyone buys this, sell the ECC DIMM and just buy a pair of 256MB DDR2-4200 DIMMs (at least) instead. outpost.com has these for $39.99 each: http://shop2.outpost.com/product/4321335

okay, dumb question. there wouldnt be any reason why I couldnt use my current 2.8C chip in this system, right?

if so, I'm jumping on this deal because I've been looking for a reason to upgrade to some PCI-E goodness and now I found my reason.

heck, I'll turn around and sell my Shuttle SB75G2, my soft modded X800 XT PE and still have plenty of money left over.

fore1337 said:

Is the Celeron 325J able to operate at 1066FSB?
or is the faster RAM just masturbation?

Click to expand...

If you're never going to go dual channel the faster memory helps.

The E7221 chipset doesn't require synchronous speed between the FSB and memory speed. The 325J has a 533MHz FSB, which has 4.2GB/s of bandwidth... exactly matching the bandwidth of a single channel DDR2-4200 DIMM.

For example, the 925x chipset I have will use the extra bandwidth of dual channel DDR2-4200 DIMMs even though I only have an 800MHz FSB processor. DMA and other direct accesses (i.e. PCI bus mastering, GPU texturing, etc) doesn't require the CPU. So even if you eventually went dual channel (overkill on that Celeron), you would be able to measure some performance increases, especially with heavy I/O.

ozziegn said:

okay, dumb question. there wouldnt be any reason why I couldnt use my current 2.8C chip in this system, right?

Click to expand...

If it's a LGA775 chip, no problem. If it's a Socket 478 chip, big problem.

Yeah, the double memory deal last time was the bomb. This deal is almost as good and modding the PCIe slot is cake.

why can't this be used as a desktop system??

even though it says I can't. Can I?

yes, you can.

3 dumb questions on these?

what does single ranked vs dual ranked on the ram mean?

What is the HDD manufator and specs, all it says is 7200 SATA, mainly is in 8mb cache?

Does the mobo have 2 IDE channels? I wanna slap out the SATA drive and put my old 80 gig IDE in there.

also (this makes four ) Can xp home be installed? i have a extra (legit nontheless) copy of it

I JUST READ THE FAQ AND ALL MY QUESTIONS WERE ANSWERD BUT #1

Sometwo said:

Does the BIOS supports "halt on errors" or similar so it will still boot without a keyboard/mouse/monitor?

Is there a serial port?

Has anyone had a problem running *BSD on it?

Click to expand...

Apparantly you didn't see the link that shows you not only a FAQ about it, but, also, a link to the OFFICIAL dell support pages on it.

Your ANSWERS are there.

ozziegn said:

okay, dumb question. there wouldnt be any reason why I couldnt use my current 2.8C chip in this system, right?

if so, I'm jumping on this deal because I've been looking for a reason to upgrade to some PCI-E goodness and now I found my reason.

heck, I'll turn around and sell my Shuttle SB75G2, my soft modded X800 XT PE and still have plenty of money left over.

Click to expand...

Is your 2.8C socket 775?

That might be a reason..

G-daddy said:

why can't this be used as a desktop system??

even though it says I can't. Can I?

Click to expand...

Yes, you can, as long as you

a) don't mind onboard video
b) don't mind cutting up the motherboard and/or cutting into your pci-e x16 video card since the slot is pci-e x8
c) are ok with a PCI video card instead of onboard video.

MrMitch said:

3 dumb questions on these?

what does single ranked vs dual ranked on the ram mean?

What is the HDD manufator and specs, all it says is 7200 SATA, mainly is in 8mb cache?

Does the mobo have 2 IDE channels? I wanna slap out the SATA drive and put my old 80 gig IDE in there.

also (this makes four ) Can xp home be installed? i have a extra (legit nontheless) copy of it

Click to expand...

Again.. CLICK THE LINK THAT GIVES THE PRODUCT INFORMATION IN THE VERY FIRST POST.

or.. READ my previous post to yours.

1 IDE channel
some sata

http://dcse.dell.com/ifr/PowerEdge/PESC420/images/mobo_sm.jpg

Picture of the motherboard
Shows 2 sata ports, 1 pata port, 1 floppy, 1 front panel, 3 pci's, 1 x pci-e x8, 1 x pci-e x1
4 x ddr2 dimm slots, no onboard sound

http://img.dell.com/images/global/products/pedge/pedge_sc420_front_314x693.jpg
Front of case incase someone asks what it looks like

http://img.dell.com/images/global/products/pedge/pedge_sc420_back_314x689.jpg
Back of case, incase someone wants to know about the ports {i.e. serial}

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/pe420sc/en/sm/y3141aa0.htm#wp1052438
Labeled diagram on DELL.COM

Q: Are there any front panel connectors?
A: There are 2 USB 2.0 ports.

Q: I noticed some lights on the back of the SC420 with the letters A, B, C, D... what do they mean?
A: These are diagnostic lights. Their function is explained here.

Q: Will the SC420's 305W power supply handle my added components?
A: Most probably.

---

MOTHERBOARD

Q: What CPUs will the motherboard support?
A: The SC420 motherboard accepts any current LGA-775 CPU, either minimum 2.8GHz Pentium 4 800MHz FSB or minimum 2.53GHz Celeron D 533MHz FSB.

Q: Is there a better diagram of the motherboard in the SC420 available?
A: There is a diagram here.

Q: Does the SC420 support HyperThreading?
A: Yes, if a supporting P4 processor is installed (and, of course, your OS supports it!)

Q: What kind of motherboard does the SC420 use?
A: E7221 chipset, probably Intel OEM.

Q: What expansion slots does the SC420 have?
A: Three PCI, one PCIe x1, and one PCIe x8. Note: The PCI slots do not support 3.3-V expansion cards. Only 5-V PCI expansion cards are supported.

Q: What type of CPU cooling system does the SC420 use?
A: A diagram showing the fan/shroud assembly can be found here.

Q: Can I overclock my SC420?
A: No. There are no options in the BIOS to overclock.

Q: Will the motherboard fit in an ATX case?
A: Although it appears to be a Micro-ATX form factor, its mounting mechanism is not standard.

Q: Does the motherboard support USB 2.0 on all ports?
A: According to Dell docs, yes.

Q: What are the markings on the motherboard?
A: What follows is what one user has for markings:
Kerry wrote:
- DS/N CN-0X3468-48111-4BH-0187
- REV A01
- E 210882
- DELL PART # X3468


Faq : Video
Q: What video card does the SC420 come with?
A: An integrated onboard 8MB Intel(r) CopperRiver Graphics Controller.

Q: Does the SC420 have an AGP slot?
A: No.

Q: Does the SC420 support PCI Express x16 video cards?
A: The SC420 has a PCIe x8 slot. Some discussion of the possibility of using an x16 card can be found in this thread.

Q: Does the SC420 support regular PCI video cards?
A: Yes. The SC420 has 3 standard PCI slots in which a PCI video card may be installed. Currently under discussion is the issue of how the PCI video is initialized and the onboard video disabled by the BIOS.


MEMORY

Q: What kind of memory modules does the SC420 use?
A: The SC420 uses 400MHz or 533MHz DDR2 ECC SDRAM with a minimum configuration of one 256MB module. All other memory, with the exception of a single 1GB module placed in slot 1, must be installed in pairs.

Q: What are the technical specifications of the default RAM?
A: The default 256MB stick is: Samsung #M391T3253FG0-CD5, 256MB, 533MHZ, DDR2, 32Mx72, CL 4, (labeled: 256 1Rx8 PC2 4200E-444-10-A1)

Q: Will non-ECC RAM work?
A: Yes.

Q: Can ECC and non-ECC RAM be mixed?
A: No.

Q: Will buffered (registered) ECC RAM work?
A: No.

Q: Does the SC420 support "Dual Channel" operation?
A: Yes, with a supported P4 processor.

Q: What brands and types of memory does the SC420 support?
A: To be added to as determined.

---

STORAGE

Q: Does the SC420 have onboard serial ATA (SATA)?
A: Yes. There are two onboard SATA connectors, and one PATA connector, one channel to which the optical drive is attached.

Q: What type of hard drive comes with the SC420?
A: SATA drive(s) are standard. When upgrading from the standard 40GB (7200RPM, 2MB cache) hard drive, users have reported receiving units with the 80GB Western Digital WD800JD Caviar SE (Special Edition, 8MB cache), 80GB Seagate (8MB cache), and 160GB Western Digital WD1600JD Caviar SE (8MB cache).

Q: Does the SC420 support SATA RAID?
A: Yes and no! The integrated SATA controller (Adaptec Embedded Serial ATA Host RAID Controller) is officially supported by Dell under Windows 2003, but not under Linux: "RAID Storage Manager software for Red Hat Linux is not supported on the PowerEdge SC420." The controller only implements software RAID, however, and not hardware RAID, despite suggestions to that fact by Dell. If you'd like to use software RAID in Windows or Linux, just turn off the RAID feature in the BIOS and set up the software RAID arrays as normal.

Q: How many drives can I put in my SC420?
A: Up to two one-inch internal SATA, and one PATA drive mounted below the optical drive. More if you add a PCI controller card as there is physical space under the floppy for an additional drive. More could be mounted if you're creative.

Q: Are extra drive rails included?
A: Yes. There are two sets of extra rails included by default and attached to the inside of the case: a single set of floppy bay rails, and a single set of 5 1/4" bay rails.

Q: Does the SC420 come standard with a floppy drive?
A: No, but one is available as an option if you want to spend $30 to have Dell install the drive. The connectors are there and rails are included by default, even if you don't select the floppy option, so it's a simple process to add one yourself later by supplying a drive and cable.

---

SOUND

Q: Does the SC420 come with onboard sound, like the 400SC did?
A: Sorry. No. You will have to install a sound card.

Q: Anyone know of a PCIe 1x sound card?
A: Not yet, but there could be a new PCIe x1 from SoundBlaster this winter (Q4/04). Rumor link.

---

SOFTWARE

Q: Will the SC420 work with Windows XP?
A: While, not officially supported by Dell, the SC420 works fine with Windows XP Professional (and forseeably XP Home as well). You will need no drivers for the install if you have WinXP SP2 (?), other than the Gigabit NIC, chipset, system precision timer and video, for which you can use the Windows 2003 drivers on the included Dell driver CD. You can also obtain NIC drivers from Broadcom's website.

Q: What operating systems will work with the SC420?
A: The SC420 will run:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux ES (Version 3) (officially supported)
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (officially supported)
- Windows Small Business Server 2003 (officially supported)
- Windows XP Professional
- Windows XP Home Edition
- Windows 2000 Professional SP4
- Solaris 10

Q: What software is included with the SC420?
A: The system arrives by default with two CDs containing various software: the Dell Product Documentation Disc for SC PowerEdge Systems Rev A00 and the Dell Open Manage Disc Ver 2.2 which includes automated RAID configuration software and Dell drivers.

Q: Where can I find other drivers?
A: Try Dell's Download page. You may optionally obtain the network drivers straight from Broadcom.

Q: How do I load the correct Windows drivers for on-board integrated video, network, etc. for the SC420?
A: The SC420 comes with a Windows Sever 2003 CD. If you want to install Windows XP or Windows 2000 you must manually install the drivers from the Windows Server 2003 CD that comes with your SC420.

If you just installed Windows, you should be greeted with a flurry of messages alerting you to install drivers for the unrecognized hardware. (If you inadvertently skipped through these, you must install each driver manually: Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager. Now select the device that you wish to install the driver for (hint: it probably is announced by a yellow exclamation point icon), right-click and select Properties for the device. Click the Drivers tab, and then Update Driver) Choose the following to complete the driver installation: Install from a list or specific location (advanced) > Don't search > "I will choose the driver to install" > "Have disk". Now select the appropriate driver from the CD (or the location to which you've downloaded and extracted another driver).

Q: How do I install the network card drivers for Solaris 10?
A: The NIC is not supported out of the box, so you'll need to download the Solaris driver package and get it on the system somehow (burn it to a CD, USB pen drive, etc.) Install the drivers, then add the following lines to /etc/system:

set rootnex:rootnex_bind_fail = 0

set rootnex:rootnex_bind_warn = 0

By doing so you will avoid this problem. Type sys-unconfig and configure your network when the system reboots.

Q: I've installed Solaris 10 and my CD-ROM doesn't work! How do I fix this?
A: By default, after installing the Solaris distribution, any media inserted into the CD-ROM drive is immediately ejected. To fix this, execute (as root): svcadm enable smserver.

pxc said:

If it's a LGA775 chip, no problem. If it's a Socket 478 chip, big problem.

Click to expand...

dang!

I didnt know it wasnt a Socket 478 board. oh well, that'll gimme an excuse to buy a 3.4 chip.

ozziegn said:

I didnt know it wasnt a Socket 478 board. oh well, that'll gimme an excuse to buy a 3.4 chip.

Click to expand...

That's why I ordered one... I stole the 3.4F from it and put in a regular 3.4GHz, then sold it to my brother.

----
If anyone wants to see what a cut up video card looks like (x300SE modified to fit in the keyed slot)... http://www.notveryserio.us/pix/x300se-x8.jpg. I modified the video card because voiding the system warranty (~$480) was worse than voiding a $50 video card warranty. Don't do that to a good video card.

now my only concern is going to be how good is the quality of the PSU in this system?

I'd imagine with them offering a 3.4Ghz chip as an option that the PSU thats in it should be more than enough, ehh?