Dell Precision 420 Workstation help please

T

Thrust

Limp Gawd
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Sep 20, 2006
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I was given an older computer and I was amazed when I opened it up. This is a Pentium III system, but it has a dual slot 1 socket, ECC RDRAM and SCSI port motherboard that supports RAID. I've decided I'm going to pimp out this system as much as I can but I'm not overly familiar with a few things and was hoping someone here could help me answer some of my questions.

First, I know absolutely nothing about SCSI 160. According to the manual, this m/b has 2 SCSI ports. So I was hoping to run 2 SCSI drives in RAID. But now I see it has an external SCSI port so I'm not sure if the internal and external comprise the "2 SCSI ports" or if I can RAID 2 SCSI drives internally. Then there's SCSI in general. I've seen "5 port SCSI cables", 1 port SCSI cables and everything in between. Would I just get a SCSI cable that is very similar to IDE cable for this purpose?

Also, I'd like to get the fastest PIII Slot 1 CPU this m/b supports, but it seems documentation for this is very limited. Anyone know or find docs on the web that would tll me which CPU is the fastest supported CPU I can use? It already has 1GB of 400MHz ECC RDRAM so I'm good there.

I know there's little chance of any help for this anywhere, but I figured maybe some of you [H]ard old timers might be able/willing to help.

Thanks

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Is it normal CPU sockets or the cartridge slot loading (on a tiny motherboard you slot in)? I think the fastest PIIIs were around 1.4gh/z but it was my first "serious" CPU and I was (just) a teenager.

Theres was also Pentium III branded Xeons (which is more likely for a dual setup). I did some digging and they were codenamed Tanner (earlier) and Cascades (later) .

Found a likely candidate for the fastest dual processor xeon...Here. it's 1gh/z
 
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It has the Dual Slot 1 m/b, but it's far from tiny. It had a PIII 667MHz in it when I got it. I had another one lying around so it currently has (2) PIII 667MHz in it. It's possible Xeon's would fit and work, but even so, I'm not sure those would be readily available. I've only been able to find a handful of PIII 1GHz on eBay so far.

Thanks for your help! Preshadit
 
SCSI can support multiple hard drives off the same cable. Get a 3+ port SCSI cable.
 
There anything else about SCSI I need to know?
If I get a 4-port SCSI cable, do I have to fill all the ports or no?
It appears there's also many different pin configs. I believe this PC uses a 68-pin cable/drive.
If you can think of anything else I'd need to know about SCSI I sure would preshadit. Especially if it's info I might not easily find and read online.
 
sad thing is I actually ordered (2) Xeon 1GHz cpu's for this. Only to find out they're SLOT 2. I need Slot 1. UGH> Anyways. If anyone out there has (2) 1 GHz SLOT 1 CPU's, I'm all over them. Right now I only see (2) 933's on eBay.
 
Just grab the 933's. I don't think the extra 67MHz is a big deal nowadays.
 
get some fujitsu MAX/MAU series drives if you can find them... I still use them in my main rig
 
Yeah, real sure. I put (2) PIII 933's in it and it's screaming along.

Now to learn me about some SCSI drives.
 
I had several dual slot 1 machines. Back then the main difference between xeons and p3's was how much onboard cache they came with, and of course, you already found out, xeons used a different slot. (slot 2).

As for scsi, that's a whole other can of worms. Considering the dramatic improvements found in modern sata drives compared to legacy u160 scsi drives, you'd probably be better served getting a sata controller and running some cheap modern drives. As far as I can tell, that motherboard has at least one pci-x slot (not to be confused with pci-express), so if you wanted a high performance sata raid array, that would be doable.

However, if you want to play with the scsi stuff, you're headed down the right path. As for 68 pin cables, you can leave connectors empty, however the connection at the end of the cable needs a terminator plug. usually these are provided with scsi cables. The rating of 160MB/s is per channel, so the more drives you have on one cable, the more they're sharing that bandwidth. The main other flavor of scsi you'll run into for the u160 drives is 80 pin, which was the hot swap format for scsi drives. Unless you have a hot swap cage in that case, you want the 68 pin drives. If you do find a deal on 80 pin drives, they do make 80 pin to 68 pin adapters, so you don't have to get an expensive hot swap cage if you don't want to. Also, when you get your drives, you're gonna have to set jumpers on them so their scsi id's don't conflict with each other or the raid controller's.

Those are the basics, feel free to pm me if you have any more questions.
 
CrazyRob said:
I had several dual slot 1 machines. Back then the main difference between xeons and p3's was how much onboard cache they came with, and of course, you already found out, xeons used a different slot. (slot 2).

As for scsi, that's a whole other can of worms. Considering the dramatic improvements found in modern sata drives compared to legacy u160 scsi drives, you'd probably be better served getting a sata controller and running some cheap modern drives. As far as I can tell, that motherboard has at least one pci-x slot (not to be confused with pci-express), so if you wanted a high performance sata raid array, that would be doable.

However, if you want to play with the scsi stuff, you're headed down the right path. As for 68 pin cables, you can leave connectors empty, however the connection at the end of the cable needs a terminator plug. usually these are provided with scsi cables. The rating of 160MB/s is per channel, so the more drives you have on one cable, the more they're sharing that bandwidth. The main other flavor of scsi you'll run into for the u160 drives is 80 pin, which was the hot swap format for scsi drives. Unless you have a hot swap cage in that case, you want the 68 pin drives. If you do find a deal on 80 pin drives, they do make 80 pin to 68 pin adapters, so you don't have to get an expensive hot swap cage if you don't want to. Also, when you get your drives, you're gonna have to set jumpers on them so their scsi id's don't conflict with each other or the raid controller's.

Those are the basics, feel free to pm me if you have any more questions.
Click to expand...

Thanks man! Truly preshadit!! I'm still waiting on a good deal for a couple U160 68-pin drives on eBay. I'm in no hurry, and very thrifty (cheap)! LOLz
 
And btw CrazyRob, how you liking that Big Bang X-Power?? I've been aiming to buy that m/b as soon as the funds come together- prob next few weeks- but I've heard bad things about the 2 Marvell 6Gb ports + RAID 0. (Couple reviews read that RAID 0 on ICH10R is faster than the Marvell ports!! LIke, WTF sauce!)
 
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