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

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joecool234 said:
I can't tell you what refresh rates are available, but i can tell you what I am using...1280x1024@75Hz. 2D texts looks absolutely phenomenal on my Dell E193FP.

Look, ANY program that requires hardware acceleration will run incredibly poorly if at all. If you need hardware acceleration that bad, simply drop in a PCI card. NV5200 comes in PCI cards, just cruise through ebay. If you aren't satisfied with the performance, put it back on ebay and mod your x8 slot. Drop in an x16 card, and if it works...great. If not, put that back on ebay as well as the rest of the parts from your system. If all goes well, you should turn a profit.

Dell should really clarify what is meant by "Can't be used as a desktop." Wanting to watch a DIVX file doesn't necessarily warrant desktop use. They should explicitly state "Has no 3D acceleration, therefore not ideal for desktop use." I'm sure they would sell just as much, if not more systems by simply saying that.

P.S. When it came to having my system shipped, I simply had it shipped to my work address with the company name. As far as courrier, leave it blank (that's what that little red asterisk is for). And has anyone actually checked the "item is intended for resale" box? If they don't require additional proof, that should be a means of eliminating the tax. Resellers don't have to pay sales tax for things they buy, only on the things they sell.
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Yeah I guess i'll be able to find a good deal on a PCI card that will be sufficient. Thanks. :)

Looks like I'm getting a new computer. :D Now I just need to know what to put in those required fields because if it gets rejected I'll be kicking myself for months. Anyone else have to fill in those fields when you bought it, or is this a new thing?
 
Sometwo said:
Yeah I guess i'll be able to find a good deal on a PCI card that will be sufficient. Thanks. :)

Looks like I'm getting a new computer. :D Now I just need to know what to put in those required fields because if it gets rejected I'll be kicking myself for months. Anyone else have to fill in those fields when you bought it, or is this a new thing?
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Yup, those fields have always been there. If you can't ship it to a business, I guess you can make one up. Just use your home address with a fake business title. Dell will have no idea if its legit or not...its up to UPS to actually deliver it. So if for some reason the package doesn't get delivered (but was shipped and you have a tracking number), simply call UPS and tell them you're thinking of starting a business out of your house and that a computer was the first step. I don't see why this wouldn't work.
 
joecool234 said:
Yup, those fields have always been there. If you can't ship it to a business, I guess you can make one up. Just use your home address with a fake business title. Dell will have no idea if its legit or not...its up to UPS to actually deliver it. So if for some reason the package doesn't get delivered (but was shipped and you have a tracking number), simply call UPS and tell them you're thinking of starting a business out of your house and that a computer was the first step. I don't see why this wouldn't work.
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Yeah that makes sense... They accepted the order but I need to get a confirmation email tomorrow. If I get that, hopefully I'll get the computer too :)
 
Dude, there is no way in hell that Dell is going to check the legitamcy of your biznas over a $240 sale. They probablly make $10 tops per server. What you need to worry about is whether or not UPS will deliver to said biznas at your home address. Good luck.
 
I got 2 of these last time when the deal was going around. 1 - p4 and 1 - celeron. Both are awesome.

I definately recommend these for whatever purpose. Server or Desktop.
 
ToyYoda03 said:
Bought one on ebay for 225 shipped, it lacks the hard drive and memory but packs a 2.8ghz P4. Then I bought a 256mb stick for this off of newegg for 55 shipped. I already have extra hard drives laying around too. It may not be as hot as the original deal, but I REALLY wanted P4 instead of the celery.

Guy still has two left if anyone is interested.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=5748192235&ssPageName=STRK:MEWN:IT
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THANK YOU! cancelled w/ dell and bought one from him. the 2.8 makes me much happier. now for the ram and a BURNING hot deal on a sata drive to make this just as cheap overall :D

sharp

 
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Alright, I placed my order.. So I'm curious if anyone found out if you can boot without a keyboard and mouse. Not a huge deal but I'm deffinately looking to find out.
 
Screwz Luse said:
Alright, I placed my order.. So I'm curious if anyone found out if you can boot without a keyboard and mouse. Not a huge deal but I'm deffinately looking to find out.
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Yea you can. You just set it all up and then change the settings in the bios to not stop when it doesnt detect a keyboard.

I run 1 of mine headless (just power and ethernet)
 
Awesome, thanks. I'll deffinately do that. I'll be running it with only Ethernet and Power, hopefully.
 
Well I went ahead and ordered it, its nice cause its got gigabit ethernet. I needed to buy a card anyway for my old server so why waste money on that when I can just get a whole new server.
 
sweet got another Box on the way!

u_DR_K13
 
... so would I be better off buying DDR2 533 or DDR2 400 ram to go with my 2.8 800fsb box? AND if 400 will be faster.. anybody know if there is an option in the bios to force 1:1? Calling out to somebody who already got theirs!

cheers,

 
I would be wary of buying these off ebay. I imagine a large number of them are people trying to unload them after unsuccessful modding of the pci-e 8x slot.

Just fyi, on the newer models, there's two plastic tabs than need to be removed from the 8x slot so that 16x vid cards can fit in it. The back slot is cake because there's no pins around it. The front slot is very tricky and it's very easy to bugger up the pins and make the slot useless. I've heard a dremel and old memory shoved into the slot to protect the pins works best (along with a lot of patience).

There's also reports of nvidia 6600 cards absolutely not working, ati x300 and x600 not working, while x700's working great.

There's an unofficial faq page floating around that links to another msg board, but I don't have the link on this computer. I'm sure someone else has it.

I jumped on the deal but haven't modded the pci-e slot yet. Will probably do it after I get my other computer up and running as an htpc.
 
sharp said:
... so would I be better off buying DDR2 533 or DDR2 400 ram to go with my 2.8 800fsb box? AND if 400 will be faster.. anybody know if there is an option in the bios to force 1:1? Calling out to somebody who already got theirs!
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You don't need to "force" the memory speed. It runs at the SPD set in the EEPROM, so 533MHz memory installed will run at 533MHz regardless of the CPU's FSB speed.

Are you going dual channel? The ECC memory is pretty expensive, so it doesn't really matter which you choose when you order it if you're going to replace the memory anyways (which I recommend if you're going to upgrade it).
 
bizzz111 said:
I would be wary of buying these off ebay. I imagine a large number of them are people trying to unload them after unsuccessful modding of the pci-e 8x slot.

Just fyi, on the newer models, there's two plastic tabs than need to be removed from the 8x slot so that 16x vid cards can fit in it. The back slot is cake because there's no pins around it. The front slot is very tricky and it's very easy to bugger up the pins and make the slot useless. I've heard a dremel and old memory shoved into the slot to protect the pins works best (along with a lot of patience).

There's also reports of nvidia 6600 cards absolutely not working, ati x300 and x600 not working, while x700's working great.

There's an unofficial faq page floating around that links to another msg board, but I don't have the link on this computer. I'm sure someone else has it.

I jumped on the deal but haven't modded the pci-e slot yet. Will probably do it after I get my other computer up and running as an htpc.
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That link is on the 1st page, 1st post of this thread (should have been the 1st place you looked).

Anyways, found a great deal on ebay last night for my hard drives. I got 4 hitachi 7k250 250GB SATA hdd's for $477, shipped. This was well under the $.50/GB I was expecting to pay (even with shipping). Let's hope this box can handle 'em.
 
XtremepH said:
is this deal still available for today?
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The site says it expires today...which probablly means its valid until 11:59PM.

Time to get those credit cards out folks!!!!!!!
 
FYI: You don't have to have a business name to buy from Dell Small Business. Just put your name wherever it asks for business name If they ever did ask (which they won't), just tell them you're self-employed.
 
hjellec said:
FYI: You don't have to have a business name to buy from Dell Small Business. Just put your name wherever it asks for business name If they ever did ask (which they won't), just tell them you're self-employed.
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Ah, the whitest lie of all. Very good suggestion.
 
sharp said:
... so would I be better off buying DDR2 533 or DDR2 400 ram to go with my 2.8 800fsb box? AND if 400 will be faster.. anybody know if there is an option in the bios to force 1:1? Calling out to somebody who already got theirs!

cheers,

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Well i originally bouht a ddr2 533 256mb from newegg, but then i found a guy selling 2 of these for 230 shipped, so I also got on that too :p

I am new to ddr2 so anymore info would be helpfull
 
ToyYoda03 said:
Well i originally bouht a ddr2 533 256mb from newegg, but then i found a guy selling 2 of these for 230 shipped, so I also got on that too :p

I am new to ddr2 so anymore info would be helpfull
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Wait...I'm confused. You bought two 1GB sticks for $230? That's 100/gb which is absolutely extraordinary. You don't have to know anything about DDR2 to consider the fact you may get burned...unless I misunderstood you. Unless this guy practically stole that ram, he's set to lose lots of money on the sale.

As far as DDR2 goes, there really isn't much you need to know about it for this server. The SPD dictates all speeds and timings.
 
Mine just arrived last night. It is pretty fkin sweet. I got a free upgrade to 512 MB RAM, the Celeron 325J processor, and the $10 upgrade to an 80 GB, which turned out to be a WD800JB.

If anyone is thinking about paying extra for a better processor, I'd say don't do it, unless you need the power now. Intel should be releasing new chips by Q2, with emt64 enabled. And later on (Q4?) there will be dual core chips available. I plan to upgrade to an emt64 capable P4 at 3.2 or 3.4 GHz when they are released.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/26/intel_roadmap_em64t/
 
bizzz111 said:
I would be wary of buying these off ebay. I imagine a large number of them are people trying to unload them after unsuccessful modding of the pci-e 8x slot.

Just fyi, on the newer models, there's two plastic tabs than need to be removed from the 8x slot so that 16x vid cards can fit in it. The back slot is cake because there's no pins around it. The front slot is very tricky and it's very easy to bugger up the pins and make the slot useless. I've heard a dremel and old memory shoved into the slot to protect the pins works best (along with a lot of patience).

There's also reports of nvidia 6600 cards absolutely not working, ati x300 and x600 not working, while x700's working great.

There's an unofficial faq page floating around that links to another msg board, but I don't have the link on this computer. I'm sure someone else has it.

I jumped on the deal but haven't modded the pci-e slot yet. Will probably do it after I get my other computer up and running as an htpc.
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the link is here http://aaltonen.us/forums/viewforum.php?f=4&sid=d1f8b49b98d5bf62c7c936391c75f2d2


I have a X300 in a modded slot and it works great....unfortunately I recieved a 80gig WD sata drive and it's already making a clicking noise :(
 
teckgood said:
Mine just arrived last night. It is pretty fkin sweet. I got a free upgrade to 512 MB RAM, the Celeron 325J processor, and the $10 upgrade to an 80 GB, which turned out to be a WD800JB.

If anyone is thinking about paying extra for a better processor, I'd say don't do it, unless you need the power now. Intel should be releasing new chips by Q2, with emt64 enabled. And later on (Q4?) there will be dual core chips available. I plan to upgrade to an emt64 capable P4 at 3.2 or 3.4 GHz when they are released.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/26/intel_roadmap_em64t/
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Totally agree. The celeron is totally adequate for everyday tasks and considering this box has no support for 3D graphics, gaming is out of the question anyways.
 
joecool234 said:
Totally agree. The celeron is totally adequate for everyday tasks and considering this box has no support for 3D graphics, gaming is out of the question anyways.
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I was skeptical, but I haven't noticed any sluggishness whatsoever as I was installing my OS. If I wasn't planning to get an HDTV card, I would just keep the Celeron.
 
Just got the Feb. Dell mag. in the office. They list the SC420 with free upgrades to 512MB/Ram and 80GB HD...

didn't feel like reading through 6 pages of posts to find if this is a repeat. sorry if it is, if not, w00t to those that were waiting for the same deal as last time.
 
for how much tho, the same price of $229?

please hurry, cuz I just placed an order and will cancel it if this deal is the same
 
Tin_10 said:
for how much tho, the same price of $229?

please hurry, cuz I just placed an order and will cancel it if this deal is the same
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You probally have to get a very nice salesperson to do this for you. Dell's discounts usually only apply when combined with no other offers. So if you try to configure the server with double ram and the 80GB hdd, the $270 discount could disappear. Oh, and I can't find any double ram deals on the website. So you have to do this over the phone anyways. Besides, the deals in the mag could only apply starting tomorrow, or sometime after the $229 deal expires.
 
Man I want those free upgrades, anyone got a phone number for a dell salesrep? I can only find a email address on their website. :(

Nevermind :eek:
 
pxc said:
You don't need to "force" the memory speed. It runs at the SPD set in the EEPROM, so 533MHz memory installed will run at 533MHz regardless of the CPU's FSB speed.

Are you going dual channel? The ECC memory is pretty expensive, so it doesn't really matter which you choose when you order it if you're going to replace the memory anyways (which I recommend if you're going to upgrade it).
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... I want to run (I think) at 400... that is why I'd want to be able to force 1:1 (as 533 is more readily available from good brands). YES to dual channel. NO to ECC. .. so what about the latency difference? stay w/ the 400? (the chip will not be upgraded.. this is a "use it til you throw it away" machine).

THANK YOU for trying to help.. I posted in the memory section and have gotten no help as of yet :( YEA for the hot deals crowd :D
 
teckgood said:
Mine sounded a little clicky when I was installing the OS...I think that's just the sound it makes.
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It is not a little clicky, it sounds like someone is playing drums on a metal garbage can lid...plus I sometimes get a drive not mounted error
 
joecool234 said:
Wait...I'm confused. You bought two 1GB sticks for $230? That's 100/gb which is absolutely extraordinary. You don't have to know anything about DDR2 to consider the fact you may get burned...unless I misunderstood you. Unless this guy practically stole that ram, he's set to lose lots of money on the sale.

As far as DDR2 goes, there really isn't much you need to know about it for this server. The SPD dictates all speeds and timings.
Click to expand...

I dont think I got burned, he had good heat and ebay
 
I got in on this last time, and I opted for the 2.8GHz P4 because I'll be running mythbackend on it using at least two PVR-250's - transcoding it all to xvid + mp3 and doing commercial flagging.
 
Moostafa said:
It is not a little clicky, it sounds like someone is playing drums on a metal garbage can lid...plus I sometimes get a drive not mounted error
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.....BUSTED!!!!

Yup, you have a bad drive. Congratualtions, you are the first person i've heard of to have a DOA SC420. If you've never used Dell's Tech Support before, you'll be amazed with the turnaround. The SMB division is exponentially better than home support. You can actually use the excuse, "uh, I'm a techie, and trust me...the hard drive is busted." You should get a replacement next day.
 
joecool234 said:
.....BUSTED!!!!

Yup, you have a bad drive. Congratualtions, you are the first person i've heard of to have a DOA SC420. If you've never used Dell's Tech Support before, you'll be amazed with the turnaround. The SMB division is exponentially better than home support. You can actually use the excuse, "uh, I'm a techie, and trust me...the hard drive is busted." You should get a replacement next day.
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it actually worked for over a month, it just started acting up recently
 
We just give dell a call they will overnight you a part. You still got your 1 year warranty and SB customer support is way better than home.
 
SB gave me a call a week after I got my SC420 asking if all was well, and gave me a phone number and extension to call for a person that would take care of any needs I might have... and he speaks with a wonderful north eastern accent.

This is all really amazing considering I could get a dell XPS for $3000 and have to deal with some dude in India, while I spend $358 taxed and shipped, and get wonderful support.
 
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