Project: Free Server

[weasel2htm]

I've decided that my dual PII 266 server is to big and two hot for my light file serving needs, so I decided to build my self a smaller server.

Using a case intercepted from the trash at work

Case Pic 1

Case Pic 2

A motherboard given to me by a friend, a Gigabyte MOBO, pulled from a Compaq and flashed with the generic Gigabyte BIOS (He said that I exorcised it) With a K6/2 450 CPU.
MOBO (Yucky pic)

Also used, two 32 Meg sticks of PC66 (I know the K6/2 runs at 100 but this will get the unit running, will probably cull memory out of my dually when I take it out of service.
4.3 Gig Seagate HD for O/S
and a 3.5 floppy drive. All pulled from an Acer Aspire (Assfire) system given to me with a bad (and propriatry) Power supply.

8X CD-ROM from Junk Pile, (Will use a faster unit for the initial O/S Load) as most CD file transfers wil take place via network.

Intel Pro 100 Nic from junk Pile.

Plan of attack:
Put above componets into system (already done but still have to install IDE and floppy cables)
scrounge Power Supply

Load O/S, planned to be Win 2000 Pro as it wil serve my modest needs and the Systemax case as a licence sticker on the back, it should also run faster than if I installed the server flavor.

Will also pull 40GB Storage Drive out of my current server for, well storage

Will have more pics later, left my good 5mp camera at work and had to use my old junky one.

I'd like to place this unit out in the garage but becasue the garage has No A/C I'm a little worred about heat. It will *Probably* be OK but I won't stick it out there (rarely gets much above 90F out there) without being loaded with case fans and the [H] opinion.

 

[Spaceninja]

I've always wondered about flashing the BIOS on a motherboard from a big manufacturer. I have a trigem motherboard out of an eMachine that I have sitting in my modded Apple G3 case. I am sure the thing would allow for some kind of overclocking or at least some more options other than boot from drive x, y or z. Any ideas on where to go to find the generic BIOS for these things?

Anyway a K6 2 will run Win 2k just fine. That was my main rig years and years ago. K6 2 450 overclocked to 525 or something like that, 128 megs of ram and an 8 gig quantum bigfoot hard drive.

As a side note, Server 2k3 will run fine on that setup as well. I am running an eval copy on my fileserver for fun. Celeron 400 (the older black one) 192 megs of ram and several hard drives I had laying around. As long as Active Directory is off, all is well.

Looks like a fun project, what all are you going to do to the case?

 

[weasel2htm]

Looks like a fun project, what all are you going to do to the case?

Right now, nothing, I'm not that creative, that's part of the reason I posted, was to gather potiential Ideas for this case or to hack a different one, in keeping with the free/spare theme.
I may also make somthing with a socket 370 SBC I have. But that would be a different project as I paid money for that.

My current server case would be great for modding, but that giant is what I'm trying to get away from.

As for the BIOS thing, By luck, this board was just an "off the shelf" unit and I got the flash on Gigabyte's website. I've read though that It doesn't always work, couple years ago compgeeks.com had a FIC board that was Compaq OEM and they said right on the page that the board would NOT take the standard FIC BIOS and any boards returned due to a bad BIOS flash would not be accepted. So I guess it's kinda hit and miss. Most OEM boards don't even have any markings to indicate who made them.