[geeks] Dual Xeons - the Saga continues

[Mark Benson]

On 9 Feb 2018 08:42, "Michael-John Turner" <mj at mjturner.net> wrote:

On Thu, Feb 08, 2018 at 08:32:45PM +0000, Mark Benson wrote:

> The Intel IDA CD now works. That's allowed some configuration to be done.
> I setup the BMC at an IP address via NIC2 but it doesn't seem to want to
> talk to me. Tried Web, SSH and Telnet.
>

Hmm. It should be web accessible. Have you tried using an IPMI client?


I'm still trying to suss out where to get Intel's remote management
software. Notably, I think Intel boards may require a module for full Web
based management, and this is a Workstation board so ot doesn't have an RMM
header as far as I can tell.


> That sucks. You may be able to replace the fans with ones that allow for
manual speed adjustment but that'll be more investment in a system that's
probably cost you too much already.


I have one other BIOS option to try, switching from Open to closed loop fan
control. If that doesn't work I'm going to start throwing resistors in the
fan circuits ;)

As regards a future machine, I tend to find in the UK Workstations are
> overpriced for what they are. They aren't in nearly the levels of surplus
> here as they are in the US and are sought-after enthusiast items


Indeed. There are still lots of bargains to be had though. A few months ago
I bought a Fujitsu RX300S8, dual E5-2620s, 64GiB RAM, 6x300GiB 2.5" 10k RPM
SAS for GBP 280. The machine was still under warranty at the time, which
was quite a shock.


Good buy, but that'd be outside my price bracket, nonetheless that's a lot
if bang for buck.

I can see plenty of Rx10s on eBay that are in decent condition and noit
> silly money. I'll consider picking one up sometime.
>

One option for finding good deals on eBay is LabGopher[1]. Unfortunately
for us non-US people the non-US versions are not as comprehensive yet.

[1] https://www.labgopher.com/ - see also ca.labgopher.com for Canada and
uk.labgopher.com for the UK.


Handy, turned up some decent eBay deals on Dell Servers. Looking at the
R710 I can lob a low end Quadro in the ling PCIe slot and use it as a
Workstation easily. Bigger should mean quieter, too.

-- 

Mark