Surplus 8 core HP Server: $99

GT-710 low-profile videocard: $45

Watching a mythtv recording of The ORVILLE on it: Priceless.

So far the system is running off a 8GB usb stick for testing. I just need to add a USB sound card and a smallish OS hard-drive (all user directories will be network drives from the NAS server) to finish up.

 

You need something for those cores to do besides sitting idle watching TV.

 

You need something for those cores to do besides sitting idle watching TV.

Don't worry, I have an evil plan to make those fans scream as a replacement for my workshop DELL software development PC.

 

A little speed demo using NFS for user programs and files with the 8GB thumbdrive OS boot drive still in use before I install the normal SAS boot drive.

A xc32 with Harmony recompile of the firmware for this board.
http://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/wifi_rgb_easy_configuration.pdf

Not too bad at 17 seconds.

 

Sound card setup. With the Nvidia video card installed Linux wants to make it the card 0 default for sound. I have a much better USB 7.1 card with SPDIF IN/OUT installed. The trick to make that work is to blacklist the Nvidia sound module and the tell the sound system the USB is card 0 by editing or creating two files that modify the behavior of kernel modules.

The blacklist.conf file is used to tell the boot system what modules NOT to load.
The alsa-base.conf file defines the card number assignment during boot. We want USB to be #1.

Older version of this: https://www.sabrent.com/product/USB...ernal-7-1-surround-sound-box-wdigital-output/
After those simple additions, all programs we can now use the correct sound device.
NetFlix viewed with Google Chrome example on the DL380.

 

Can you believe I had to build a kernel module for the first time in, like, years, today?

Amazon had some cheap 802.11AC dongles -- Broadcom wireless chip with no matching kernel module.

Took about 30 seconds to get it running.

Linux is fun.

 

Is that 8 core because it has two quad core cpu?

 

Is that 8 core because it has two quad core cpu?

Yes, it's a two-socket, Quad-Core configuration. It's an old machine so that's the top config for the motherboard.

CACHE MEMORY

• Installed Size
  L2 cache - 24 MB
• Cache Per Processor
  12 MB ( 2 x 6MB (6MB per core pair) )

 

Started a few internal mods for the SCSI disk and USB upgrades. Stole power from the original SAS hotplug backplane by making a 10 pin molex adapter. Added a USB 3.0 pcie card for more speed that also needed a floppy power connector to supply 900mA per port for hard-drives.
The next step is to install the SCSI adapter in the internal PCIe card-cage so I can add a few 300GB drives for the OS in raid 1 where the SAS should drives go.

 

nsa, I was looking for some ssd on ebay. I saw some "refurbished" 128 GB Lite-On (Plextor) ssd for 36 bucks. I would think that would be a much.... better setup for OS.

Also. For USB 3, did you get the card and front panel unit that goes into 3.5" slot?

 

Nope, that's not a better setup. The 300G drives are ultra-320 15000 rpm SCSI enterprise drives designed for 7/24 server service and I have tons of SCSI gear already. I'm building this system for total reliability and redundancy (ECC and raid). The server already has four usb 2.0 slots front and back For the 3.0 usb I only needed the card for fast backups backups to external USB drives connected to the rear and there are no front slots like in a regular PC case.

 

I'm building this system for total reliability and redundancy...

Yes! You don't want to miss a single episode of The Flash on Netflix.

 

For the 3.0 usb I only needed the card for fast backups backups to external USB drives connected to the rear and there are no front slots like in a regular PC case.

I understand.
I did USB 3 for general use (use with external hd, usb sticks, cell phones). So I bought a kit, card and front panel module that goes into 3.5" floppy slot. Interestingly the card had a 4 pin molex power connector, the kind used for pata hd/cd drives. I think you said that your card has floppy style 4 pin power connector, I kind of found that odd.

 

Yes! You don't want to miss a single episode of The Flash on Netflix.

A man can multitask just like a computer. Never liked The Flash but still love Supernatural.

 

I understand.
I did USB 3 for general use (use with external hd, usb sticks, cell phones). So I bought a kit, card and front panel module that goes into 3.5" floppy slot. Interestingly the card had a 4 pin molex power connector, the kind used for pata hd/cd drives. I think you said that your card has floppy style 4 pin power connector, I kind of found that odd.

I can see why on the floppy power plug, how often is it used today instead of a USB stick? I stick to high-end scsi because it's proven to be just about bulletproof over the years. If I could find large Enterprise SSD drives for cheap I'd give them a spin.

https://www.newegg.com/Enterprise-SSDs/SubCategory/ID-2021

 

I can see why on the floppy power plug, how often is it used today instead of a USB stick? I stick to high-end scsi because it's proven to be just about bulletproof over the years. If I could find large Enterprise SSD drives for cheap I'd give them a spin.

https://www.newegg.com/Enterprise-SSDs/SubCategory/ID-2021

To be fair the "refurbished" ssd are usually enterprise models. I have "refurbished" Micron ssd that I bought a year ago, they probably came from some server farm. The consumer version of that ssd is sold under Cruicial name.

 

To be fair the "refurbished" ssd are usually enterprise models. I have "refurbished" Micron ssd that I bought a year ago, they probably came from some server farm. The consumer version of that ssd is sold under Cruicial name.

Sure, I'm running the system currently off a old Intel 520 series 240GB SATA SSD jammed into the SAS backplane until I get all my SCSI stuff (internal and extermal) ready.

https://ark.intel.com/products/66250/Intel-SSD-520-Series-240GB-2_5in-SATA-6Gbs-25nm-MLC

 

I got a IBM it's supper fast only problem is booting a install disk its locked to boot off hard drive.
there a tray you place some kind key in and lets you change the boot it had a really old linux on it i tried to upgrade with apt and dpkg got ubunta on it 14.03 i need 14.09 to get where i need to be it breaks apt.
These are fun tho.

 

I got a IBM it's supper fast only problem is booting a install disk its locked to boot off hard drive.
there a tray you place some kind key in and lets you change the boot it had a really old linux on it i tried to upgrade with apt and dpkg got ubunta on it 14.03 i need 14.09 to get where i need to be it breaks apt.
These are fun tho.

I've had problems like that too. I just pulled the drive and did a generic command-line only fresh install to it on another machine, then reinstalled the drive on the original to complete the process.

 

Running the openems Parallel Plate Waveguide demo on the machine with the SCSI system installed.
http://openems.de/index.php/Compile_from_Source
http://openems.de/gitweb/?p=openEMS.../Tutorials/Parallel_Plate_Waveguide.m;hb=HEAD

----------------------------------------------------------------------
| openEMS 64bit -- version v0.0.35-28-g6133dea
| (C) 2010-2016 Thorsten Liebig <thorsten.liebig@gmx.de> GPL license
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Used external libraries:
CSXCAD -- Version: v0.6.2-80-g6ab8a3a
hdf5 -- Version: 1.10.0
compiled against: HDF5 library version: 1.10.0-patch1
tinyxml -- compiled against: 2.6.2
fparser
boost -- compiled against: 1_62
vtk -- Version: 6.3.0
compiled against: 6.3.0

Create FDTD operator (compressed SSE + multi-threading)
Create a steady state detection using a period of 1e-07 s
Operartor::CalcECOperator: Decreasing timestep by 0.1% to 1.92308e-09 (1.92583e-09) to match periodic signal
FDTD simulation size: 21x21x41 --> 18081 FDTD cells
FDTD timestep is: 1.92308e-09 s; Nyquist rate: 25 timesteps @1.04e+07 Hz
Excitation signal period is: 51 timesteps (1e-07s)
Max. number of timesteps: 500 ( --> 4.80769 * Excitation signal period)
Create FDTD engine (compressed SSE + multi-threading)
Running FDTD engine... this may take a while... grab a cup of coffee?!?
Time for 500 iterations with 18081 cells : 1.37702 sec
Speed: 6.56525 MCells/s
use Paraview to visualize the FDTD result...