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Intel server chassis

E

eradicator006

n00b
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
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Recently I bought this intel server off of ebay for $50. It's a dual 3.2ghz xeon with 8GB DDR-400 ECC RAM. The case has dual 750 watt power supplies, 6 hot swap bays and 4 internal 3.5" bays.

I was cleaning out the dust from inside the computer and noticed that the motherboard looks to me like a regular ATX board. Power supply connector is standard 24 pin with an 8 pin connector near the CPUs. There is also a 1x5 pin connector for the power supply. From what I've read this is something unique to intel server boards.

What I am wondering is if I can put in a new haswell ATX motherboard (supermicro, asus or even asrock) with an i3? From what I can tell the front panel connectors and USB headers are all standard. The only real concern I have is the "special" 5 pin power supply connector.
 
It's probably I2C, which isn't proprietary. I wouldn't bother using such an old power supply though. Power supplies back then were not geared to primarily 12V operation, not to mention they were inefficient as hell.
 
Sounds like a bargain, but it will probably eat that much money in electricity everyday :)

I may be mistaken though. Definitely be interested to know the power consumption... the psus might just be hugely overpowered.

My quad core 3.2ghz xeon with 32gb ram has a mere 150w psu and draws only 35w when idle, 70w at full load.
 
They're not hugely overpowered, just incredibly inefficient on account of being 10 years old.
 
My mistsake, it's 730 watt total output max. I would think that would be both psus running? I'm only using 1. The sticker inside says ~35 amps on the 12v rails. It also says 130w 3.3/5v combined.

The server has been in my office running all last night and this morning. The power supply isn't even warm so I wouldn't think it would be that inefficient. I can't find a date anywhere but I think the system is from around 2005. It does have PCI-E.
 
eradicator006 said:
My mistsake, it's 730 watt total output max. I would think that would be both psus running? I'm only using 1. The sticker inside says ~35 amps on the 12v rails. It also says 130w 3.3/5v combined.

The server has been in my office running all last night and this morning. The power supply isn't even warm so I wouldn't think it would be that inefficient. I can't find a date anywhere but I think the system is from around 2005. It does have PCI-E.
Click to expand...

I picked up a 42U rack full of those a while ago. Sold them off slowly on ebay. They were pulling about 150W per CPU, at idle. I replaced them with some more modern C1100's off ebay, which have two CPUs and pull 120W total under load.
 
Hmm OK then. So it sounds like a bit of a power hog. If I were to switch out the motherboard/cpu/ram would that help much in terms of power? How hard would it be to put a more efficient power supply in? I don't need dual power supplies. This is just going to be a freenas box for media at home.

I'd post up a model # of the machine but I can't find one anywhere on it. It's a pedistal case with 6 hot swap bays on the bottom. 4 internal bays are above the hot swap bays and there is an adapter you can put to convert the fixed bays to hot swap. Dual delta 730 hot swap psus.

EDIT: Found the model # via google. Intel Server Chassis SC5300.
 
I did some digging around on the web and found the tech sheets for the power supplies. They are supposedly rated at 77% efficiency.

I currently have it running FreeNAS 9.2.1.8 with 2 3TB WD Reds mirrored with ZFS. For now I'm using the onboard ICH5R for that. The 8 port intel raid card it came with doesn't support larger than 2TB.

The dual 3.2ghz xeons seem to handle plex transcoding fine. I had a couple 1080p streams going to a phone and tablet.

The only thing I am disappointed with is the write speed to the hdds. It's quite slow. Likely the ICH5R is to blame here. This is just temporary.

I am not sure what I should do now. I was thinking either get an IBM Serveraid M1015 for the hdds. I want to have 6 disks total. Or, get a Supermicro X10SL7-F , haswell i3 and 16GB ECC RAM and cram it in to the intel case.

From what I can tell a "normal" motherboard should work fine. The screw holes look the same; mind you the supermicro board is matx and the one in there now is full atx. The only thing I have to figure out is the connector for the front panel. The case uses a proprietary 34 pin connector for that. I could probably fab something up with a male 34 pin IDC connector and some ribbon sable.
 
so 77% is incredibly inefficient but 80+ is gold

besides...what are you heating your office with now?
 
And to think I was quite thrilled when I saw 77%. I was expecting 50 something.

The last power supply I had to buy was in 2009. I don't recall 80 plus anything then.

I did move the server to the basement. It's not putting out much heat. The noise was annoying though.
 
Depending on PSU you could swap them. I found an intel chassis for one of my setups and moved it from my modded nzxt case to the chassis. Ether way, that box is gonna be power hungre, I am going to guess older 602/3 xeons?
 
sc0tty8 said:
Depending on PSU you could swap them. I found an intel chassis for one of my setups and moved it from my modded nzxt case to the chassis. Ether way, that box is gonna be power hungre, I am going to guess older 602/3 xeons?
Click to expand...

I believe it's socket 604.

Any idea what SSI Entry form factor is? That's what the intel site says the motherboard is.
 
They use that format for multiple boards so really tough to say, its like going to the dealership and asking the make of the blue car :p
 
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