8IPXDREL-GG specs

[justinm]

Hi,

I have a Gigabyte 8IPXDREL-GG that I am building a server with. Anyone have the specs for it? I know it is a few years old but I do not need something cutting edge as this will be for a file server and webserver for my website. I already searched 4 different PC forums including this one and Gigabyte has nothing on their website. I think because this is an OEM system board and Gigabyte does not need to have specs on their website due to a contract.

Thanks again

Justin

 

[justinm]

Nothing?

 

[computer]

I was just about to buy this mobo....until I found out that no such thing exists according to Gigabyte, therefore no manual, no drivers, nothing for it, therefore useless. That's how I found your thread after trying to find drivers and a manual for it. My guess is some place like Gateway probably put this mobo in their server PC's at one time.

Features/Specifications:
Gigabyte 8IPXDREL-GG Server Board

General Features:
Includes two (2) Socket 604 Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz processors pre-installed
Socket 604
Intel E7501 chipset
Extended ATX form factor
Supports up to 12 GB RAM (max.)
ATI Rage-XL graphics with 8 MB memory
Intel 82546EB Gigabit Ethernet controller

Expansion slots:
One (1) PCI slot
Six (6) DIMM sockets

I/O ports:
Two (2) PS/2 ports
Two (2) USB ports
One (1) 9-pin Serial port
One (1) 15-pin VGA port
RJ-45 Ethernet port

Supported Processors:
Dual Intel Xeon CPUs up to 2.8 GHz in a PGA604 socket
400 MHz Front Side Bus
512 MB L2 cache

Regulatory Approvals:
FCC
CE

 

[ekummel]

I got this Mobo from Geeks.com and love it.
It was a pain getting it setup and all, but now that it's running, it's flawless.
Several things you need to be aware of though...You need to get an extended ATX case. This can be expensive if you can't find one discounted.
Also, a regular power supply will not work. You need to get one that has dual 12Volt rails. I think they are ESX.
Memory...you need ECC DDR memory...you should be able to find this on ebay at a reasonable price (I have a bunch of 256mb sticks if anyone needs any)

I stuck my board in a Gigabyte case with a triple power 500watt powersupply and 6gb ram. I'm using a cheap IDE raid card and doing Mirror raid on two 80GB drives and two 250gb drives. I'm using the onboard IDE to run the main OS drive and another 80gb drive for my VM images.
I run Windows Server 2003 an VMWare Server 1.5 with about 5 VMs running at all times.
Here are pictures of my server. They're a little old, but they show the setup pretty good:
http://s61.photobucket.com/alb...mel/Gigabyte%20Server/

Ed
web/gadget guru

 

[Actionjack]

I have found no documentation to support this board and I have paid for two of them. The first would power on as soon as the power supply was plugged in and without the power switch leads plugged into the Motherboard. It did this but did not POST. The second board would not power on at all. I read your post and replaced the power supply with one with two 12volt rails. The second board would still not power on; not one fan on the board or within the case would turn either, and of course no POST. The first board was also tried again with this new power supply also with the same outcome as before; it would power on (all fans turned) as soon as the power supply was plugged in and without any leads from the power on switch. I'm using a rather expensive 2U extended ATX case. Fortunately I purchased a warranty for the second board. Any comments that might help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[farneko]

After doing some digging, I found that this is the motherboard that Gigabyte made OEM for Google's search server appliances (for commercial site crawling and indexing), model GB-1001 / GB-1002 AKA Google Enterprise. This one was in the yellow colored unit. Heck, the bios spash screen even says google on it. As for power, I was able to put a 430w desktop power supply on it with the 24pin and 4pin power connections. Mine is a thermaltake TR2-430. Now if I can only find a I/O shield for one, now thats the hard part. At least it doesn't affect the functionality. Whatever you do, DON'T try flashing the bios with any of the other 8IPX* bios's from gigabyte's site, none of them worked for me. In fact, I killed a board by doing that. I had to get another one and do a bit of bios saving-swap-and reflashing. If anyone needs the file lemme know and I'll give it to ya, but its probably the same vers. as everyone else has. that with the FLASH864.EXE file will reprogram it. A quick scan of the file shows the date 06/17/03. Also, when I got the second board, the seller sent me a cdr with all the drivers needed for it! If I remember correctly, the GA-8IPXDR-E bios worked on it, except it killed the onboard NIC, and with one PCI slot, I couldn't afford that, and moved on to a bios that killed it altogether, till I got the second board anyways.

Hey ekummel, what chipset is that RAID card your using? Since yours is working, it'd save me a bunch of trying the myriad of cards out there.

As for Actionjack, if your question hasn't been solved, Check JP8, make sure its set to 1-2. Its the onboard video disable jumper, 1-2 is enable. After messing with the board I killed, I forgot I changed it and thought the board was still dead after my bios chip swap until I put it back.

One last note, before I buy some more memory off of ebay, does anyone know the fastest memory speed it will support? Right now 266mhz (PC2100) is what I had on hand. I'm thinking that the GA-8IPXDR-E's specs are similar save the NIC chip is different, and the SCSI's not there. As long as the chipset are the same, it should be the same. We'll see....

 

[juster]

Hi. Are there any support pages for this Gigabyte 8IPXDREL-GG board. Anyone could help me out and get started with this... thing. Thanks

 

[computer repair]

I also have this board. Got a good deal on it through my supplier. My problem is similar to above. I have everything set but no post, no power to board. im wondering if its as simple as not wiring the front panel correctly.

ekummel... can you take a pic of your f panel wiring or let me know how you have it wired for power. It is stamped on the board, but i just want to make sure i have it right. I only have power on and reset wired.

From the left... 8&9 shows power on... and 10&11 shows reset... is this correct?

 

[Fofo]

:shocked: I believe I just killed a board trying to upgrade the BIOS to F7 from Gigabyte's support site. wonderful! I have several more of these @ BIOS version F5. Is there a more up-to-date BIOS that I can upgrade the others to so that I can run Server 2008 on them?

when you try installing Server2008, you get a blue screen saying the BIOS is not fully ACPI-compliant. Anyone else tried this?

also Farneko, would you be so kind to send me the BIOS file as well as the drivers for this board please? Thank you very much in advance!

 

[lopri]

OK Everyone welcome to AT Forums. It's nice to have a consolidated thread for all the new comers. I hope all of you find this forum useful and exciting!

 

[Rifter]

Originally posted by: computer

Supported Processors:
Dual Intel Xeon CPUs up to 2.8 GHz in a PGA604 socket
400 MHz Front Side Bus
512 MB L2 cache

Do the Xeon's really have 512MB of cache? man maybe i should have looked into intel instead of my PH II, i though 8MB of cache was alot.

 

[farneko]

Hey Fofo, saw your post. I have the bios and flash utility available at the following link

8ipxdrel-gg.rar

Its in rar file format and just place the files onto a dos bootable floppy and run the .bat file. If you killed the bios, you can do what I did which is; get a working board, boot up the floppy disk, *CAREFULLY* remove the good bios chip with the system running, pop the killed bios chip in and run the flash utility to program, and wholla! At this point you can leave the recovered chip in, or swap the origonal back into it (with the power off now, since its safer).

As for the drivers, email me as they are rather large to leave in an url laying around. I'll send you a link.

 

[iota6manny]

Does anyone still have the drivers for this board?

 

[tcsenter]

Drivers are available from the respective chip vendors. e.g.

Intel chip = Intel
Realtek chip = Realtek

So on and so forth.

 

[Harvey]

Gigabyte GA-8IPXDR​

If the above is your motherboard, drivers, specs, etc. are here.

 

[bradfordgiosa]

Hey guys,

This is my first post here, but I have been reading for a while...

I acquired an old Google Server Appliance with Gigabyte 8IPXDREL-GG Server Board like many of you here.

Since then I've successfully installed a PCI-X SATA RAID card and converted the caddies to hold 4 SATA drives running under Windows 2008 Server x32. The box has been running great for a couple months now as simple file and web server for my office.

When I was first messing around with this unit I purchased 6 x 1gb PC2100 ECC REG DDR sticks, which I tested and then installed
Unfortunately, I forgot that x32bit Windows will only see 3gb because of the cap.

So, I was wondering:

1. Are the Dual Xeon 2.4Ghz processors 64bit?
I've tried looking at the Intel data sheets, but can't seem to find any specs in black and white saying yes or no. So maybe some help if possible?

2. If they are 64bit, is it really worth it to start over and install Server 2k8 R2 x64 to see the other 3gb?

3. The board has the F1 BIOS version. Has anyone tried a custom BIOS yet?

Thanks guys,

Brad

 

[justinm]

Wow.... I forgot about this thread.

To Brad:

That mobo only supports Xeon Prestonia CPUs that are socket 603 and with a 400MHz FSB. So no 64bit Xeon CPUs or that mobo. You could probably get away with installing a 64bi version of Windows for that just to get rid of that cap.

 

[hughojar]

I purchased one about 4 years ago. From what I remember, memory modules have to be placed in pairs, and you need to have identical registered ddr pc2100 dimm with ecc at 266MHZ (regular desktop RAM can work, but you will have to follow the rules stipulated above for the RAM). Nevertheless, it would be better to get server memory modules for this project to work properly, money better spent.

I used a pair of "samsung kr H 0420 ddr pc2100r-25331; IBM server used these modules, search number on google is (fru:09n4308)" and they are great at 1gig. You can also use a 2gig module per dimm slot to make things a little more exciting, especially for a game server. I planned on building another and fill all six dimm slots with 2gig modules per channel (for a VMServer)... just wish Citrix XenServer could work with it. That would have been something to look forward to.

There are no official manual for these boards because they were custom built by gigabyte tech. exclusive to google (at least no public release manual that you can use). So, it would be great if we can help each other out to figure how far we can push the limits of these boards.

I will be getting a few more for fail over in a production environment, as well for testing, to see exactly what I can do with them.

I will be making a guide for myself, so if anyone who is interested in building a server from these boards. Let me know and I will put up a link on my site dedicated to these boards. Your input will also be welcome about what I post.

 

[hughojar]

I got this Mobo from Geeks.com and love it.
It was a pain getting it setup and all, but now that it's running, it's flawless.
Several things you need to be aware of though...You need to get an extended ATX case. This can be expensive if you can't find one discounted.
Also, a regular power supply will not work. You need to get one that has dual 12Volt rails. I think they are ESX.
Memory...you need ECC DDR memory...you should be able to find this on ebay at a reasonable price (I have a bunch of 256mb sticks if anyone needs any)

I stuck my board in a Gigabyte case with a triple power 500watt powersupply and 6gb ram. I'm using a cheap IDE raid card and doing Mirror raid on two 80GB drives and two 250gb drives. I'm using the onboard IDE to run the main OS drive and another 80gb drive for my VM images.
I run Windows Server 2003 an VMWare Server 1.5 with about 5 VMs running at all times.
Here are pictures of my server. They're a little old, but they show the setup pretty good:
http://s61.photobucket.com/alb...mel/Gigabyte%20Server/

Ed
web/gadget guru

Great post ekummel. I was wondering, what is the name of the chassis you are using? And. Where can I get one? The specs on the memory used would be great as well as where to get them. I've been searching for a cheaper pairs since I build my first box.

Thanks

 

[gateway2004]

I purchased one about 4 years ago. From what I remember, memory modules have to be placed in pairs, and you need to have identical registered ddr pc2100 dimm with ecc at 266MHZ (regular desktop RAM can work, but you will have to follow the rules stipulated above for the RAM). Nevertheless, it would be better to get server memory modules for this project to work properly, money better spent.

I used a pair of "samsung kr H 0420 ddr pc2100r-25331; IBM server used these modules, search number on google is (fru:09n4308)" and they are great at 1gig. You can also use a 2gig module per dimm slot to make things a little more exciting, especially for a game server. I planned on building another and fill all six dimm slots with 2gig modules per channel (for a VMServer)... just wish Citrix XenServer could work with it. That would have been something to look forward to.

There are no official manual for these boards because they were custom built by gigabyte tech. exclusive to google (at least no public release manual that you can use). So, it would be great if we can help each other out to figure how far we can push the limits of these boards.

I will be getting a few more for fail over in a production environment, as well for testing, to see exactly what I can do with them.

I will be making a guide for myself, so if anyone who is interested in building a server from these boards. Let me know and I will put up a link on my site dedicated to these boards. Your input will also be welcome about what I post.

Have you created the site you were mentioning?

I have purchased one of these boards and finding it very difficult to get any info on them let alone the BIOS update. Any assistance would be helpful.

 

[mukghild]

After doing some digging, I found that this is the motherboard that Gigabyte made OEM for Google's search server appliances (for commercial site crawling and indexing), model GB-1001 / GB-1002 AKA Google Enterprise. This one was in the yellow colored unit. Heck, the bios spash screen even says google on it. As for power, I was able to put a 430w desktop power supply on it with the 24pin and 4pin power connections. Mine is a thermaltake TR2-430. Now if I can only find a I/O shield for one, now thats the hard part. At least it doesn't affect the functionality. Whatever you do, DON'T try flashing the bios with any of the other 8IPX* bios's from gigabyte's site, none of them worked for me. In fact, I killed a board by doing that. I had to get another one and do a bit of bios saving-swap-and reflashing. If anyone needs the file lemme know and I'll give it to ya, but its probably the same vers. as everyone else has. that with the FLASH864.EXE file will reprogram it. A quick scan of the file shows the date 06/17/03. Also, when I got the second board, the seller sent me a cdr with all the drivers needed for it! If I remember correctly, the GA-8IPXDR-E bios worked on it, except it killed the onboard NIC, and with one PCI slot, I couldn't afford that, and moved on to a bios that killed it altogether, till I got the second board anyways.

Hey ekummel, what chipset is that RAID card your using? Since yours is working, it'd save me a bunch of trying the myriad of cards out there.

As for Actionjack, if your question hasn't been solved, Check JP8, make sure its set to 1-2. Its the onboard video disable jumper, 1-2 is enable. After messing with the board I killed, I forgot I changed it and thought the board was still dead after my bios chip swap until I put it back.

One last note, before I buy some more memory off of ebay, does anyone know the fastest memory speed it will support? Right now 266mhz (PC2100) is what I had on hand. I'm thinking that the GA-8IPXDR-E's specs are similar save the NIC chip is different, and the SCSI's not there. As long as the chipset are the same, it should be the same. We'll see....

Can I send you my BIOS chip and can you put the 8IPXDRE-GG bios on it? Appreciate your help. This is for one of the non-profit that I volunteer my time on weekends.

 

[sdoerr]

I have two of the formerly know as Google servers (8IPXDREL). They are racked and I use them for remote access.

They originally came with 2GB of memory, so thought I would add some more. The problem is with any more than 2 sticks, XP blue screens.

No matter how much I install it always passes the BIOS memory check.

Any ideas out there?