Question Dell XPS-8300 and a PCIe to SATA Adapter

[In2Photos]

Some caveats. Even the Dells that do have 100% standard ATX often (depending on the system model) require the Dell power switch/cable, thermal sensor/cable, USB3.0 front panel assembly/cable to be plugged, and sometimes a chassis fan in addition to the CPU fan, else the boot will halt with an error notification that requires physical presence (keystroke e.g. F1) to bypass. In some models, most of these can be configured in BIOS (pre-boot options) to bypass the notification automatically, but may not all of them. It is a bit inconsistent from one model to the next.

It's often best to buy the whole system/chassis, so that these components can be transplanted as well, even if you just let them kind of dangle around (well you can fasten or secure them down in some way) in there such as the front panel assembly/cable or power switch cable assembly because they will not fit into a non-Dell chassis.

So you can save a bit of money by reusing OEM components but there can be some extra effort and annoyances like these. But once you get everything up and running, it's a server right? You shouldn't need to reboot all that often and these pose no troubles during operation (once you bypass by pressing the right keystroke to ignore).

Seems like the Precision workstations are pretty easy to migrate to a new case. Found a couple of videos and also looked through the Dell documents and most of the alarms that would pop up can be disabled (like chassis intrusion and USB ports can be disabled so those might not have to migrate). I also found a post about tricking the power switch so that shouldn't be an issue. As I don't use any front panel stuff moving those over and tucked away inside the build is fine if disabling them doesn't work. Actually I could plug my unRAID USB in the case at that point instead of in the back. So far I have found several Precision 3630 with an i7-8700, 16-32GB RAM, some with a SSD, some NVME, around the $200 price point. A few of them even have a Quadro GPU in it for that price. And these are all complete units, most even have an OS installed. And these are all a little cheaper than the XPS models with similar specs.

For the parts I was looking at DIY stuff, not OEM. Watching a few "bundles" on eBay, but most of them are going up pretty quickly in price so I doubt I'll get one in the same price range as the 3630.

And yes, this is my unRAID server so it's on 24/7 with a UPS so reboots are pretty non-existent unless I'm working on something and need to take it down.

 

[tcsenter]

Some of the Dell's use solid very resusable ATX/EPS12V PSUs that you get for almost free when you buy these refurbed systems or chassis. e.g. 500/550/640W 80+ Gold Certiifed APFC.

 

[In2Photos]

OK, so I made a purchase. I bought a Precision 3630 Tower from eBay. i7-8700, 16GB DDR4, 256 GB SATA SSD, Quadro P1000. Looks like it has the standard 365W PSU, but I already have a 550W in the server anyway. Plus the stock PSU doesn't have enough SATA power connectors for all the drives anyway.

Thinking of upgrading the stick CPU cooler to something like an ID Cooling SE-903 (92mm fan) or SE-214 (120mm fan). They are like $15-$18 on Amazon. I saw a video where someone was able to use a 120mm EK AIO so I think I should be able to swap a better air cooler in it.

 

[In2Photos]

I'd forgotten how PCIe limited those Dell XPS 8300s were.

Out of curiosity, how are you fitting all of those hard drives inside the 8300? I presume you are using 5.25" bay converters?

Missed the second part of your post. I actually transplanted the motherboard/CPU/RAM from the 8300 into a Cooler Master Elite 310 that I have had for many years. I'm considering an upgrade, maybe to the Fractal Meshify 2 at some point, but for now the CM is doing to job well enough. Airflow isn't that great, just using 1 intake and 1 exhaust, but it's keeping the existing system in check.

 

[Steltek]

Missed the second part of your post. I actually transplanted the motherboard/CPU/RAM from the 8300 into a Cooler Master Elite 310 that I have had for many years. I'm considering an upgrade, maybe to the Fractal Meshify 2 at some point, but for now the CM is doing to job well enough. Airflow isn't that great, just using 1 intake and 1 exhaust, but it's keeping the existing system in check.

Okay, that makes sense. I couldn't see how you could possibly be putting that many drives into an actual 8300 case.

 

[tcsenter]

OK, so I made a purchase. I bought a Precision 3630 Tower from eBay. i7-8700, 16GB DDR4, 256 GB SATA SSD, Quadro P1000. Looks like it has the standard 365W PSU, but I already have a 550W in the server anyway. Plus the stock PSU doesn't have enough SATA power connectors for all the drives anyway.

Nice you have a project. I have a couple Precision 3650 boards that I purchased a while back, for $35.00 each delivered. Haven't used them yet except to update the firmware/BIOS and make sure they work. Hopefully it comes with the VRM heatsink (DPN 0639V8) that was an option for higher-TDP processors > 95W. Have a fresh CR2032 batt ready to toss in there the original will be going on five years. The P1000 might have better transcoding than Intel QuickSync in the 8700? I don't know.

 

[In2Photos]

Nice you have a project. I have a couple Precision 3650 boards that I purchased a while back, for $35.00 each delivered. Haven't used them yet except to update the firmware/BIOS and make sure they work. Hopefully it comes with the VRM heatsink (DPN 0639V8) that was an option for higher-TDP processors > 95W. Have a fresh CR2032 batt ready to toss in there the original will be going on five years. The P1000 might have better transcoding support than Intel QuickSync in the 8700? I don't know.

This one did not include the VRM heatsink, but I found new one from a seller on eBay for $7 so I ordered it too. I'm going to try the 8700 first and see if it can do what I need, if not, the P1000 will get a chance. I really only need 1-2 streams at a time so the CPU alone might be enough. I have several batteries on hand as well so hopefully I remember to swap it out.

 

[tcsenter]

Yeah I had to buy the VRM heatsinks (different part #) separately too. Since I bought only the boards not whole system or chassis, I had to supply my own CPU cooling solution. I just reused a common OEM HSF originally from LGA1151 system that was good up to 85W TDP processors. e.g. like thusly (but different part #)



The stand-off or mounting point holes did not change between LGA1150 and LGA1200. I can't remember if the board came with the mounting plate underside or if I had to supply one. Anyway, good luck!

 

[In2Photos]

Yeah I had to buy the VRM heatsinks (different part #) separately too. Since I bought only the boards not whole system or chassis, I had to supply my own CPU cooling solution. I just reused a common OEM HSF originally from LGA1151 system that was good up to 85W TDP processors. e.g. like thusly (but different part #)

View attachment 108506

The stand-off or mounting point holes did not change between LGA1150 and LGA1200. I can't remember if the board came with the mounting plate underside or if I had to supply one. Anyway, good luck!

Thanks! From what I saw on a YouTube video the CPU backplate extends to accept the 4 mounting screws of the cooler. So you can't use a backplate provided with an aftermarket cooler. But I doubt you need one since the OEM backplate already covers it, unless of course the threads are different. I may have to trim the OEM backplate to allow the one from the aftermarket cooler to be used. I'll know more once it arrives in a few days. I'll likely do some testing of the hardware before migrating it over the existing server. It comes with Windows 11 so testing with a few utilities should be pretty straightforward.

 

[tcsenter]

Yep after checking, that's what is on the 3650 boards I have, came with them attached. If you should need to use an aftermarket mounting plate, these should come off with some heat e.g. hair dryer and some cautious prying/lifting using a plastic (not metal) tool.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

OK, so I made a purchase. I bought a Precision 3630 Tower from eBay. i7-8700, 16GB DDR4, 256 GB SATA SSD, Quadro P1000. Looks like it has the standard 365W PSU, but I already have a 550W in the server anyway. Plus the stock PSU doesn't have enough SATA power connectors for all the drives anyway.

Thinking of upgrading the stick CPU cooler to something like an ID Cooling SE-903 (92mm fan) or SE-214 (120mm fan). They are like $15-$18 on Amazon. I saw a video where someone was able to use a 120mm EK AIO so I think I should be able to swap a better air cooler in it.

It should use standard Intel mounting. As proof of concept I installed a Noctua U12A on a compact HP Gaming PC using the Intel 115x kit. I could not close the side panel as the cooler was too tall but it did an outstanding job. Had to supply my own M2 x 20mm screws. You may need slightly shorter or longer screws depending on the mounting kit.

 

[In2Photos]

It should use standard Intel mounting. As proof of concept I installed a Noctua U12A on a compact HP Gaming PC using the Intel 115x kit. I could not close the side panel as the cooler was too tall but it did an outstanding job. Had to supply my own M2 x 20mm screws. You may need slightly shorter or longer screws depending on the mounting kit.

I picked up the ID Cooling SE-214-XT for $18 off Amazon. It has 2 brackets that mount to the backplate and then the cooler mounts to the brackets so hopefully the hardware from the cooler is all I need, but if not I can surely pick up a few screws.

 

[In2Photos]

So the system came in today and I have an issue. The onboard NIC doesn't seem to be working properly. Speedtest.net shows really high ping and slow speeds. I tried to download Chrome and it said it was going to take 2 hours. I thought it might be driver related so I download the latest driver from Dell and installed it. No change. To make sure it wasn't the cable I tried using the same cable in another PC. Ping back to normal, speeds too. I thought it might be Windows so I ran Linux Mint from a USB and did checked there. High ping and slow speeds. Ugh. I have the NIC from my current rig that I could put in there. Or I could buy a better NIC as I plan to upgrade some of my network down the road any way. Or I could send it back and get the seller to send one of the other ones he has. Any thoughts on what else to try?

Edit: It's not just the NIC. I had a USB to Ethernet adapter I tried. I get the same problems. What's also weird is that the PC doesn't show up in my clients section of the router when it's connected to the network. Huh!?!?!?

Edit Edit: Looks like the PC missing from the clients list is an issue with my router and hardwired devices behind a switch.

 

[tcsenter]

Try the latest Intel (reference/generic) driver 29.3.1 Release. Since Intel has stopped releasing driver downloads individually for each supported OS and instead offers one massive package for all OS, I have taken the liberty to download it (838MB), removed all but the drivers for Windows 11/10 (23H2/22H2), uploaded it my Google Drive. It is 1.2MB and I sent you a PM with the link.

You'll need to manually update the driver from Device Manager and direct the 'new hardware wizard' or 'update driver wizard' to the location of the unzipped files.

 

[In2Photos]

Try the latest Intel (reference/generic) driver 29.3.1 Release. Since Intel has stopped releasing driver downloads individually for each supported OS and instead offers one massive package for all OS, I have taken the liberty to download it (838MB), removed all but the drivers for Windows 11/10 (23H2/22H2), uploaded it my Google Drive. It is 1.2MB and I sent you a PM with the link.

You'll need to manually update the driver from Device Manager and direct the 'new hardware wizard' or 'update driver wizard' to the location of the unzipped files.

Thanks! But I have an update that I can't yet explain.

After fiddling with various cables and adapters and ports on my switch I decided to try the PCIe NIC from my server so I shut down the server, popped out the NIC and put it in the 3630. Fired it up and ran speedtest and got expected ping and speeds. Ran multiple tests and every one of them came back good. So I figured I would just need a NIC. Decided to try the onboard NIC for the hell of it again and damn if it didn't work flawlessly every time. I've run about a dozen tests over 20 minutes or so and all have been at rated speeds. So the only thing that changed on the network was the server was shut down. I have no idea why that would have affected the 3630. It doesn't affect my gaming PC that is also attached to the same 5 port switch. I was testing speeds on it this whole time as well and all was good there. It isn't an IP conflict because the server is a static IP outside the DHCP range and the 3630 was given 2 different IPs over the testing period as I moved things around and tried different things. I'm really scratching my head. Going to put the NIC back in the server and fire it back up to see if it causes any more trouble.

 

[In2Photos]

Put the NIC back in the server and fired it back up. For the most part things have settled down and I'm getting decent speed tests again. They are slightly lower than my rated speed but maybe that's just typical slowdown for this time of day. I'll monitor it for the next few days and see if it continues to give me any trouble.

So the rest of the PC seems good so far. I don't have a mini DP cable or converter to test the P1000 (DOH), so I pulled it from the 3630 and am running off of the iGPU for now. Crystal Disk Info reports the SSD is good, less than 2000 hours powered on. No errors, 100% remaining life. Ran cinebench to check the CPU and temps. Single core test had temps in the 50s and the score was 1139 which was close to one I found online. Multicore did 6617 for the 10 minute test and 6911 for the single run. Those are below the test I found online but I'm sure the cooler and motherboard settings may have something to do with that. The CPU does boost to 4.6GHz single core and 4.3GHz multicore before dropping down to 3.2-3.3GHz after PL2 expires I guess (not much experience with the later gen Intel chips). USB ports seem to work, tried various USB sticks and the USB to Ethernet in different ports. Waiting for the VRM heatsink to arrive, got the ID Cooling SE-214-XT in today. The only thing else is the 16GB of RAM is a single stick. Something tells me the seller removed the second stick in these and sold it separately. The retention clips were open on the second slot. So I ordered a matching stick for 32GB. Should be here Saturday along with the mini DP adapters.

Anything else I should test?

 

[tcsenter]

Fresh battery? BIOS/firmware up to date? Does your PCI-E SATA controller card work?

 

[tcsenter]

Given it is going in home server role, you might be interested in trading 'down' to one of the lower-power 35W TDP models ending in "T" designation. e.g. i7-8700T, i5-8600T, i5-9600T. that are full featured, have the same cache, # cores/threads as their non-T counterparts, but lower clocks. Performance hit is not commensurate with the decrease in TDP. i.e. they have ~45% reduced TDP but the performance hit is only 12% ~ 20% (IIRC performance hit with Quick Sync is even less). e.g. Geekbench 6

i5-9600 (65W)
Single Core - 1514
Multi Core - 5024

i5-9600T (35W)
Single Core - 1269
Multi Core - 4322

i7-8700 are going for $80 on 'that marketplace'. You could sell it be able to get $70, ten bucks below going price fairly easy. Replace it with 8700T or one of the others mentioned. If the benefit of lower TDP, reduced fan noise and less ramping up/down are of interest to you.

 

[In2Photos]

Fresh battery? BIOS/firmware up to date? Does your PCI-E SATA controller card work?

Was going to swap the battery and test the PCIe SATA card when I moved everything over but now that you mentioned it I'll probably test it before I pull everything out of the case. I'll only be able to test 1 drive but if that comes up I should be fine. Of course the 3630 has PCIe X4 slots so I could have picked up a different card. Although not sure the CPU has enough lanes to matter if I end up using the quadro.

Given it is going in home server role, you might be interested in trading 'down' to one of the lower-power 35W TDP models ending in "T" designation. e.g. i7-8700T, i5-8600T, i5-9600T. that are full featured, have the same cache, # cores/threads as their non-T counterparts, but lower clocks. Performance hit is not commensurate with the decrease in TDP. i.e. they have ~45% reduced TDP but the performance hit is only 12% ~ 20% (IIRC performance hit with Quick Sync is even less). e.g. Geekbench 6

i5-9600 (65W)
Single Core - 1514
Multi Core - 5024

i5-9600T (35W)
Single Core - 1269
Multi Core - 4322

i7-8700 are going for $80 on 'that marketplace'. You could sell it be able to get $70, ten bucks below going price fairly easy. Replace it with 8700T or one of the others mentioned. If the benefit of lower TDP, reduced fan noise and less ramping up/down are of interest to you.

The i5-2300 is a 95W chip so I theoretically should be running a lower power chip with the 8700 at 65W. I might check the BIOS to see if I can set any power limits and test it out.

 

[tcsenter]

Was going to swap the battery and test the PCIe SATA card when I moved everything over but now that you mentioned it I'll probably test it before I pull everything out of the case. I'll only be able to test 1 drive but if that comes up I should be fine. Of course the 3630 has PCIe X4 slots so I could have picked up a different card. Although not sure the CPU has enough lanes to matter if I end up using the quadro.

Should be enough lanes to support fully utilizing PCI-E x16 + x4 + x4. I think the M.2 slot might be shared with one of x4 slots so you can't use both M.2 slot and the last X4 slot. But I could be wrong!

 

[In2Photos]

Should be enough lanes to support fully utilizing PCI-E x16 + x4 + x4. I think the M.2 slot might be shared with one of x4 slots so you can't use both M.2 slot and the last X4 slot. But I could be wrong!

I went ahead and ordered a 6 port x4 card, should be here tomorrow along with the 2nd stick of RAM. I'm still in the return window for the other card so might as well. Got the BIOS updated, surprised to see that the latest BIOS was from August of 24! Also pulled the motherboard out and installed the VRM heatsink and new cooler. Everything went it smoothly, but I'm now concerned that it will fit in the case. CoolerMaster says the max cooler height is 155mm, ID cooling says their cooler height is 151mm. Cutting it a little close. I'll know more tomorrow when the rest of the parts get here and I can make the swap.

 

[tcsenter]

On second look, there should be PLENTY enough lanes for everything to run full rate. The CPU is gonna bring x16 for the primary x16 graphics slot, and the PCH/Chipset has 24 of it's own for I/O. It could support everything. Whether it does or not is Dell's design choices which sometimes are inexplicable.

 

[In2Photos]

Got the new "x4" card in. Turns out the chip can only run in x2. Oh well, at least I have twice the bandwidth compared to the x1 card. Also got the second stick of RAM installed. So that takes care of it for now. Need to play around with the 8700 and see if it's good enough for the task at hand. If not I'll add the P1000 in and give that a shot. So far things are looking pretty good though.

Thanks for the help @tcsenter and @DAPUNISHER !

 

[tcsenter]

Funny after all that effort, I happen across this post something like this might have been the original problem (firmware bug):

Intel 600 series MB have issues with not seeing AS Media ASM1064 SATA host controllers

Hello everyone, I have had issues with my upgraded rebuild for sometime. Long story short if you have a SATA host controller with a AS Media Chip and the card is not seen by your MB. It is not the MB it is the card. You have to flash an older BIOS onto the card to get it to work correctly and the...

forums.unraid.net

 

[In2Photos]

Funny after all that effort, I happen across this post something like this might have been the original problem (firmware bug):

Intel 600 series MB have issues with not seeing AS Media ASM1064 SATA host controllers

Hello everyone, I have had issues with my upgraded rebuild for sometime. Long story short if you have a SATA host controller with a AS Media Chip and the card is not seen by your MB. It is not the MB it is the card. You have to flash an older BIOS onto the card to get it to work correctly and the...

forums.unraid.net

Well dang. I probably still would have upgraded hardware anyway. That 2300 was struggling to perform even some modest tasks like scanning my media in Jellyfin. Surprised that I didn't find that thread during my search though.