scrap it or keep it

[TechBoyJK]

I'm going through a bunch of decommissioned webservers that were donated to us.

I pulled out several dual cpu 3ghz xeon machines, put in some ram, hdd/cdd and installed windows, and ran prime95. Most ran it for 24 hours straight without issue. I assume these are good.

one though, it failed after an hour, and just shut down. (normally prime95 will just stop and say it failed) I noticed that one of the heatsink fans on one of the cpu's wasn't spinning, so I guessed that was why.. It eventually overheated and went into protect mode. I got another fan about the same size, and set it on top of the cpu heatsink (its not the exact right size so i couldnt attach it).

Eitherway, it lasted 12 hours on prime95, but then shut down going into protect mode.

12 hours at 100% cpu utilization on a test that is supposed to use maximum power and generate maximum heat is pretty good? I'm only wanting to keep stable systems and I was thinking 24 hours was a baseline for prime95..

If I want to keep this machine, I'll need to order new heatsink fans AND 2gigs of memory for it (reg/ecc/266).. Worth it? It's a dual xeon 3ghz (with hyper threading).

 

[TechBoyJK]

anybody?

 

[Schmide]

Dump it. Your power bill will love you.

 

[Slugbait]

Dual Xeon (Woodcrest)? Or two single-core Xeons?

If single-core, I wouldn't bother. If Woodcrest, buy the fan and ebay the combo for around $400, should only take a few minutes to sell...

 

[DSF]

What are the machines going to be used for?

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Dual Xeon (Woodcrest)? Or two single-core Xeons?

If single-core, I wouldn't bother. If Woodcrest, buy the fan and ebay the combo for around $400, should only take a few minutes to sell...

Well, it's dual cpu's, but 4 cores show up in Prime95. I think it's from HyperThreading though.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Dual Xeon (Woodcrest)? Or two single-core Xeons?

If single-core, I wouldn't bother. If Woodcrest, buy the fan and ebay the combo for around $400, should only take a few minutes to sell...

Well, it's dual cpu's, but 4 cores show up in Prime95. I think it's from HyperThreading though.

You are correct...that's HyperThreading. The Woodcrest, although based on Core2, also utilizes HyperThreading...so you would have seen 8 cores if they were Woodcrest.

But I digress, I just realized the RAM you say you need is 266...there are no mobos designed for Woodcrest that support 184-pin. So yeah, you have single-core Xeons. I'd say scrap it.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Originally posted by: Slugbait

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Dual Xeon (Woodcrest)? Or two single-core Xeons?

If single-core, I wouldn't bother. If Woodcrest, buy the fan and ebay the combo for around $400, should only take a few minutes to sell...

Well, it's dual cpu's, but 4 cores show up in Prime95. I think it's from HyperThreading though.

You are correct...that's HyperThreading. The Woodcrest, although based on Core2, also utilizes HyperThreading...so you would have seen 8 cores if they were Woodcrest.

But I digress, I just realized the RAM you say you need is 266...there are no mobos designed for Woodcrest that support 184-pin. So yeah, you have single-core Xeons. I'd say scrap it.

Well, it's either scrap it, and just move on, or... get a new fan and put it in a box and give it to someone. I just tested it again, and it went nearly 7 hours on the highest stressed test on prime95.. granted, it should last for days, but I'm thinking if I put the right fan on it it will do better. I have plenty of hard drives and cases. All I would need to invest in is the fan and some ram. 2 gigs for $50 or so.

 

[lxskllr]

Put it aside, and go back to it later. You can rig up fans for testing purposes to see if that fixes the issue.

 

[Slugbait]

Where would you get 2 gigs of RAM for $50? The cheapest option at the 'egg is $71 + s/h, and you might pay s/h on each stick unless you call them.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Can you simply just pull the suspect over heating processor and run it on one and verify that is truely your problem? Or will it not run without 2 cpus? It's been a long time since I had a dual cpu unit, but my OOOOOOLLLLLLd Pentium Pro board would run with just one cpu.

But i would just donate it to a church and let them deal with it. or if you're in DFW I'll take it

 

[fleabag]

Originally posted by: JeffreyLebowski
Can you simply just pull the suspect over heating processor and run it on one and verify that is truely your problem? Or will it not run without 2 cpus? It's been a long time since I had a dual cpu unit, but my OOOOOOLLLLLLd Pentium Pro board would run with just one cpu.

But i would just donate it to a church and let them deal with it. or if you're in DFW I'll take it

If you give it to a church or some other stupid organization, they'll just recycle it, which would be a total waste. These schools and charities don't want these machines donated to them because they get too many of them.

 

[TidusZ]

Don't give it to a charity, find a kid who wants it and would benefit and just give it to them, cut the middle man out of the equation. You'll not only guarantee it goes to a good home, you'll get more of the "altruist high" as well. Make sure to load it up with games first.

I know when I was too young to get a job I woulda cleaned your car with a toothbrush once a week in exchange for a new pc. God doesn't need any more computers, he's clearly better than that, so if you decide to donate it to a church I"m just warning you he might take offence to that, and if you look at the good book he's killed more people than anyone ever. I wouldn't take those odds.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: Schmide
Dump it. Your power bill will love you.

yup sometimes free isn't so free.