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February 3rd, 2013 04:00
PE1850 - Which riser card do I need?
Greetings all. Gonna give you a long story so you have the background info on this.
Picked up two PE1850's from a local tech recycling depot for $30 each. In the process of converting one of them into a desktop machine (in a nearly soundproof room next to my office). Added 6 extra GB of RAM.
As you might know, the onboard video is the weak link in this mission. My current config gives me a PCI-X riser card with a 100/133 slot, and a 66 slot.
My adventure began when I went hunting for a reasonable (yet cheap) PCI video card. For about $60, I picked up a Zotac GeForce GT430, with 512MB DDR3; the card claims to work with Vista and W7. So I put it in the machine and booted it up. The BIOS beeped once every 30 seconds or so - five times, and then it eventually booted. The system just screamed. Loved it. It worked just fine (minus the booting issues) for about a year. Then, last week, I tried a game (I'm not much of a gamer). Bad idea. Tried to play MLB 2K12 and the video card died. Machine wouldn't boot at all with that card in the rig. Kept taking me to a blank screen and just stayed there. When I popped the lid, the video card was almost too hot to pick up.
Went looking for another inexpensive PCI card (which are suddenly way harder to find than they were a year ago). Scared by my GT430 experience, I put in the PNY version of a GeForce FX5500. The machine works, but it doesn't like it the card - there are occasional artifacts left on the screen after windows close. And the performance leaves PLENTY to be desired. I went from a WEI of 4.6 with the ZOTAC card to a WEI of 2.0 now. Can't watch full-screen video (and I assume my video editing days on this rig are over).
"Experimenting" with different PCI video cards seems to be an expensive game, and is rapidly killing the joy I got from finding two of these machines for the price.. So I'm thinking maybe I replace the PCI-X riser with a PCI-E riser, which at least gives me more video options.
However, a search online shows me several different model numbers, and I'm afraid to pick up the wrong unit. The most common one I'm seeing is T8385, but there's also N8439, and HJ858.
Can anyone offer any expertise here? Thanks in advance. Do I change the riser? Is there a PCI vid card you know of that works, and offers decent performance without becoming a cooking surface?
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Daniel My
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February 3rd, 2013 11:00
Hello monkeyneil
T8385 is the one we are currently shipping for any replacements, and is the replacement for N8439. T8385 is the latest revision(V3). N8439 and HJ858 are the previous revision(V2). We do not stock HJ858. If there are any changes to a part then it gets a new part number. I suspect there is a hardware difference between V2 and V3 that does not affect functionality since they are interchangeable. This typically occurs when something like the type of solder used in production is changed. Since N8439 and HJ858 are the same revision I don't suspect a hardware difference between the two. Most likely they have a different type of label or packaging that caused a new part number to be used. All 3 are interchangeable.
You may not be able to simply swap them out. When the 1850/2850/2800 first released they did not support PCI-E risers. There was an issue with the C2 stepping on the system boards that made them non-functional. When the newer system boards that corrected the problem came out we got rid of all of the first revision boards and started putting the new boards in all newly purchased systems. So, if you have one of the systems from the first batch you will not be able to put a PCI-E riser in it without swapping out the system board. The other problem is that not all motherboards are compatible with all backplanes, so if you have to replace the motherboard to replace the riser then you may also have to replace the backplane.
If you supply me with the part numbers of the system board and backplane I'll check to see what you will have to do for the change to PCI-e.
Thanks
monkeyNeil
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February 4th, 2013 08:00
Thanks for the speedy reply, Daniel.
I'm not fussy about which machine needs changing. One's running as a server with Ubuntu, so I'm not worried about the graphics capabilities (although I'm hoping you tell me #2 will be easier, as #1 has a bad optical drive.
Here are the details you asked for:
MACHINE 1
Backplane: CN-0F1318-13740-52N-00ZI Rev A01
Mobo: CN-0D8266-13740-52S-005B Rev A02
MACHINE 2
Backplane: CN-0F1318-13740-4BI-005U Rev A01
Mobo: CN-0D8266-13740-4BI-00T7 Rev A02
Any light you can shed on this would be huge. Upgrading the video on this rig has become something of an obsession.
Thanks
-- Neil
Daniel My
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6.2K Posts
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February 6th, 2013 09:00
Both servers have the same parts. The part numbers are right after the country code - CN=Manufactured in China - 0=Nothing D8266/F1318=Part number.
The D8266 is the second revision of the system board, so you don't need to replace anything to put in a PCIe riser. Any of the part numbers you have found for the PCIe riser should work.
Thanks