Poweredge - Adding a Sound Card and Graphics Card?

Yes, it's possible to add some graphic cards or sound card... But remember that: Dell Servers are... servers. It's not the same than a game machine... Programing, rendering and animation.... Could be... But It depend of your processor and your memory modules...

Ok, the processor is an intel Xeon x3440, runnin at 2.5Ghz. With 8GB ddr3 ram. So how do I chOose the perfect graphic card and sounds card? I don't mind if it's not a very high end gaming pc, just that it runs smoothly and also allows me to run the server and open workstations at the same time

With this configuration, I think you can do that without problem. Maybe a graphic card can be added on a PCI-Express slot (Not on a single PCI bus, because the bus is slower than AGP...)

A PCI sound card can be found (For example, with  the CMEDIA CS-OEM-51 chipset).

For a modest budget, the graphic card "Nvidia GTX 550 (Or 550) Ti" is a great one, on a PCI Express slot. But on many model, an external power supply is needed, be careful ;-)

There is no simple answer and no such thing as a 'perfect' graphics card in a PowerEdge Server, as any graphics card in such a system is a compromise of sorts.

Luckily the T110 does have a x16 PCIe slot so all you need to do is plug in a PCIe graphics card into slot 2, then jump into BIOS and set the 'Embedded video controller' (found under 'Integrated devices' section) to 'Disable', connect the monitor to the new card and reboot  :emotion-1: 

The 'Hardware Owners Manual' and the 'technical Guide Manual' will clarify the above and provide lots of other useful information including heat and power limits for the PCIe slots - read these documents.

You do need to decide how far you are willing to push your system outside its designed parameters! The things to consider are heat output and power requirements for your graphics card (remembering the the x16 slot is limited to 25W according to Dell and the PSU does not have a PEG connector).

You also need to consider your OS and whether certified drivers are important to you, i.e. many graphics cards do not have drivers for Win2008R2 (though Win7 drivers may work well).

There are many posts on the subject of adding graphics cards to servers. You can search on the top right of the forum using 'T110 graphics' and that will yield many results. Worth it to read of a few of them.

Finally, if you will be doing lots of rendering/game playing, you may find better results with an i7-2600 pushed to 4GHz rather than using a Xeon X3440 running at 2.4GHz.

PS: I have a T610 running Win7 Enterprise with a modified XFX GeFoerce 7600 GS graphic card plugged into a x8 PCIe slot AND a SoundBlaster XFi plugged into another PCIe slot. Works without issue 24/7 but it's no render farm ! My HP Z210 is more suited to rendering and graphics (and this is a low end workstation) than the T610 with 1 CPU.

Hello thanks for thew info,

Im not going to change it toally into a gaming rig, just a decent computer that allows me to do stuffs at the minimal. Im not using it anyway, but im trying to make ful use of it.

I've bought a GT430 graphics card with 2GB DDR3 ram, and after I slot it in, my Dell T110 server starts blinking an orange light!!!!! Im so terrified right now, btw, this dell did show the same symptom, when it was only 1 month old, I contacted Dell, and they sent me a new Hard Drive. So I'm thinking that Dell's hardware isn't top notch!! So can anyone tell me whats going on with the amber light? the health indicator?

Next, can you repeat this Luckily the T110 does have a x16 PCIe slot so all you need to do is plug in a PCIe graphics card into slot 2, then jump into BIOS and set the 'Embedded video controller' (found under 'Integrated devices' section) to 'Disable', connect the monitor to the new card and reboot  Smile

briefly? I've aded the video card. But when I plug it in, it wont show anything on the monitor.

Please read the 'Hardware Owners Manual' and 'Technical Guide' as these documents contain important information that you should know about your system; familiarize yourself with both of these documents as relevant information is scattered between the two docs. They are available for download and can be found on the dell support web site.

Fortunately Dell's hardware is good kit and well supported by them if you have issues. Unfortunately Dell's documentation can be full of copy/paste errors and is the thing that is not top notch.

As for a flashing health indicator, i'm not sure but a flashing amber power button on most dell systems normally means you have an issue with the supply of power within your system. Does it turn green without the GT430 installed in your system? If not, resolve this issue before you even try and get the GT430 working!

Note that the GT430 can draw 49W of power and the PCIe slot is limited to 25W (due to heat issues presumably). This may result in some problems but before you blame the T110, check the GT430 actually works in another consumer desktop system; the card could be DOA (dead on arrival) and causing your T110 some issues.

Also note that on page 12 of the HOM, it states: when powering on the system, the video monitor can take from several seconds to over 2 minutes to display an image depending on the amount of memory installed in the system. If you have verified the GT430 in another system AND fixed the amber flashing issue, then it may just be that you need to give it some more time during the boot process. Remember this is not a consumer desktop system and system boot can take some time!

So with this in mind,
(1) fix the amber flashing health indicator issue on the T110,
(2) verify the GT430 graphics card works in a consumer desktop system.

Once the above is OK, do the following:
(1) power off the system and unplug the power cord,
(2) install the GT430 in the x16 PCIe slot2 of your T110 (the video cable should still be connected to system board),
(3) plug the power cord back into the system and boot into BIOS,
(4) from within BIOS go to INTEGRATED DEVICES section and then EMBEDDED VIDEO CONTROLLER, set to DISABLED,
(5) Save BIOS changes and reboot, then power down,
(6) disconnect the video cable from the system board and connect the video cable to the GT430,
(7) boot the T110 and wait for at least 3 minutes; you should see video via the GT430.

Also, the PCI IRQ Assignment screen within BIOS should have detected your graphics card and display it's name and IRQ assignments.

If you still don't get a video image displayed via the GT430 and your system is full of PCIe cards , HDD's and memory, try paring the system down to the minimum and do the above 7 steps once more.

Post how it goes.

It is very finicky about how many cards and the voltage that they draw; this can cause the amber light. Though video cards are not supported,  there have been many that have found work arounds to get them to work here on the forums.

Good luck, and advise the forum the results.

Regards,

After 5 years of waiting for sound on server finally realised and bought External USB sound card and it works great now... To make it work we need to make USB audio device as default sound system.

Volume-> Playback devices-> select USB audio -> set default...

This one works...

If your server has a bay for a tape drive, there is a standard 4-pin Molex power connector available. And even if you have no such bay, sometimes the RAID array will have 4-pin Molex connectors, intended for expanding the array in a bigger tower case.

You can run a power adapter cable from that drive power connector down to the video card area, for the smaller single-slot video cards that have an external power connector (8800GT)

I have done this with a Dell 745 running the PCI-E power from a CDROM drive bay down to the video card, and the card works just fine running Minecraft.

,

Page 64 of the T110 manual shows a 4-pin Molex for a tape drive.

support.dell.com/.../T110.pdf

I have problems with the sound on my PC brands DELL power edge T 110, I ask you please sent souncard her ... because I have not been installed at all ... please help ... thanks

A DELL VT 5450 2GB DDR3 PCI EXPRESS GRAPHICS CARD works well in PowerEdge T110 II,

here is a link for more information:

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/servers/f/956/t/19615654

I can confirm having an Asus ATI HD 5450 Silent working on PowerEdge T110 II server. Recently purchased this for around $40 on Amazon, installed, and now pushing out much better video than the on-board Matrox.

About to start working on adding a PCIe sound card.