PowerEdge 2300 upgrades?

Question

Hey guys. I just recently acquired a PowerEdge 2300 for free!! Lucky me. This is my first REAL server so please bear with me here.

This server came with dual katmai(sl35d) 450 mhz P3s. I looked up the service tag and it told me I had the GX motherboard which supports up to 700mhz(1000mhz unofficial) cpus. But when I look at the jumpers on the motherboard for the CPU setting. mine start at 333 and goto 450(which it is set at). Which makes me think somehow a BX motherboard got put in(or am I dead wrong here?) but it does indeed have P3s in it which I thought you had to have the GX motherboard for?

Bottom line is that I can get some Intel P3 Xeon SL3U5 700mhz on ebay for cheap or some regular P3s in the 600-900mhz range all day for cheap and I want to make sure that they will work in this server before I waste my money. I do know that I need 100fsb and not 133fsb also.

So pretty much, what I really want is a list of all the supported processors so I can buy the right ones.

Also what type of scsi hard drives can I use? I know absolutely nothing about scsi except mine is Ultra2 wide(i think). So can I use ultra160 drives or not? the backplane is the 2x3 one(part number 88373).

Evil Ally · Answer

As you say the FSB for that board is 100Mhz, so in theory any processor that will fit and has a 100Mhz bus has a good chance of working. I have a PE2400 which supports 133Mhz FSB. It used to have a single 400Mhz P3, but I managed to shoe-horn in dual 1.26Ghz Tualatin core Pentiums with a couple of upgradeware slot1->370 adapters. It works great and is actually reasonably quick (the 1.4Ghz P3 will also work but it very expensive). You could try something similar with a 1.3Ghz Tualatin core Celeron which has a 100Mhz bus. Don't let the Celeron name put you off, these are identical to the coppermine P3 as they have 256K cache but with the benefit of a die shrink.

fatphatboy88 · Answer

so I can put any CPU in there? I mean does the core voltage not matter? Because the Katmai P3s in there now are 2.0V(1.92-2.07 range) and the other Coppermine P3s that I want to put in range from 1.57-1.75? I don't wanna mess anything up by pushing too much juice to it.

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This is prolly the most important question that is bothering me, how would I set the jumpers on the motherboard? Because the jumpers on mine are for 333,350,400,450 and thats it. It is set in the max position right now as it is with the dual 450s in there.
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Oh and one more question, just found this browing eBay. But will a socket370 to slot 1 adapter card work in this machine? Cause if it would, that would open up my choices in cpu a lot! I could theoretically run dual 1500mhz celerons then. I mean I could practically run ANY 100mhz fsb coppermine or celeron then.

Evil Ally · Answer

The CPU vcore should be configured automatically, but you should check on older boards that it has set the voltage correctly.   The setting on the board for 450Mhz sets a multiplier of 4.5 and a bus of 100Mhz. As Intel processors are now multiplier locked, the multiplier setting on the board is obsolete. That means if you put in a CPU with a multiplier of 13 and use the setting for 450Mhz, this will result in a CPU clock of 1300Mhz.   I don't see any reason why an adapter card wouldn't work. For Tualatin CPUs, you need one that specifically supports them such as upgradeware or powerleap. The only problem I had was getting the heatsinks to fit as there wasn't a lot of room. I managed to pick up a couple of low profile 370 heatsinks on ebay which just fitted.   A word of warning though, this is all very unsupported. In theory it should work, but you won't know until you actually try it. It might be worth googling to see if anyone else has tried something similar. I tried it on mine and it worked perfectly, but I don't know about the 2300! I would buy one CPU to test, if that works buy a second.

fatphatboy88 · Answer

Well I think I am gonna try and start with a pair of slot 1 800 or 1000mhz P3 coppermines because I can get those for around $30 shipped to me.

So would it just be best to remove that jumper for 450mhz and leave it out since u say it doesn't matter anyways? When did the intel cpu's become multiplier locked? That way I can be sure not to get one that is too old and it not be locked.

Message Edited by fatphatboy88 on 12-10-2007 12:01 PM

Evil Ally · Answer

No, leave it on so it sets the correct bus of 100Mhz. As I recall, the 300/333Mhz chips were the last to be unlocked. The bios may report an incorrect speed with the new processor, but don't worry. Check it with something like CPU-Z and you should find it's running at the right clock speed.

fatphatboy88 · Answer

Thank you very much evil ally! You have helped me out tremendously!! Looks like I'll be ordering some stuff for this server off of eBay over Christmas break. If I run into any problems I can't figure out. You best believe I'll be back up here asking questions, lol. THANK YOU!

Evil Ally · Answer

No problem, hope it all works out.

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PowerEdge 2300 upgrades?

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