Spare server advice

[Iain Stott]

Hi guys, nice forum, hopefully learn a lot just looking through.
Anyway looking for some advice really, I'm not an IT pro, chef by trade but like tinkering with computers. I've been given an old rackmount IBM x3650 79797AG 2x Xeon Dual Core 20gb ram. I've just been using it for backup of my original backup. So given that it is fairly old, slow and got a low core count, I would like to play around and learn something from it. First thing I'd like really is to up the core count. I've done a bit of research online, but to me it looks like a stalwart in IBM's line up for quite a while, and I'm having trouble finding out what's the exact compatibility of cpus for the motherboard. I bought a pair of quad core xeons a month or so ago, cheap, and the server wont boot with them, retrospectively looking back i didn't check L2 cache and got ones with 12mb, every other spec matched. So looking to replace them again now and ive found one document online that says max of 6mb, one that says 8mb and another that says 12. Needless to say I didnt get any documentation with it, how do I go about finding out for sure.

Also does anyone have any recommendations as to what to learn using it?? I already have the usual web, ftp, vpn, email, smb, nfs, kvm. Wouldn't mind looking at Vmware ESXi but control via linux being a bit lacking is putting me off. Also Windows Hyper-V and then Exchange and Sharepoint Servers, but unsure if the machine is capable of that.

Cheers in advance
Iain

 

[j_h_o]

It's probably a Xeon 5120 or similar CPU, on a Woodcrest chipset:
Intel® Xeon® Processor 5120 (4M Cache, 1.86 GHz, 1066 MHz FSB) Specifications

Are you running Windows on it? Run CPUz and get some more information:
CPU-Z | Softwares | CPUID

 

[Iain Stott]

Cheers for the reply j_h_o, its not running Windows, it's running Ubuntu at the moment, but can install Windows if needed, Does CPU-z give the Motherboard info like maximum L2 Supported, as I did get CPU info from /proc/cpuinfo but didn't think L2 was something I needed to check, my bad.

 

[Deslok]

Actually that 7979-7AG number answers your questions since it's the machine type and order code which IBM does a great job of documenting
ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/systems/support/system_x_pdf/44r5189.pdf
taking a look through it seems your cpu compatability is limited to E53xx xeons that server was offered with the E5345 xeon at the top end from the looks of it
Intel® Xeon® Processor E5345 (8M Cache, 2.33 GHz, 1333 MHz FSB) Specifications

 

[Iain Stott]

Thank you soo much for that. I have looked and looked and looked, then started questioning myself with all the info I'd read. Thats great cos I've found a pair of E5345 on ebay for £20 while I've been looking, so hopefully get a bit more power for not much money.

Thanks again

 

[Deslok]

Thank you soo much for that. I have looked and looked and looked, then started questioning myself with all the info I'd read. Thats great cos I've found a pair of E5345 on ebay for £20 while I've been looking, so hopefully get a bit more power for not much money.

Thanks again

No worry, IBM stuff is some of my favorite although my original servers were PE1950 III systems(roughly a generation newer than your ibm system)

 

[Iain Stott]

Now I've gone ahead and ordered the E5345, so when they come and are installed, is 8 cores and 20gb of ram enough for learning Windows side of things like Exchange Server and Sharepoint and the like, maybe Hyper-V.

Don't know if I want to go down the ESXi route just yet but open to suggestions.

Cheers Iain

 

[Deslok]

Now I've gone ahead and ordered the E5345, so when they come and are installed, is 8 cores and 20gb of ram enough for learning Windows side of things like Exchange Server and Sharepoint and the like, maybe Hyper-V.

Don't know if I want to go down the ESXi route just yet but open to suggestions.

Cheers Iain

You can download server 2016 for 180 days as a test environment and yes you have more than enough cpu/ram for most things, be aware that thing is a power eating monster so you wouldn't want to use it for 24/7 production

 

[Iain Stott]

You can download server 2016 for 180 days as a test environment and yes you have more than enough cpu/ram for most things, be aware that thing is a power eating monster so you wouldn't want to use it for 24/7 production

Cheers Deslok, yeah I've already noticed how much electricity this thing munches on. I have had to add a Raspberry Pi controlling a relay to control the power going to the PSU, even when the server was switched off it was using too much electricity for me to justify leaving it plugged in.

 

[Deslok]

Cheers Deslok, yeah I've already noticed how much electricity this thing munches on. I have had to add a Raspberry Pi controlling a relay to control the power going to the PSU, even when the server was switched off it was using too much electricity for me to justify leaving it plugged in.

I'm surprised it used so much off, probably some form of lights out management keeping things active and accessible, glad you solved it with an Rpi

 

[Iain Stott]

I wouldn't be able to tell you what it was in all honesty, barely know what I'm doing with it as it is. But what I have done with it seems to have gone better or easier on this machine than any other hardware I've used. Have only dealt with consumer grade stuff up to now. It was probably using 80p a day in electricity just being powered off, and that was with only one PSU plugged in. I can justify spending on electricity for something that's doing something but wastage like that has to be sorted.

 

[Iain Stott]

Sorry for the resurrection but the E5345 arrived today, I have put them in and its working. Thanks Deslok.

 

[Deslok]

Sorry for the resurrection but the E5345 arrived today, I have put them in and its working. Thanks Deslok.

No problem glad to hear it went smoothly, one side note I hope you cleaned the heatsinks and used new thermalpaste I've seen some bad temps when people skip that step and just hope the old paste is "good enough"

 

[Iain Stott]

Yeah I have cheers, everything got a good clean with lighter fluid and then new thermal paste now the new CPU's are in. Didn't bother while testing at first but now that's all done it's had a nice clean and blow out with the compressor, not that there was much in it. Do rackmounts collect much dust in them with the airflow they have???

 

[Deslok]

Yeah I have cheers, everything got a good clean with lighter fluid and then new thermal paste now the new CPU's are in. Didn't bother while testing at first but now that's all done it's had a nice clean and blow out with the compressor, not that there was much in it. Do rackmounts collect much dust in them with the airflow they have???

They can depending on the enviroment but so does my "tower" Precision T7500 since I have two cats...

 

[Iain Stott]

Thankfully pet free home at the moment, but it is going under the stairs. The server was spotless when I got it, and it was nearly spotless come upgrade time, which it's probably ran for about a week in between so shouldn't be too bad by the looks of it.

 

[Deslok]

Thankfully pet free home at the moment, but it is going under the stairs. The server was spotless when I got it, and it was nearly spotless come upgrade time, which it's probably ran for about a week in between so shouldn't be too bad by the looks of it.

Just stick to a regular schedule(every 3 or 6 months) and you'll be ok, you can probably get a filter to go over it's intake if you wanted to as well.