The Dell C6100 workstation enclosure

[Andreas]

Thought, it might be time to point the STH C6100 community to a new usage area for the Dell C6100 servers

Taobao Dell C6100 DIY workstation server L5520 * 1/4G / graphics rendering desktop computersywwpuorpmqp from English Agent:BuyChina.com

http://www.buychina.com/items/the-d...on-l5520-8-core-16-thread-16g-mac-upsusqskipp

enjoy,
Andy

 

[mrkrad]

lol i'm surprised they didn't know it off completely for the apple true look.

 

[PigLover]

Very cute!

 

[Chuckleb]

That is so awesome. I want some... dangit, now I guess I'm going to have to work on that physical hack next.

 

[bernardgam]

In its specification, it can support Apple Mac System, but needs a Nvidia graphics card. Very Special.

 

[Zleako]

Anyone know what modification to the atx powersupply would be? cant' tell from the pictures exactly

 

[johnduhart]

This is absolutely amazing! I had dreamed of being able to convert a C6100 node into a standalone unit!

The fact that they're also running OS X on it is also crazy.

 

[PigLover]

Anyone know what modification to the atx powersupply would be? cant' tell from the pictures exactly

Most likely just the main ATX power connector to match the proprietary connectors on the Dell sled.

 

[johnduhart]

Anyone know what modification to the atx powersupply would be? cant' tell from the pictures exactly

You're right, it's not very clear. Looking at picture with the power supply we can see what appears to be a PCIe connector, and an odd 12 pin connector consisting of only ground and +12V and appears to connect to the node in other pictures

However, in another picture there's a bigger bundle of cables heading towards the mindplane (which isn't picuted in the PSU pic)

Really confusing.

It also looks like in some pictures the midplane connector is blurred out for some reason.

Can someone with a C6100 take some pictures of the midplane and power distribution? I'm interested how these things are wired up stock.

---

I'm really considering buying one of these to reverse engineer it for everyone here. Would there be interest in that?

 

[Zleako]

Exactly what I was getting at. As for making a case for it doesn't seem all that challenging either, providing there is some sort of pin-config that would work. Currently looking at a 4 node c6100 to acquire then trying to figure it out from there, ill have use for the other 3 as a test environment for my job, and 1 to play on.

 

[utp]

I bought 1 set, the case is ammmmmm, kind of cheap.... now running with just the board.

 

[utp]

You're right, it's not very clear. Looking at picture with the power supply we can see what appears to be a PCIe connector, and an odd 12 pin connector consisting of only ground and +12V and appears to connect to the node in other pictures

However, in another picture there's a bigger bundle of cables heading towards the mindplane (which isn't picuted in the PSU pic)

Really confusing.

It also looks like in some pictures the midplane connector is blurred out for some reason.

Can someone with a C6100 take some pictures of the midplane and power distribution? I'm interested how these things are wired up stock.

---

I'm really considering buying one of these to reverse engineer it for everyone here. Would there be interest in that?

The blured part is the interposer board, which is not connected on their bundle, maybe thats why they blur it.

 

[utp]

In its specification, it can support Apple Mac System, but needs a Nvidia graphics card. Very Special.

I am going to try install OS X 10.8.3 with Esxi 5.1 and Nvidia GFX card passthru with it.

 

[utp]

Anyone know what modification to the atx powersupply would be? cant' tell from the pictures exactly

It run on normal ATX power, they short the ATX pin to make the PSU go on and set BIOS to on when power on.

 

[johnduhart]

The blured part is the interposer board, which is not connected on their bundle, maybe thats why they blur it.

That would make sense. After looking at documentation and some teardown videos the interposer board wouldn't serve any purpose outside of the original chassis.

Could you take pictures of what was delivered?

 

[Rain]

Could you take pictures of what was delivered?

Sorry for the low-quality cell-phone picture, but here you go: Link

The connector on the imposer board is a 12-pin, standard size plug. (Standard size in that the pins are the same size as a normal ATX connector; I've never seen a 12-pin before). The connector on the motherboard itself is slightly smaller than normal.

There are 5 yellow (presumably +12V) wires, 6 black (ground) wires, and 1 purple (???) wire.

Let me know if you want pictures from another angle.

Edit: Oh wait, lol. Due to my quick-skim of the thread, I didn't realize that you wanted a picture of the actual enclosure that utp had received. Hopefully the above picture helps anyway!

 

[utp]

That would make sense. After looking at documentation and some teardown videos the interposer board wouldn't serve any purpose outside of the original chassis.

Could you take pictures of what was delivered?

I see, no wonder the seller didn't even ship the cable that connect to the board.

Actually the photos above is actually what I got from the seller, the photo is telling the full story.


PS: got OSX 10.8.3 running on ESXi 5.1, it works quite nice, next is a display card to passthru...

 

[utp]

I know this is gonna be a long shot, I know that there is another PCI-e slot on the board, which I am interested to use it for a USB3 card, anyone any info on pinouts or so on the extra port?

Thanks!

 

[Patrick]

PS: got OSX 10.8.3 running on ESXi 5.1, it works quite nice, next is a display card to passthru...

Whoa! How did you do this?

 

[utp]

Whoa! How did you do this?

I purchase OSX ML while I was still using a Mac, so I have the files around.

Quick search for ESXi with OSX 10.8, it turns out vmware did made some post about it and confirm support.

The trick is you will need to patch ESXi itself to allow the installation to go thru,
VMware Unlocker for OS X - InsanelyMac Forum

All I did was enable SSH from ESXi on C6100, SFTP files on /tmp and run the install.sh, let it run, reboot.

Following the steps by vmware
VMware Documentation for OS X 10.8
and it will install like normal.