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- Aug 16, 2014
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Hi there everyone,
A few weeks ago I answered a local Craigslist ad about an Xserve with dual "550 series Xeons", for 150 euro. I immediately thought that it had to be a 3,1 Xserve and that they probably meant 5500 Nehalem Xeons, that can be officially be upgraded to El Capitan, and the guy didn't know what he was talking about. A gentleman showed up in a parking lot, and we sealed the deal there, as he also had an original purchase invoice which was dated back to 2007. I knew that my luck had ran out, and this was a 1,1 for sure, but the thing was in such a spotless state that I had to have it. Anyway, 150 euro was not the end of the world. The 3 drive caddies alone, that it came with, would fetch 120-140 euro any day of the week.
So, I took the baby home, set it up and found out that it had no RAM inside. Called the guy up, and he replied. "Did I ever mention, it HAD Ram?"... pfff bummer... 1,1 Xserve needs expensive Fully Buffered ECC Dimms to work. I managed to source 8x1GB modules from a guy in a neighboring city for 40 euro. I was finally able to boot it up and... was I in for a pleasant surprise. A high pitched aura spread across the room. 52-55 dB at idle, 71dB at full blast...
At that time I had read all relevant stories on the very informative MacRumors.com forum, on how much the Xserve 1,1 was almost identical to the MacPro 1,1 which could be bios flashed to support El Capitan bla bla bla.... Turned out, they are NOT that identical under the hood... The Xserve may have very similar characteristics to the MP, but it is much less upgradeable, when compared to the amazingly versatile MacPro 1,1, which many people still use today (2017) as a daily driver.
and then it struck me...
Where had I seen a similar layout to that of the Xserve? But of course to the Dell R410 I had laying around at work!
I immediately thought to myself... That would be a killer case mod for TonymacX86.
I have seen people mod R410s and Xserves by removing the lid and installing normal CPU fans and graphics cards outside the box in custom stands, but I've never come across a mod that would retain the 1u form factor.
This is work in progress but once it is done I ll post it, in the Completed Mods section.
Goals:
1) To create a self contained, ultra quiet 1u workstation that could stay fired up 24/7 in a living room without bothering my family, while maintaining the industrial Xserve looks, which I love by the way. I say workstation and not a server because I would like to use it as such.
2) Air cooled
3) Updatable with modern components
4) Able to do some light gaming
5) Maintain some HDD hot plug ability.
So let's start:
First, the Xserve was stripped from its internal components.
Took it to a metal smith and trimmed all standoffs, PSU housing and some parts of the top plate over the hard drive bays. I also cut a portion of the braces behind the drive bays, in order to fit Dell's hot-plug HDD back plane, which you can already see it installed.
This is were I am as I type this. I'm test fitting all parts in order to see what fits and what's in the way. I m also looking for socket 6-32 cap head screws in order to secure the heat sinks to the motherboard. Seems like the greatest challenge will be to securely mount the motherboard and heat sinks, while still maintaining the 1u clearance. Regular off the shelf standoffs are much larger than what I want.
A few weeks ago I answered a local Craigslist ad about an Xserve with dual "550 series Xeons", for 150 euro. I immediately thought that it had to be a 3,1 Xserve and that they probably meant 5500 Nehalem Xeons, that can be officially be upgraded to El Capitan, and the guy didn't know what he was talking about. A gentleman showed up in a parking lot, and we sealed the deal there, as he also had an original purchase invoice which was dated back to 2007. I knew that my luck had ran out, and this was a 1,1 for sure, but the thing was in such a spotless state that I had to have it. Anyway, 150 euro was not the end of the world. The 3 drive caddies alone, that it came with, would fetch 120-140 euro any day of the week.
So, I took the baby home, set it up and found out that it had no RAM inside. Called the guy up, and he replied. "Did I ever mention, it HAD Ram?"... pfff bummer... 1,1 Xserve needs expensive Fully Buffered ECC Dimms to work. I managed to source 8x1GB modules from a guy in a neighboring city for 40 euro. I was finally able to boot it up and... was I in for a pleasant surprise. A high pitched aura spread across the room. 52-55 dB at idle, 71dB at full blast...
At that time I had read all relevant stories on the very informative MacRumors.com forum, on how much the Xserve 1,1 was almost identical to the MacPro 1,1 which could be bios flashed to support El Capitan bla bla bla.... Turned out, they are NOT that identical under the hood... The Xserve may have very similar characteristics to the MP, but it is much less upgradeable, when compared to the amazingly versatile MacPro 1,1, which many people still use today (2017) as a daily driver.
and then it struck me...
Where had I seen a similar layout to that of the Xserve? But of course to the Dell R410 I had laying around at work!
I immediately thought to myself... That would be a killer case mod for TonymacX86.
I have seen people mod R410s and Xserves by removing the lid and installing normal CPU fans and graphics cards outside the box in custom stands, but I've never come across a mod that would retain the 1u form factor.
This is work in progress but once it is done I ll post it, in the Completed Mods section.
Goals:
1) To create a self contained, ultra quiet 1u workstation that could stay fired up 24/7 in a living room without bothering my family, while maintaining the industrial Xserve looks, which I love by the way. I say workstation and not a server because I would like to use it as such.
2) Air cooled
3) Updatable with modern components
4) Able to do some light gaming
5) Maintain some HDD hot plug ability.
So let's start:
First, the Xserve was stripped from its internal components.
Took it to a metal smith and trimmed all standoffs, PSU housing and some parts of the top plate over the hard drive bays. I also cut a portion of the braces behind the drive bays, in order to fit Dell's hot-plug HDD back plane, which you can already see it installed.
This is were I am as I type this. I'm test fitting all parts in order to see what fits and what's in the way. I m also looking for socket 6-32 cap head screws in order to secure the heat sinks to the motherboard. Seems like the greatest challenge will be to securely mount the motherboard and heat sinks, while still maintaining the 1u clearance. Regular off the shelf standoffs are much larger than what I want.
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