Do Dell Pentium D servers work with eCS SMP?

Dell sometimes has what look like very good deals on machines aimed at 
small business, including servers that come without monitor (I have one 
already) and operating system (= no Microsoft Tax).

An example is a Poweredge SC430 Server (2.8GHz Pentium D [dual core]), 
which a flyer with today's paper advertises at $599 but is $499 at the 
Dell Web site).

Has anybody tried one of these with eCS SMP? With what results?

Of course we are not told what mobo, BIOS or video chip it uses.

-=-

On 03/23/06 09:14 pm Alan Beagley wrote:

> Dell sometimes has what look like very good deals on machines aimed at 
> small business, including servers that come without monitor (I have one 
> already) and operating system (= no Microsoft Tax).
> 
> An example is a Poweredge SC430 Server (2.8GHz Pentium D [dual core]), 
> which a flyer with today's paper advertises at $599 but is $499 at the 
> Dell Web site).
> 
> Has anybody tried one of these with eCS SMP? With what results?
> 
> Of course we are not told what mobo, BIOS or video chip it uses.

I have now found out that (a) the motherboard is based on the Intel 7250 
chipset (but I have no idea whether that is good or bad); and (b) the 
machine is physically small, accommodating only two hard disks and 
having (AFAICS) only three externally accessible drive bays.

-=-
Alan

Alan Beagley wrote:
> Dell sometimes has what look like very good deals on machines aimed at 
> small business, including servers that come without monitor (I have one 
> already) and operating system (= no Microsoft Tax).
> 
> An example is a Poweredge SC430 Server (2.8GHz Pentium D [dual core]), 
> which a flyer with today's paper advertises at $599 but is $499 at the 
> Dell Web site).
> 
> Has anybody tried one of these with eCS SMP? With what results?
> 
> Of course we are not told what mobo, BIOS or video chip it uses.
> 
> -=-
> Alan

Alan,

I would go to the Dell download page and look at the driver downloads 
for an older OS s/a W2K.  I usually find what the hardware actually is 
s/a what video, NIC, sound and such.

With this info you can search for the eCS drivers.
Video and NIC have a good chance of working.  I have not had that good 
of luck with audio in the past, but the uni-audio thingie seems to work 
with my Asus board (P4 based)

The latest USB drivers have a good shot also, but may take some tweaking 
to get them right.

Knowing the chip set (your next message) should help.   :}

Rich W.