Resurrecting my HPxw8200 from the dead!

[Elie]

This workstation of mine is soo old, the onboard Sata 1 is not even recognized by Windows vista or 7. It just sits there but I know it has potential.

It's got currently...

2GB Ram
SATA 1 which I cannot use
2 IDE drives
Dual XEON 3.4Ghz (each CPU is a single core with hyper threading)
Windows Vista 64bit which will be upgraded to 7 Pro
3 PCI-X slots
3 PCI-e slots
ATI X1900 XT

Now I want to dump the IDE's and go or for a SATAII raid hopefully PCI-X card with 4x1TB Western Digitals, and add 8GB ram.

Is it worth it?

[Elie]

Never mind, just discovered that a particular component (don't know what it's called but you will see it in the attached pic) is actually burnt and is extremely hot to the touch. Every one of those components in the system is green except the burnt one which is black.

Sigh, time for a new system.

[Jammrock]

It's a toriodal inductor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toroidal_inductors_and_transformers

If you do upgrade you should look into a board with SATA III and USB 3.0 to help future proof your computer.

[Elie]

So the question is... why is one particular toriodal inductor gone to hell, burnt and extremely hot to the touch. ?

Regarding the future PC, that is true however the only boards I can buy are ones with PCI-X on board. The Tyan 7020 motherboard is one of the best dual XEON's I've seen.

It also supports the new Intel six core CPU's

Still is SATA 2 and USB 2 but if I were to go SATA 3, I will buy a PCI-X RAID controller card or something. For now I should be fine.

Oh and I need PCI-X slot for my Matrox AXIO editing card.

Cheers,
Elie

[VJ]

Asus has the P6T6 WS Professional... (single slot 1366 socket, 2x PCI-X)
It lacks Sata 6 and USB 3 though (but I would not be surprised an update of the mainboard might be coming: it is about one year old). The layout of the slots is a bit odd (put in a dual slot cooler main videocard and you loose a PCI-X... Why couldn't they have put the regular PCI slot there?

Personally, I would advice against buying new PCI-X cards: they are becoming more difficult to find (even for server markets), and I wouldn't expect them to have a very longlivety now; while the hardware will work for a long time, driver support could be iffy. If you could combine your current PCI-X cards with new PCI Express cards, I think that would be a better way.
(I still have 2 PCI-X cards in use: a Promise SX4300 and an Indigita FW800 card)

I'm very happy with my old Supermicro mainboard, an X5DA8 and with heir support (had to call on them twice and both times they immediately had the answer); I wouldn't be surprised they also have mainboards with the features you are looking for (e.g. dual xeon with PCI-X and PCI Express).

http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/

Jörg

[Jammrock]

it probably means something is wrong with the power phase on the mobo. toroids are used pretty much exclusively in power circuitry. there's nothing to blow on a toroid, it's just a ferrite core (the ring) with a wire wrap. something up circuit is probably bad.

in an event you probably can't fix it.

[Elie]

Ok thanks guys!

I'm not buying anymore new PCI-X cards, it's really to accommodate the AXIO LE which is PCI-X, can't replace it or get rid of it.

[VJ]

Still is SATA 2 and USB 2 but if I were to go SATA 3, I will buy a PCI-X RAID controller card or something.

Must have misinterpreted this... :-)

While the PCI-X requirements limits your choices, you still have options available. The Asus I posted looks like a nice board; I have the p6t6 ws revolution for a different system (where I don't need PCI-X), and I think it is basically the same board but with different slots.


Jörg