I wanted to add, after making this video, I bought this Startech PCI-Express to IDE card amzn.to/3dSgCpN which uses the JMicron firmware, and the Zip drive is now working perfectly! The card is just recognized as a "Standard PCI IDE Interface" in Windows 10 and the Zip drive is functioning great. I had tried a standard old PCI to IDE interface I had but Windows would not load drivers for that -- even when I tried to force them on. The JMicron cards are the way to go clearly! (JMicron cards flash a quick BIOS screen at boot showing you any detected IDE devices.) Also note, I only tested this in Legacy boot mode, so not sure if it works in UEFI mode.
Many old PCI IDE adapters were detected by Windows as SCSI/RAID adapters and needed special driver. If there is no driver for Vista/Win7, there is no chance to use them under Win10.
The screws in the drive bay blank are intended to be used with the mounting holes on whatever you insert into the drive bay. The Dell case uses odd screws that slide into slots in the drive bay to hold the drive in place.
Like what John Bailey said the screws to mount a 5.25 drive in the bay are on the back of the punch out front panel. Pull down on the blue tab next to the 5.25 bays and push the DVD drive forward to see the specifics. But once installed it should just slide in and click to lock in place. Actually a pretty decent design.
The PS2 ports are needed on machines like this in case a company needs to disable USB access to provide extra computer or data security. And to protect viruses from getting in, or to protect top secret data from getting out.
This is why I haven't upgraded my case in years. I don't need floppy bays but I still run a BDRW so my Corsair carbide air 540 case with it's two 5 1/4 in bays will keep me going untill I no longer need an optical drive.
@@mcborge1 i just don't see the purpose to having a optical drive... not sure i have had one in the past 15 years and if i ever do find the need for one that is what external bays are for lol..... on that note i am so glad windows can be installed from flash drives now as network installs kinda gross
@@brykanst9071 Some of us still run classic games that for licensing reasons are not supported on digital platforms and some of us still use optical drives for archiving backup data such as 3d files and mod backups. then there are people who still have a music cd collection who put their PC's to use as a stereo system. Just because you don't see a use for an optical drive doesn't mean no one else should either. Each to their own as they say.
Old Dell Precision workstations make fantastic PCs and are still plenty capable. You can do all kinds of upgrades (GPU, ram, etc). The PSUs are ridiculously strong. Most have a raid controller built in for a nice raid array (I used it for a striped raid of a couple of ssds for c drive).
Old dells were like tanks, we had an old 386sx desktop at work that ran for over 20 years before it died. Far cry to what dell is now a days with their disposable crap
As someone who has personally deployed and serviced tens of thousands of Dells various desktops and laptops I can tell you that they are really crap, the new ones are even worse. The best part is the crappy proprietary power supplies. If you want a quality OEM product you would go with Lenovo. Out of 100 Dell machines I will probably see 1 Lenovo and its because of something the end user did not because its power supply decided to explode.
@@someone28 Yep which sucks cause they use to be decent, now they are disposable crap. Gotta love their motherboards too now a days...what a joke. I'm not sure with lenovo either now that they have started to lock down ryzen cpus
I know that pain - and the pleasure upgrading the hardware and being able to re-use the same install without starting over! Interesting to see your rig!
u can swap windows 10 from one pc to the next via hdd and with linux u can do that anyway ive even been known to clone a hdd or ssd to bigger drives and upgraded this way with the os on said drive with windows and linux without issue
I'm about to go from an intel 4th gen to a ryzen and I have been sitting on the hardware for a couple weeks because I am going to have to reinstall. Ugh
Adrian should've been in this business for long enough to know that every new PC (whether brand new or new you you) absolutely requires a blood sacrifice in some way. Now that that's out of the way, it will surely give you years of trouble-free service! :-)
You mentioned the faff of re installing drivers. You can back them up with command prompt to wherever you want such as a thumb drive , by using DISM /online /export-driver /destination:C:\DriverBackup You just have to create the destination folder first and point the command to it when you instigate. All your drivers will be in one place ready to reinstall. Hope this is helpful to someone.
USB 3 was pretty flaky in the first few years, only Intel's chips seemed to work well. The USB group must've tightened the spec as it works great on recent AMD and ARM devices.
"was" pretty flaky? USB is STILL not stable enough for a production environment ... at least when it comes to audio / video production. it may work if you have ONE HDMI grabber and ONE webcam that sends compressed "1080p" video to the computer ... but handling multiple video streams from multiple USB capture devices is a pain in the ass ... spreading the capture devices over multiple usb controller cards to avoid bandwidth problems makes everything even more dodgy ... but since firewire has been phased out, and thunderbolt is even more of a mess, USB is all we got
Happy to hear about your new computer. The button on the powersupply is so you can test if there are shorts on any of your devices. pressing it will power the supply on and turn on the devices it is plugged into. A Green light means the power rails to those devices are good and there isnt a short. It isnt too smart as it is mainly looking for shorts but can be useful none the less. You will not be replacing any of those fans with off the shelf ones. The 4 pin connector on the Dell Prescision and Optiplex line of computers is not your standard 4 pin connector. As for the rear fan, it is a Sunon branded fan, but one of the neat things is it uses MagLev technology instead of ball bearings or shaft bearings. So that fan would be equivalent to the Corsair ML fan. It is very very powerful. I have one that has been continuously on for well more than 10 years (always on) and it started making some odd noises. Sadly there is no way to lube it like you have shown in some of your other videos and replacements cost about 15-20 dollars. You will be better off looking for a Delta fan made for the Dell workstations if you need to replace it... or get to splicing cables! If you need to replace the powersupply there are adapters out there including one from a company called Longdex. I picked one up and could send it to you if you ever need it. Also i might have some spare drive rails for the machine as well. Glad you are happy with your new machine and i hope it will give you many years of good service. Yours Turely The Linux guy who sent you some linux stickers and a PCI SCSI card before you started doing Mailbag videos ~_0
Of you repin the new fans to dells standard you can change them. Or I think you can.... I have a huge box of various dell fans and blowers from my old job and I have repinned a few of them and put them in standard systems. The power, gnd, tach and pwm appear to be standard, just in different spots. I have not done the opposite and repinned a std fan into a Dell, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.
Looking up the serial number for that Dell Precision T1700 we find that it was delivered with that E3-1241 V3 you identified, this is basically a locked (non-overclockable) i7-4770K, or if you prefer you could think of it as an i7-4770 with very slightly higher base clock but identical turbo frequency. Xeon E3's are basically just i3/i5/i7s, the E5 are the ones that use different chips. You nailed it, slightly newer and faster but not massive. The Dell build spec also says it originally had TWO AMD FirePro W4100 workstation GPUs (roughly Radeon 7750 equiv but expensive, 50W TDP each) so together they could drive 8! monitors, those were clearly was replaced at some point though but I assume that's why it got the (slightly) bigger PSU model - Dell likely wouldn't allow that config without the PSU upgrade. The official "NVEnc support matrix" says the 750 Ti in it now supports all three types of h.264 encoding/decoding (4:2:0, 4:4:4 and lossless) but none of the newer h.265 encode/decode methods. I'm fairly confident it's better than the old AMD card for encoding and is definitely a lot faster overall too - not that it'll probably matter for this. VirtualBench DC psu: Spec sheet says it's capable of providing three voltages, they can be set to 0-6V/0-1A, 0-25V/0-0.5A and 0 to -25V/0-0.5A respectively, with very precis voltage and current limiting (and readback). Looks neat for quickly powering small things, even if it would have been nice if it the "main" rail was a bit more powerful and/or it had four voltages (for +/-5V & +/-12V). OTOH, it specifically notes that the two 0-25V rails share zero point but is "isolated" which should mean you can use a cheap 5A or 10A voltage/current controlled single output bench supply to provide "main" (5V) power, connect that the rail 2/3 zero point to the negative/zero side on the bench supply and tell it to generate say +/-12V referenced of that. The 0-6V/0-1A output is apparently NOT isolated however - I'm guessing that means it can't (easily) be used to generate a -5V supply, it might be possible to generate a different positive voltage (3.3V?) but I'd suggest checking the manual first for that, it should explain the exact limitations but I'm not going to dig that deep.
xEON cpu'S are not the same as the I7 cpu's they don't turbo as high. e3 4 core are the worst Xeon's as they only do 4 core. but he could drop the I7 4770 in there instead as the higher clock speed would be better for video edits
@@madb132 Actually, the E3-1241 V3 actually have *exactly* the same turbo speeds as the i7-4770K, unless you overclock the 4770K (which includes things like MCE). But given that this is a workstation motherboard it likely has NO overclocking options in the BIOS nor multi-core enhancement (MCE) options and it's way too old to support XTU so... they'll clock *EXACTLY* identical in this if it'll even accepts the 4770K at all which isn't guaranteed! (the manual say it support a 4770, but 4770K is not listed). The later i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh) would physically fit and the higher base & turbo clocks would give ~10% extra performance but it's at *best* a crap-shot if the motherboard will allow that. But if you someone has a spare 4790K and this motherboard they can try. Just don't be surprised of the BIOS decides "not recognized CPU, not initializing enough to even enter BIOS menus", this happens even on some desktop boards and workstation boards tends to be far more picky than desktop boards.
@@Torbjorn.Lindgren You can over clock on these boards by using intel ITU prog but the Xeon won't as it's locked multiplier so as i said the Xeons DO NOT clock as high, why do people bloody argue facts?
Looks at the VirtualBench in the video. Thinks: "That's nifty!". Goes to look at the price. Cleans coffee off screen and keyboard. (That is a VERY generous gift!)
Haha yeah, their pricing is bonkers!!! I really do NOT recommend it for that reason. Clearly it's sold to schools or companies who don't care about the pricing, because you can do so much better elsewhere. I know this one came from an auction of stuff, so hopefully the viewer who donated got it cheaply. (I think he said he ended up with two of them.)
The Rosewill Line-M case that's featured in the video is definitely one of few MicroATX cases that can be bought new that has all of these: Four front USB ports Two included 120mm fans At least one 3.5" and 5.25" drive bay No side window That makes it my case of choice for builds that are function-first.
Nice to see that Windows now moves so easily from machine to machine! XP absolutely did not like being moved, and I think even Win7 would blue-screen upon encountering a different motherboard (or at least a different chipset).
I never had a problem moving WinXP or 7 to a new system. So long as you are staying with the same processor brand and keeping changes to a minimum (e.g. peripherals stay the same, drives stay the same, video card stays the same), that gives you a stable boot. Changing the video card or peripheral mix, best saving that for subsequent power cycles, and even that was more to avoid Windows deciding it needed to be re-activated versus things not working. Repair installs would usually take care of any oddball failures, and to be honest, you're still better off with a fresh install anyways to "clear out the cobwebs".
I’ve moved an AMD windows 7 install over to an Intel computer. I’ve also moved around almost any combination on windows 10 with no issues. Windows xp and earlier don’t like it though.
Yes.... the floppy drives get crazy with Win10/11. I would say it's Windows Defender's fault. Not only accesses the drive frequently and also hides autoexec.bat and config.sys annoyingly. I believe the USB3 slow speed is caused by some setting from registry. You could try Ubuntu live and check if it happens the same.
I have the same T1700 in storage. I used it as a DVR for a few years and that thing was a beast. That adaptec card caused flashback to year 2002 when that exact adaptec card fried a rare Alphaserver and then another server I had. After it killed the 2nd machine I suspected something was wrong with the adapter.
(1) MICRO ATX. MiniATX *was* a standard with a formal spec, but it was part of the ATX spec that predated MicroATX and was withdrawn when the (separate and independent, actually) MicroATX spec was released. (2) That board may or may not be MicroATX regardless; Dell has a habit of being so flagrant about violating standards, specs, and form factors with what they put in desktops that it arguably crosses the line into outright flaunting it because they can. With eBay etc around, it's more a matter of annoyance than anything else, but it makes repair work considerably harder -- which is the point, after all; the idea is to try and force you to send your PC into Dell for repairs so they can upcharge you *twice*. The system you build on your own will always be far cheaper than any prebuilt, and probably a goodly bit better. Certainly it will be better suited to your individual needs! ...so that motherboard may just be a "Dell SFF" 'form factor' -- something bizarre that Dell cooked up to fit the case because it fit. But to me it looks like a MicroATX mobo. (3) While I've never personally had occasion to use a SATA to IDE converter -- yet -- one of my close friends runs the local tech shop and has told me repeatedly that literally he's never had one that worked. I believe he's had several... (4) DVI and HDMI use the same exact protocol except that HDMI supports audio output and DVI allows an analog (VGA) piggyback. That's why you can convert them with "just wires" adapter plugs. (5) Dell power supplies are, historically, quite rugged and slightly over-specc'd for the systems in question, and this system will be from that era. (6) That cooler is essentially a Dell branded Intel Stock Cooler. It's crap and it will be noisy for the cooling it offers, which will be sub-par. Most $30 offerings on Amazon from disposable Hong Kong sounding brand names will outperform it. (Everything is relative. Even if it's quiet overall, there are better options... (7) Don't encrypt your drives. It will only make your data entirely unrecoverable when something hits the fan, so to speak -- and that is absolutely a "when" not an "if". Also, speaking from experience: don't trust backups, *especially* cloud backups. Terms of Service and such change, and they are not required to change in ways that avoid excluding you. (8) LOL @ cheap cases. *ALL* cheap cases will slice you like an onion, and *ALL* prebuilts have cheap cases. A First-Aid Kit is a good thing to have if you service computers regularly... new or old ;)
@Leon Mailfert Yes, and other connector variants distinguish between single- and dual-link display connections and there is also DVI-A which only has the pins for the legacy analog (VGA) passthrough and that's it -- but if you were paying attention, you'd note that what I was discussing was a matter of electrical protocol and not connector shells and so which pins are present on what connector is largely DVI-r-elevant as long as there's enough to send a signal :P FWIW it's a subspecies of TDMS.
@Leon Mailfert I've seen one or two such connectors as "just wires" VGA adapters you can get on eBay. IIRC I don't have one in the drawer but I'm pretty sure you can get em.
@Leon Mailfert I apologize as well -- I get a bit hotheaded a bit fast these days, and I shouldn't. Life's been getting to me a lot lately. Where I live is kinda at the exact opposite of LTT land as far as socioeconomics go. It's a tiny town in the rural part of the upper US South. There's not even a Goodwill within an hour's drive of here IIRC, we just have a couple PTA Thrifts in the county and that's it. The universal minimum video standard is still VGA and probably will be around the time James T Kirk first takes captainship of the Enterprise lol. DVI+VGA displays sometimes show up at the local thrift shop but mostly it's VGA only and half of em aren't even widescreen! There's actually a sign on the window still that says, if it's got a CRT inside please don't bring it here. So to me, it's kind of hard to imagine that one would be unaware of DVI and its variations unless one was a complete neophyte. But I guess this is an odd place to live, as far as that goes... Personally, I grew up in the 90s and I learned electronics and computers at the same time. I'm a hardware guy and I view and interact with computers specifically through an electronics paradigm. I'm quite capable of component level repair, and although I'm far too incoherent at life to hold down a job, I'm not above replacing caps or pulling a BIOS chip off a board with an iron or my hot air pencil and dropping it into my TL866 II+ programmer if it's being ornery lol (did this once with an HP MIni 5102 that had a BIOS password, back when I still only had my TL866A lol, was its first use actually... still have the netbook, still proud of the fix). Networking to me is a Dark Art, I leave that to the Voldemorts, Lupins, and Snapes of the world lol... I can't speak C or C++, really, Python makes me want to get the snake-stabber lol, most of these newer languages like Ruby and Rust make me curl my lip and mutter unrepeatable things about hipsters -- and I'm *barely* at the beginnings of conversational with Arduino, even -- my "programming language" of choice is hardware glue logic. I have a healthy penchant for retrocomputing tho so I can also do some pretty cool things in C64 BASIC -- but don't think I don't need a reference manual nearby! Also, because I just can't keep from mentioning... Steve @ GN makes me cackle with his prebuilt reviews. Guy needs to learn some things... all that stuff that he says "can't be used" after the system dies? I make new machines every WEEK with exactly that kind of stuff. A system build from what I can get on eBay and what's in my closet -- and donations, I have an erm reputation lol -- is my way of livening up a boring afternoon, and proprietary stuff is dirt cheap. 90%+ of what I work with is the stuff he claims you gotta throw out when the system's bunged. No -- you just have to know how to work with it. He's just showing his blissfully ignorant side, and I'm looking forward to calling him on it soon... flagrantly ;) mind you I've already reached out several times and been ignored, so this will be fun.
@Leon Mailfert I've no love for modern iWaste but the Apple II was a machine for which I have deep respect. (Odell Lake, anyone...? :D and the impossible legend that is Oregon Trail...) I've always wanted to muck around with Amigas. The architecture makes no sense to me but I know how powerful they are, so it's just something somewhere that I don't understand. I'm cool with that -- someday I'll 'get it'. Relays have embarrassed me in the past but I'm determined. I like to play around with that sort of thing, see where the bare minimum viable element of computing lies, in a sense...
I believe the reset button is underneath the front bezel. It's at the end of the small wire that you thought was a temp sensor. That's how my Dell server machine is built anyways.
These desktops don't have anything under the bezels except access to the internals. Server bezels are different because they are _optional_ "security" components specifically designed to prevent system access by unauthorized persons.
This is definitely a computer that's meant to be a workstation for a company, and you'll see VGA ports on a lot of those as a lot of companies still have VGA hardware that they don't want to replace until it dies. Also, the days of cutting yourself on PC cases is only over for enthusiast PCs/cases. This one will have been built down to hit a price point that makes bean-counters happy, and if there was a hardware problem they'd probably just send it in for a warranty replacement instead of having on-site IT do repairs.
I have a bunch of those Precision T1700s. Good case design, good power supply. Nothing exciting about anything on the motherboard but it's reliable and should get the job done. I should have some spare drive rails if you want them. Dell power supplies haven't had physical power switches in decades. They are definitely nonstandard which can be a pain if you have to replace them, but I've only had one or two fail out of hundreds of Dells I've dealt with at work.
It's ok, but thanks. I'm totally fine with just laying extra drives around the inside of the case. Like velcro to hold on SSD drives LOL! Sketchy, yes, but it works :-)
I never really read anything about TPM since I never cared, but your mention of TPM abd BitLocker made me wonder about one thing. I personally don't use BitLocker (well, I don't use Windows to begin with), but our laptops at work use it in case a device gets stolen. So.. what is the point in using the TPM inside the computer instead of a password? If I broke into your basement (well, just hypothetically. I am in Germany, so more than a safe distance away and most importantly I don't do that) and stole this PC, what would it help you to have the hard disks encrypted with BitLocker, if all you need to unlock it would be this exact PC? I am no expert on hard disk encryption, as I never really thought about doing such for my own computers, so is there another reason to do it except to prevent anyone from getting into your data if the computer is stolen? If not, why use the computer itself as the unlock key? If this reads a bit confused, that's probably because I am... ;-)
If you only set a Windows password you could take the harddisk drive out and copy everything. I don't know about Win 10 but in Win 7 it was easy to bypass the password and get to the data this way. That's when BitLocker and TPM comes in but it depends how it's configured. If you don't set a PIN and/or Keyfile you only need to do no changes to the hardware and turn it on to unlock the data. There is imho no point in doing so cause the chance someone will only steal the harddrive is very unlikley. You want at least to set a PIN that you enter or a Keyfile that has to be read before Windows boots. The keyfile can be read either from an thumbdrive or via Certificate Services from an Windows Server. Now you have the advantage that nobody that has access to the machine can boot into Windows without the PIN or keyfile or take the harddrive out and bypass the Windows password that way. The disadvantage is of course that if your mainboard should fail for some reason or loose the thumbdrive you're pretty much done if there is no backup of your data or NAS where your data is stored. I guess thats the reason why Microsoft don't give you BitLocker on the Windows Home version but not sure about that.
@@Troppa17 It is true that a Windows password does not prevent others from reading the contents of your drive if used outside the computer (the same applies to Linux as well by the way), I still don't see what its benefits are when used at home like in Adrian's basement, especially the way I understood him using it. When it comes to BitLocker with PIN or key file - yes, I totally see the benefit there, as this is what we are using at work. But that doesn't require TPM. It only requirest a moderately powerful CPU and enough RAM to not make things painfully slow (and again, that's what we did at work...). As I understood Adrian's reasoning, he wanted to change *away* from PIN to using TPM instead which allows the computer to unlock BitLocker upon system boot with no further interaction. Sure, it would prevent the drive from being read in any other PC, but if someone steals the entire computer, which is the most likely of all scenarios, as it is way quicker than taking it apart on site, it's like not having it encrypted to begin with. And this is what made me wonder. It doesn't protect from data theft via the network while the machine is on, it doesn't help if Mr. Badguy steals the computer in whole and turns it on at their hideout. ;-)
@@Colaholiker The TPM will not unlock the drive if you boot a different OS. (I know this from trying to help recover somebody's data.) If the drive is only readable from its own OS then the Windows password should protect the data.
As an additional "bonus", a BitLocker encrypted system drive may leave you with a system with a Windows grenading itself and seemingly nothing working to successfully reinstall the OS no matter what you try (factory recovery, fresh install, ...). Out of 20+ Fujitsu Lifebook A359s with built-in TPM, Samsung PM870 SSDs and Windows 10 1903 that I deployed, about 5 or 6 eventually developed issues. That cost me a bit of grey hair. Only when I eventually took out the SSD and connected it to another system was I greeted with a BitLocker error message, and it started to dawn on me. What I had to do was using the recovery console to decrypt the system partition with manage-bde, run chkdsk /f which would invariably find a good number of errors (generally files related to a particular recent update which had me suspecting that BitLocker was being incorrectly suspended or something; note that chkdsk immediately before decryption would pass), and then the reinstall would succeed. Apparently the bootloader would fail to access the system partition otherwise. Sometimes I would catch the system before major disaster, when the first symptom was a recent update being rolled back automatically, and once I got lucky enough in that recreating the BCD got the OS install working again. All very weird and I have yet to find out the actual root cause.
These Dell (and HP) workstation machines are awesome. You can usually find them pretty cheap on eBay or local computer recycling stores. Obviously these were very expensive machines when new, so they are built quite reliably. I've helped some friends by getting workstations like these, and throwing in a modern GPU and SSD to make a decent gaming rig on a budget.
Dell Precision Workstations are great - they last forever. I have a T5600, T1700, and even an old 410 with dual P3s as one of my retro workhorses. With pretty much all the ports internally and externally including SCSI I can pretty much throw any retro drive at it.
I also have a 750Ti, and the reason I chose it is because it can drive a 4k display at 60 Hz, and it was cheap by the time I bought it. Nothing below that level in this generation has that capability. That doesn't mean 60 FPS is guaranteed, of course. I don't have it driving a 4k display, but it's driving four more normal displays (two DVI ports, two HDMI ports). The system it lives in sounds like your bench machine from two iterations ago -- it's still an AMD Athlon 64 x6. It won't ever see official Windows 11 support, but I don't think your Xeon is going to either. In any case, I did some OBS streaming using NVenc and it is still an order of magnitude faster than using the CPU.
I have the exact same T1700 as my main PC. Ex-Workstation so has a Nvidia Quadro card instead of a GeForce but will play GTA V with no problems. Although even though has a VGA port on the motherboard, there is no onboard graphics with the Xeon CPU. It’s a solid workhorse, Windows 11 works well on it although not officially supported. Linux is fast on it as well. I use a SSD for the OS, and then Intel Hardware RAID with 2 physical HDs for data.
That Xeon E3-1241 v3 CPU is essentially similar to an i7-4770 with a slightly higher base clock (3.5 MHz vs 3.4 MHz) except that it lacks the i7's integrated graphics. The three screws on the back of the drive bay cover are used for mounting the additional optical drive. The manual ought to explain that.
Yes, old motherboards used a "third party" chip for USB 3. On the board, there's probably a VIA chip that's the USB 3 controller. It's possible that chip has gone bad.
Hi Adrian and thanks for the frequent videos! One thing you should try is reflashing your UEFI / BIOS! They tend to loose bits over time which could explain the problems you encountering. As you mentioned ECS something else sprung to mind: Capacitors! On your newish Dell: Please do yourself a favour and monitor the PSU! They tend to fail silently which causes USB issures as well. You are right: This chassis doesn't use rails for the 5,25 inch drives. However: They use longer screws (which are captured with the plastic thing at the back). The UEFI of this PC has a whitelist of GPUs so changing the GPU is not an option. With the XEON-Processor I think only ECC RAM is going to work for upgrades, if you desire to do so!
These systems are _way_ too new to be suffering from bit rot on the firmware, plus I believe they also do a checksum verification so it would be detected. Regarding parts compatibility with the new system, I believe you are mistaken. I haven't heard of desktops having GPU whitelists and also the installed installed clearly isn't original. While the desktop Xeon can use ECC RAM it will work fine without it; in fact if you look closely you can see it's currently running non-ECC RAM.
@@eDoc2020 Okay. The bit rot on the firmware occured in my personal history even on PCs which were much younger than the old one of Adrian, so I wanted to state the possibility. Some hardware I had to work on even wasn't five years old and had to be reflashed. Not every UEFI or BIOS for that matter is checksummed equally and there are vendors who don't bother to check the full flash so mistakes coud be undetected. Dell has a history of putting whitelists in their UEFI and it would not even surprise me, if you inserted a 30 series Nvidia into this motherboard, it would stop working. AFAIK Dell had whitelists for GPU Chipsets so the vendor of the GPU is irrelevant. After rewatching the video I have to say: You are correct for the RAM used: The chipset seems to support ECC-less RAM while I don't think you could easily mix them.
The 80+ rating on these are kind of cheated I think because they're only a 12v PSU. They don't generate 5v 3.3 etc. they do that on the motherboard. I don't think that's any more efficient than just putting that circuitry in the PSU but it helps them get a higher score I guess.... I dunno it just seems kind of bogus to me.
While that's a valid point, it would still yield efficiency gains as the lengthy PSU to mo/bo connection is all 12 V. It also saves on wires, which I'm sure penny-pinching OEMs always appreciate.
I believe the Lumix cameras have a clean HDMI output, so it's a good option for a streaming setup. Not sure about the placement if you're sitting right at the bench though, might have to put it at such a wide angle that it looks weird. But I guess it would work if you're sitting back a little playing with a joystick or controller. I'm also wondering whether moving the windows boot drive from another machine causes any weirdness with the windows license? I know modern machines somehow save the key onboard so it automatically activates with the same key when you reinstall windows. I'm curious if it just picks up the old windows 8 key and activates using that, or if it tries to activate using the old key. Because if it's the latter that probably wouldn't play nice with OEM licensed installs. Probably not really relevant, so feel free to ignore the question. Anyway, congratulations on a well-deserved upgrade! And you really can't beat that value for money! 😆 I was considering upgrading my old desktop to a mini-itx with an AMD Ricer APU, but my old GPU is still twice as powerful as the one in the Ryzer, and intel chip in my mac isn't that much less powerful than the Ricen (and the eGPU is about twice as powerful as the one in my old desktop!). Either way it's not as much of an upgrade as I'd like.
I highly recommend getting an internal SD Card Reader (plug it into that empty drive bay), it will occupy one of your USB headers, but they usually have additional front facing USB ports to make up for that (you could also add an internal USB 3 PCIe Card which will provide Additional internal headers and external ports on the back). Edit: those GTX 750s are freakin work horses for non-gaming PCs, I still own a few of them. Though, I would really consider upgrading in the future. Apps that require RTX are becoming more common, and I think some of the OBS stuff can take advantage of it. Edit: older thunderbolt is usually the "Display port" looking plug. re: No reset button -- you could also just drill a hole in one of the empty drive inserts and add a panel mount momentary push button (normally open) connected to a 2 pin female header to expose that. (Assuming the board has those pins... if not, I think there are also USB reset buttons you could get.) re: bleeding The spirit inside the PC has demanded a blood sacrifice. That's how you know it's a quality system.
One thing: Early thunderbolt used the same connector as *Mini* DisplayPort. The ports on the motherboard were plain old full size DP, which don't carry Thunderbolt. So no idea what the Thunderbolt option is for. Maybe it has an internal header and a breakout cable that went to an insert for the PCI slots, which was optional?
I'm so sad that I only recently found your channel because I just sold a Core 2 Quad system for a pittance that would have been a great "bridge" system for your workshop. It had IDE and FDD controllers and two PCI slots, but it was a quad-core, 64-bit system with great SATA SSD support, two PCIe Gen 2.0 x16 slots, and dual gigabit NICs. The only catch was it took weird 1.8v DDR3 RAM, but I had a working 8GB kit. Now I know who to tell when cool stuff lands in my workshop!
windows 10 randomly seeks floppy drives when you have Quick Access history turned on in Explorer and motherboards usually have ps2 ports cuz usb ports are usually turned off in organizations
Speaking as an IT admin, Lenovo and Dell are the kings of non-standard PSUs in otherwise ATX-compliant cases. A real pain if you have a failure. I used to invest in a small number of PSU adapter cables "just in case", though that doesn't help if there's a weird form factor to the PSU. Good thing you're so handy with electronics in case you ever need to hack an ATX PSU to replace the Dell one.
This is much less common these days. I have been stuffing standard ATX PSU's in Dell workstations for much higher end GPU's for years now with no issues. The biggest problem I have found with Dell boards is their custom front panel connectors. Sure, you can buy adapter boards to make them into standard headers, I get that Dell did this to create a single connector solution to plug in everything at once on their assembly lines, but it sure as heck makes them a pain to reuse them on anything other than the case they were designed for.
Have you got any Loctite Super Glue run some of the glue into the cut and leave it for 10 minutes then you should be as right as rain, it is what it was designed for during the Vietnam War.
I've had a similar problem with an older system I now use as a backup system where plugging a 2.5" external drive for internal drive backup had previously worked just fine plugged into one of the high amperage (1.5A) USB 3.0 front ports, but it recently started exhibiting slow operation and occasional (recoverable) drive corruption during backups. Using one of the in-series LCD display USB diagnostic dongles, it turned out that the ports were no longer capable of reliably powering the external drive without lowering the 5V line voltage too far. So, I just plugged a powered USB 3.0 hub I had on-hand into it and everything is now fine. It might be a loose or oxidized plug connection to the motherboard which I'll have to check.
Those older usb3 controllers seem to get pretty flaky over time. Had an old gigabyte AMD 990-FXA-UD3 board that I got secondhand off my brother and that thing had zero response from it's own 3.0 ports, no recognition from the OS itself.
you might want to look for a "2 SATA, 1 IDE" PCie Card with JMicronn Chipset. Those should work with ATAPI Devices. The Promise IDE probably won't work with ATAPI Devices (which the Zip probably is). PS: µATX was correct. Mini ATX is pretty much dead and not used. EPOX 8KHAL would be "Mini ATX" -> Full size but only 6 Screws...
I have a Dell T5500 which I bought second hand. I notice that the drive bay cover you removed to install the ZIP drive has four screws attached to the inside of the bay cover. Neat idea
I had the little USB 3.0 pins braking inside the USB cable so is it downgraded to USB 2.0 speed, so check your cables. Windows doesn't give you an error in that case because it only check if you are connected to a USB 3.0 controller and not what speed is currently used. Use an utility like USBView or USBDeview to check the actual speed and other info. Another thing with the third party controllers especially the first generation of them is to make sure they are using the latest firmware because the older firmware's are known to be buggy.
Windows 10 kills drivers from hardware made from 5-7 tears ago. I can't run one of my AMD 990FX chipset boards on windows 10 because the 3rd party drivers for the NIC, SATA, and USB devices added to the motherboard do not work with windows 10 as of winter feature update 2017. WIndows 10 is an evil OS that has had terrible driver support 2 years after it's release in 2015, possibly by design to force people to upgrade hardware.
I have an am2 board from 2007 and windows 10 finds all the drivers perfectly fine. I’ve even installed windows 11 on a 790fx board and it found all the drivers, I have many more board that windows 10 finds the drivers for. The only boards I have that don’t find chipset drivers automatically are a z270 board and a z370 board.
I bought a new computer case a while back and still wanted one 5.25 and on 3.5 inch bay (call me old fashioned). I like to have the capacity to burn media. The 3.5 inch bay got a card reader / extra usb ports. You got a pretty cool setup.
You know Adrian... I only ever am able to understand tiny fractions of what you achieve on your channel and I'm often left feeling stupid....but your enthusiasm and passion is infectious! You are a very wonderful and intelligent man and the world is more awesome because of you! X
It is the year 2704. Computers, if you can even call them that, look more like living bodies than machines. For data storage, they use holographic crystals holding millions of exabytes each…but, for compatibility reasons, they are also equipped with 3½-inch floppy disk drives.
I had the same issue with my HD60S using the motherboard USB ports. Ended up buying a Startech USB3.1 PCIe card and it worked fine using that. It seems like the onboard USB is not providing sufficient power or bandwidth over USB.
Nice video Adrian. I should probably get a lab-PC as well. I only have one desktop PC that I use for everything. It's actually placed in a "technical room" where all my network gear is placed as well. And my office is in the next room and I've routed all the cables for my main setup through the wall. That works fine, it's only about 2 meters through the wall from the PC to my 4 monitors. However. The lab part of my office is a further 3 meters away. There I have another monitor and USB hub and multiple 5m USB extension cords for multiple cameras (you can't use them together through a hub). I also have an Elgato CamLink that I use with my RetroTink and other devices. I sometimes struggle with bandwidth issues as well, but it's sooo nice to have everything connected to one single PC.
My main PC is an Optiplex 7010 with Linux Mint, Core i5 3550, 32GB of RAM and a 1050Ti, still a VERY capable machine despite being 10 years old next year!
Well, power saving mode in windows is designed for notebook/laptop computer, and should be disable for desktop computer, b'cos it connect to the power code 7/24, unlimited power . enble it in desktop computer, creats lots of stange problems. BTW, did you update the BIOS firmware to latest version?
Retired Business Dells are awesome if you want something that will literally just work. Pretty bulletproof. I have a modern Ryzen gaming rig, but my laptop is a trash picked Dell Latitude 5450. It’s awesome because they are meant to be fairly easy to service being business machines. I’ve smashed the screen once and replaced it in 10 minutes, and just recently I had to replace the battery.
v3 xeon socket is actually really good news! You can buy used v3 cpu from China and this machine maybe can outperform your gaming rig (in some cases... unless you have a Threadripper) ;) Also proprietary power connectors are not good :(
Free computers are fun - I recently got an Asus 8th gen I5 laptop for free for fixing a few laptops for a friend. It had a dud battery that cost $40 to replace. I loaded windows 10 on it (I needed a windows machine) then hackintoshed the second partition :)
You actually got very lucky with getting a 750 Ti. Nvidia dropped driver support for the GTX 600/700 series in August, but the microarchitecture of the 750 Ti is based on Maxwell, the successor of those series. Seeing as the 900 series cards and the ARM-based Tegra X1 (which is the Switch's SOC) are based on the Maxwell microarchitecture, I don't see driver support going away for your card any time soon.
The T1700 is server grade hardware that's why it got PS2. ports. Because USB is unreliable as f*ck and not sufficient for emergency usage. Also it got ECC-RAM and adThe T1700 is server grade hardware that's why it got PS2. ports. Because USB is unreliable as f*ck and not sufficient for emergency usage. For the server reason it got no reset button, too Also it got advanced virtualization capabilities for it's age.
I got a Dell Precision T1600 for $90. It has a Xenon E1245, 16GB memory and also has a 450 watt PSU. It's a really decent PC! I put an HD 7770 GPU in it for now, but I do have a Sapphire Nitro+ RX 580 which does not fit in the case. I got a riser cable and printed out my own mounts to use it outside the case. I delayed using it though, for now, until I have a better spot to place it. I have a "curious" kitty who will play with the fans on it if I'm not looking! I also am considering getting a better power supply too as 450 watts may be a little weak for the 580...🤔
I'm curious as to which cameras you use and how you have them set up? I would like to setup an Overhead view of my bench. I'm currently using my Phone for all the videos, but would like to do something a little more convenient and gives a better view of what I'm working on.
I miss my old machine with my E8400 Core 2 Duo.. When I dismantled him I saved the Core 2 Duo and I saved the 2x 4gb sticks of DDR2 I had in there that my friends called me CRAZY for having 8gb of ram in 2008. I ran him from 2008-2020 the whole time running Windows XP x64. When I Took apart his Antech 1200, I got rid of most things, including his Radeon HD4870x2 which was the top of the line 2gpus on one card card from Fall 2008 I did save both 1TGB Caviar Black drives and moved them into this machine, I also saved his Optical Drive, and his Power supply which had been replaced in 2018 and was infact the 3rd power supply the machine had had as it blew 2 power supplies in its life without damage to any of the other components. My plan is when I get the time I am going to get a frame of some sort for my office wall and I am going to mount the Sticks of Ram, The Processor, and the XP Pro X64 DVD in the frame and hang it on the wall . At this point in my life my wife gets the new computers first in our family and her hand me downs go to me lol.
Eew, you got a Dell, dude. Nothing but trouble. If you have to use a prebuilt system, at least find a used HP/Compaq computer. You're going to need an 800 watt PSU to use any somewhat good video card. Your old system shut down b/c PSU could not handle the video card, and an upgrade would require even more watts (w/8+6 PCIE). I would have pulled CPU and memory, then drop-kicked it to a dumpster. I'll give you a thumbs-up anyway, for your pain and suffering.
I had a home machine 15 yrs ago, with an Adaptec 29160 scsi controller, along with some 15000 RPM scsi discs, when I was a Compaq Proliant accredited platform specialist (cough cough) ;-)
Ahh. Dance party. You need more room, so you dont risk to hit The screen when Those arms swings around During The party. Nice video, always lovely to see you at work, Retro or newer stuff. Instead of that scsi card, you Could (just for fun) install a iee488 pci card. Could be used to grab datalogs from your instruments, Logic analyser, or connect to a pet. And hey. You did end with a c64 at The end 👍. Ps. Merry Christmas from Denmark. 🎄
5:30 Hah, right as you pointed out the micro-SD reader I was talking to a friend about how I'm using the cheapo one that came with my 3D printer, and realized it's the exact same one!
Yeah, hear you on the drive bay issue. I have no need for optical or floppy drives anymore, but I like the option of somewhere to put some new I/O. Like, say USB 4.0 comes out, I can easily hook up a PCIe card with USB 4 header/bus and slap a multi-port USB hub into one of the drive bays and I have front USB 4.
That 1241 v3 might be worse than the i7 you had in the other computer, especially if it was a 3770K. The Xeon has a locked multiplier whereas the i7 doesn't. And you also wouldn't be able to overclock on that Dell machine even if it did have an unlocked CPU. The 3rd gen i7's all had integrated graphics too boot. That xeon doesn't. If you're just going for 3.0 ports then the Dell is obviously better but in my opinion it would be a better idea to buy a pcie to usb adapter for the i7 machine. You can get 5-port versions.
I thought everyone that used windows knew that when it started to have random issues, stuff just doesn't work correctly anymore that was working properly, you just do a fresh install of windows.... I think eventually the registry gets all wonky from many programs changing them.... One changes a key then the uninstall doesn't really put it back to original then another program changes it etc until things just get wonky and aggravating.... Can make you think hardware is failing but no it's just windows needing a fresh install lol. It's just how I've always done things since the first time I successfully reinstalled windows
PC not booting - I've seen this too, and I more or less traced it to trying to boot from USB devices. Don't know if that is applicable to you - you do have a thumb drive in there - but turning off booting from USB drives fixed it for me. Oh - whenever I see that open slot for a 3.5" thing, I think of filling it with a DAT drive :) Not because they are of any use any more, but because in the day, that was the ultimate thing to have for your PC - a good SCSI card and a DAT backup.
Congratulations on replacing a kind of OK pc for a crappy, cheaply build machine which was sold for 4 times the money it's worth 😀The Dell PSU and motherboard are really the cheapest of the cheapest build quality. You don't want to know how much Dell Precisions I have repaired and upgraded with non Dell stuff to make them 'reliable'. They do have nice cases though, but yeah, those sharp edges, that you already found out yourself...
The old PC had a VIA USB 3 chipset? I hate it so much, gave me a lot of problems when I had a motherboard with it. you can use Windows 10 native mbr2gpt tool if you really wanted to convert your installation to UEFI. Just image the ssd first just in case it fails.
I have a Dell Xps 8940 and I "had" the same cooler as your Dell (I think they have a million of them). I upgraded to a Noctua cooler and my temps dropped by 30*c. You really need to do it. The screw offset is the same as a 1151 intel bracket. th-cam.com/video/QE_QFCnIGA8/w-d-xo.html... This video will walk you through on how to do it!.. Don't be afraid to do it. It will make your machine last a long time.
I have a Dell Core I5 and you're right: the power supply is not a standard ATX. If you look at it, you'll notice that the power for the drives comes off the motherboard, not the PSU. There isn't a 5 volt rail like you see on a standard ATX PSU, except for the one that you connect to ground to power up the computer. You'll likely be limited on options for a video board, depending on the PSU's wattage rating, since it really can't be swapped out for a standard PSU
Love the "dredge" part PC. This is how I learned to do Atari 2600 repairs...basically taking the ugliest hodgepodge parts (case, switches, motherboard, etc that function) and piecing them together. Now i have a working 2600 that I'm not afraid to mod or take a *ahem* drill bit to.
My previous PC was built in that exact same case and it died on me. I think those cases are cursed. Funnily enough, the system I replaced it with that I use now... a Dell Precision T1650. Not quite a 1700 but pretty dang close.
I've got an elgato cam link and also have trouble with it on my desktop PC. It would capture the first frame of input then just freeze. Older motherboard maybe 3-4 years old. Works fine on my 1 year old laptop. What I found was that plugging it into a usb 3.0 hub somehow fixed the problem. You'd think it'd steal bandwidth or something, but it seems to work fine, no dropped frames, at least in my limited testing.
Did you remove the old drivers from the device manager? This should give the system another massive boost since it does not have to load all that old stuff from the mainboard, processor drivers and stuff. You can open an elevated command prompt and enter SET devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1 and press enter and open the device manager afterwards. Click on view and "show hidden devices" and remove the half transparent items one after another. be careful with audio stuff and do not remove the system volume information stuff, since it's the system restore stuff. Otherwise it should be able to install everything (from the audio part for example) by itself again unless you killed a manually installed driver with it. I did that on LOTS OF LOTS OF LOTS of devices since Windows XP and it always worked like a charm :)
Thanks I'll try that. Yeah it's likely why the network interface is like #5 it something even with just one NIC. LOL! This Windows install has been in 3 or 4 machines now.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 the windows install on my main pc started out on a z77 board with an i5, it went to a b450 with a Ryzen 5 2nd gen, and now it’s on an x570 board with a 4th gen Ryzen 5.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 in that case it will be more than worth! It also is, when you use lots of usb devices. Every driver for every device (maybe multiple times, if you use them on different ports) is loaded on every windows bootup, to make them available faster when needed. In that case it may make sense, but having CPU-drivers and stuff automatically loaded is unnecessary overhead. :)
@@JARVIS1187 I can definitely get behind clearing extra entries when they build up but 90% of them won't load the actual drivers if the device is not present. AFAIK the only drivers which will load automatically without a device are non-PnP drivers and the ones marked with 'Start'==0 in the registry.
Nice! I love that it still has multiple PS/2 ports & 5.25″ drive bays. The most modern cases today don't make any allowance for said bays and pretty much just flaunt their RGB bling! It is what it is but it just ain't the same.
Transfer rates are not the same as bandwidth... Bandwidth is a function of RF modulation, deviation, amplitude, and filtering. It has nothing to do with data rates and transfer rates! I wish people would stop using them interchangeably because they are not...
PS/2 ports were brought back because they're more reliable than USB for keyboard and mouse. (I personally have seen a machine that shipped with bad USB drivers. If it had had a PS/2 mouse and keyboard, it wouldn't have mattered.) Serial ports are absurdly easy to implement, and are greatly desired by people like network engineers. (You can communicate with most current network devices by USB as well, but that usually emulates a serial port. If you need to connect to several different devices in succession, this is a pain because each device tends to be a different emulated serial port, so you can't just swap the cable between devices and start typing commands like you can using an internal serial port.)
The 750ti has cuda cores that can be used for encoding and I believe double the vram than your older R7770 My Ryzen x570 mobo has ps2 ports on it also The psu rating are not reliable manufactures have been fudging their numbers wildly.
![Adrian's Digital Basement ][](http://yt3.ggpht.com/ytc/AIdro_k7CrQRe71qN6c0Ua7A1P_I8KkxjqLa70u0zYeCvdvnKw=s48-c-k-c0x00ffffff-no-rj)
![[UNCUT] “บอสณวัฒน์” ลากไส้!! ใครหนุนหลัง "แม่ตั๊ก ป๋าเบียร์" I คนดังนั่งเคลียร์ I 30 ก.ย. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/QlD7mU2KKRk/mqdefault.jpg)
I wanted to add, after making this video, I bought this Startech PCI-Express to IDE card
amzn.to/3dSgCpN which uses the JMicron firmware, and the Zip drive is now working perfectly! The card is just recognized as a "Standard PCI IDE Interface" in Windows 10 and the Zip drive is functioning great. I had tried a standard old PCI to IDE interface I had but Windows would not load drivers for that -- even when I tried to force them on. The JMicron cards are the way to go clearly! (JMicron cards flash a quick BIOS screen at boot showing you any detected IDE devices.) Also note, I only tested this in Legacy boot mode, so not sure if it works in UEFI mode.
Many old PCI IDE adapters were detected by Windows as SCSI/RAID adapters and needed special driver. If there is no driver for Vista/Win7, there is no chance to use them under Win10.
The screws in the drive bay blank are intended to be used with the mounting holes on whatever you insert into the drive bay. The Dell case uses odd screws that slide into slots in the drive bay to hold the drive in place.
I think uefi mode only affects bootable devices.
Like what John Bailey said the screws to mount a 5.25 drive in the bay are on the back of the punch out front panel. Pull down on the blue tab next to the 5.25 bays and push the DVD drive forward to see the specifics. But once installed it should just slide in and click to lock in place. Actually a pretty decent design.
The PS2 ports are needed on machines like this in case a company needs to disable USB access to provide extra computer or data security. And to protect viruses from getting in, or to protect top secret data from getting out.
I really miss the times when drive bays were an essential feature of every pc case.
This is why I haven't upgraded my case in years. I don't need floppy bays but I still run a BDRW so my Corsair carbide air 540 case with it's two 5 1/4 in bays will keep me going untill I no longer need an optical drive.
Yes me to
@@mcborge1 i just don't see the purpose to having a optical drive... not sure i have had one in the past 15 years and if i ever do find the need for one that is what external bays are for lol..... on that note i am so glad windows can be installed from flash drives now as network installs kinda gross
@@brykanst9071 Some of us still run classic games that for licensing reasons are not supported on digital platforms and some of us still use optical drives for archiving backup data such as 3d files and mod backups. then there are people who still have a music cd collection who put their PC's to use as a stereo system. Just because you don't see a use for an optical drive doesn't mean no one else should either. Each to their own as they say.
You can still find some, but they are the minority.
Old Dell Precision workstations make fantastic PCs and are still plenty capable. You can do all kinds of upgrades (GPU, ram, etc). The PSUs are ridiculously strong. Most have a raid controller built in for a nice raid array (I used it for a striped raid of a couple of ssds for c drive).
Old dells were like tanks, we had an old 386sx desktop at work that ran for over 20 years before it died. Far cry to what dell is now a days with their disposable crap
As someone who has personally deployed and serviced tens of thousands of Dells various desktops and laptops I can tell you that they are really crap, the new ones are even worse. The best part is the crappy proprietary power supplies. If you want a quality OEM product you would go with Lenovo. Out of 100 Dell machines I will probably see 1 Lenovo and its because of something the end user did not because its power supply decided to explode.
@@someone28 Yep which sucks cause they use to be decent, now they are disposable crap. Gotta love their motherboards too now a days...what a joke. I'm not sure with lenovo either now that they have started to lock down ryzen cpus
I know that pain - and the pleasure upgrading the hardware and being able to re-use the same install without starting over! Interesting to see your rig!
u can swap windows 10 from one pc to the next via hdd and with linux u can do that anyway ive even been known to clone a hdd or ssd to bigger drives and upgraded this way with the os on said drive with windows and linux without issue
I'm about to go from an intel 4th gen to a ryzen and I have been sitting on the hardware for a couple weeks because I am going to have to reinstall. Ugh
Adrian should've been in this business for long enough to know that every new PC (whether brand new or new you you) absolutely requires a blood sacrifice in some way. Now that that's out of the way, it will surely give you years of trouble-free service! :-)
You mentioned the faff of re installing drivers. You can back them up with command prompt to wherever you want such as a thumb drive , by using
DISM /online /export-driver /destination:C:\DriverBackup
You just have to create the destination folder first and point the command to it when you instigate. All your drivers will be in one place ready to reinstall. Hope this is helpful to someone.
USB 3 was pretty flaky in the first few years, only Intel's chips seemed to work well. The USB group must've tightened the spec as it works great on recent AMD and ARM devices.
Even my z77 board has some slight weirdness with it’s extra USB 3 controller. the Intel ports work completely fine though.
"was" pretty flaky?
USB is STILL not stable enough for a production environment ... at least when it comes to audio / video production.
it may work if you have ONE HDMI grabber and ONE webcam that sends compressed "1080p" video to the computer ... but handling multiple video streams from multiple USB capture devices is a pain in the ass ... spreading the capture devices over multiple usb controller cards to avoid bandwidth problems makes everything even more dodgy ... but since firewire has been phased out, and thunderbolt is even more of a mess, USB is all we got
Happy to hear about your new computer.
The button on the powersupply is so you can test if there are shorts on any of your devices. pressing it will power the supply on and turn on the devices it is plugged into. A Green light means the power rails to those devices are good and there isnt a short. It isnt too smart as it is mainly looking for shorts but can be useful none the less.
You will not be replacing any of those fans with off the shelf ones. The 4 pin connector on the Dell Prescision and Optiplex line of computers is not your standard 4 pin connector.
As for the rear fan, it is a Sunon branded fan, but one of the neat things is it uses MagLev technology instead of ball bearings or shaft bearings. So that fan would be equivalent to the Corsair ML fan. It is very very powerful. I have one that has been continuously on for well more than 10 years (always on) and it started making some odd noises. Sadly there is no way to lube it like you have shown in some of your other videos and replacements cost about 15-20 dollars. You will be better off looking for a Delta fan made for the Dell workstations if you need to replace it... or get to splicing cables!
If you need to replace the powersupply there are adapters out there including one from a company called Longdex. I picked one up and could send it to you if you ever need it. Also i might have some spare drive rails for the machine as well.
Glad you are happy with your new machine and i hope it will give you many years of good service.
Yours Turely
The Linux guy who sent you some linux stickers and a PCI SCSI card before you started doing Mailbag videos ~_0
Of you repin the new fans to dells standard you can change them. Or I think you can.... I have a huge box of various dell fans and blowers from my old job and I have repinned a few of them and put them in standard systems. The power, gnd, tach and pwm appear to be standard, just in different spots.
I have not done the opposite and repinned a std fan into a Dell, but I don't see why it wouldn't work.
Looking up the serial number for that Dell Precision T1700 we find that it was delivered with that E3-1241 V3 you identified, this is basically a locked (non-overclockable) i7-4770K, or if you prefer you could think of it as an i7-4770 with very slightly higher base clock but identical turbo frequency. Xeon E3's are basically just i3/i5/i7s, the E5 are the ones that use different chips. You nailed it, slightly newer and faster but not massive.
The Dell build spec also says it originally had TWO AMD FirePro W4100 workstation GPUs (roughly Radeon 7750 equiv but expensive, 50W TDP each) so together they could drive 8! monitors, those were clearly was replaced at some point though but I assume that's why it got the (slightly) bigger PSU model - Dell likely wouldn't allow that config without the PSU upgrade.
The official "NVEnc support matrix" says the 750 Ti in it now supports all three types of h.264 encoding/decoding (4:2:0, 4:4:4 and lossless) but none of the newer h.265 encode/decode methods. I'm fairly confident it's better than the old AMD card for encoding and is definitely a lot faster overall too - not that it'll probably matter for this.
VirtualBench DC psu: Spec sheet says it's capable of providing three voltages, they can be set to 0-6V/0-1A, 0-25V/0-0.5A and 0 to -25V/0-0.5A respectively, with very precis voltage and current limiting (and readback). Looks neat for quickly powering small things, even if it would have been nice if it the "main" rail was a bit more powerful and/or it had four voltages (for +/-5V & +/-12V).
OTOH, it specifically notes that the two 0-25V rails share zero point but is "isolated" which should mean you can use a cheap 5A or 10A voltage/current controlled single output bench supply to provide "main" (5V) power, connect that the rail 2/3 zero point to the negative/zero side on the bench supply and tell it to generate say +/-12V referenced of that.
The 0-6V/0-1A output is apparently NOT isolated however - I'm guessing that means it can't (easily) be used to generate a -5V supply, it might be possible to generate a different positive voltage (3.3V?) but I'd suggest checking the manual first for that, it should explain the exact limitations but I'm not going to dig that deep.
FYI.........My 750 Ti does h265.
xEON cpu'S are not the same as the I7 cpu's they don't turbo as high. e3 4 core are the worst Xeon's as they only do 4 core. but he could drop the I7 4770 in there instead as the higher clock speed would be better for video edits
@@madb132 Actually, the E3-1241 V3 actually have *exactly* the same turbo speeds as the i7-4770K, unless you overclock the 4770K (which includes things like MCE). But given that this is a workstation motherboard it likely has NO overclocking options in the BIOS nor multi-core enhancement (MCE) options and it's way too old to support XTU so... they'll clock *EXACTLY* identical in this if it'll even accepts the 4770K at all which isn't guaranteed! (the manual say it support a 4770, but 4770K is not listed).
The later i7-4790K (Haswell Refresh) would physically fit and the higher base & turbo clocks would give ~10% extra performance but it's at *best* a crap-shot if the motherboard will allow that.
But if you someone has a spare 4790K and this motherboard they can try. Just don't be surprised of the BIOS decides "not recognized CPU, not initializing enough to even enter BIOS menus", this happens even on some desktop boards and workstation boards tends to be far more picky than desktop boards.
@@Torbjorn.Lindgren You can over clock on these boards by using intel ITU prog but the Xeon won't as it's locked multiplier so as i said the Xeons DO NOT clock as high, why do people bloody argue facts?
Looks at the VirtualBench in the video. Thinks: "That's nifty!". Goes to look at the price. Cleans coffee off screen and keyboard.
(That is a VERY generous gift!)
Haha yeah, their pricing is bonkers!!! I really do NOT recommend it for that reason. Clearly it's sold to schools or companies who don't care about the pricing, because you can do so much better elsewhere. I know this one came from an auction of stuff, so hopefully the viewer who donated got it cheaply. (I think he said he ended up with two of them.)
VERY generous INDEED! I wish someone would give me one. They cost over $2000 ...and the rest.
The Rosewill Line-M case that's featured in the video is definitely one of few MicroATX cases that can be bought new that has all of these:
Four front USB ports
Two included 120mm fans
At least one 3.5" and 5.25" drive bay
No side window
That makes it my case of choice for builds that are function-first.
Yeah I'm actually keeping that case even if I took out the old motherboard and parts... I like it for those exact reasons you mentioned.
Nice to see that Windows now moves so easily from machine to machine! XP absolutely did not like being moved, and I think even Win7 would blue-screen upon encountering a different motherboard (or at least a different chipset).
No kidding. It's something Mac OS accomplished years ago during their classic age. Just move the System Folder and you're done lol.
Windows 10 is pretty forgiving. I tossed a windows 10 hdd from an asus laptop in my obsolete MacBook, and it fired right up 🤣
I never had a problem moving WinXP or 7 to a new system. So long as you are staying with the same processor brand and keeping changes to a minimum (e.g. peripherals stay the same, drives stay the same, video card stays the same), that gives you a stable boot. Changing the video card or peripheral mix, best saving that for subsequent power cycles, and even that was more to avoid Windows deciding it needed to be re-activated versus things not working. Repair installs would usually take care of any oddball failures, and to be honest, you're still better off with a fresh install anyways to "clear out the cobwebs".
I’ve moved an AMD windows 7 install over to an Intel computer. I’ve also moved around almost any combination on windows 10 with no issues. Windows xp and earlier don’t like it though.
@@kd7cwg I once stuck a windows 10 hdd in a MacBook from 2005 and it booted right into windows. It was extremely slow but semi usable
So how many of you guessed that the 8-bit Dance Party was coming when the audio cables were connected to the C64? 😂👍
750Ti is still a relatively good card and yes it does have hardware encoding. All Nvidia cards since the 6 series have it.
The GTX 600 series or higher. The gt cards don’t.
ECS motherboard. Explains all your issues. It's what PC-Chips rebranded themselves when their own name got too infamous for them to sell anything.
PS/2 is actually standard still on workstation/server towers. As is VGA.
Yes.... the floppy drives get crazy with Win10/11. I would say it's Windows Defender's fault. Not only accesses the drive frequently and also hides autoexec.bat and config.sys annoyingly.
I believe the USB3 slow speed is caused by some setting from registry. You could try Ubuntu live and check if it happens the same.
If you go into Explorer settings and choose show hidden files _and_ uncheck hide protected system files it should show all the files.
I have the same T1700 in storage. I used it as a DVR for a few years and that thing was a beast.
That adaptec card caused flashback to year 2002 when that exact adaptec card fried a rare Alphaserver and then another server I had. After it killed the 2nd machine I suspected something was wrong with the adapter.
(1) MICRO ATX. MiniATX *was* a standard with a formal spec, but it was part of the ATX spec that predated MicroATX and was withdrawn when the (separate and independent, actually) MicroATX spec was released.
(2) That board may or may not be MicroATX regardless; Dell has a habit of being so flagrant about violating standards, specs, and form factors with what they put in desktops that it arguably crosses the line into outright flaunting it because they can. With eBay etc around, it's more a matter of annoyance than anything else, but it makes repair work considerably harder -- which is the point, after all; the idea is to try and force you to send your PC into Dell for repairs so they can upcharge you *twice*. The system you build on your own will always be far cheaper than any prebuilt, and probably a goodly bit better. Certainly it will be better suited to your individual needs!
...so that motherboard may just be a "Dell SFF" 'form factor' -- something bizarre that Dell cooked up to fit the case because it fit. But to me it looks like a MicroATX mobo.
(3) While I've never personally had occasion to use a SATA to IDE converter -- yet -- one of my close friends runs the local tech shop and has told me repeatedly that literally he's never had one that worked. I believe he's had several...
(4) DVI and HDMI use the same exact protocol except that HDMI supports audio output and DVI allows an analog (VGA) piggyback. That's why you can convert them with "just wires" adapter plugs.
(5) Dell power supplies are, historically, quite rugged and slightly over-specc'd for the systems in question, and this system will be from that era.
(6) That cooler is essentially a Dell branded Intel Stock Cooler. It's crap and it will be noisy for the cooling it offers, which will be sub-par. Most $30 offerings on Amazon from disposable Hong Kong sounding brand names will outperform it. (Everything is relative. Even if it's quiet overall, there are better options...
(7) Don't encrypt your drives. It will only make your data entirely unrecoverable when something hits the fan, so to speak -- and that is absolutely a "when" not an "if". Also, speaking from experience: don't trust backups, *especially* cloud backups. Terms of Service and such change, and they are not required to change in ways that avoid excluding you.
(8) LOL @ cheap cases. *ALL* cheap cases will slice you like an onion, and *ALL* prebuilts have cheap cases. A First-Aid Kit is a good thing to have if you service computers regularly... new or old ;)
@Leon Mailfert Yes, and other connector variants distinguish between single- and dual-link display connections and there is also DVI-A which only has the pins for the legacy analog (VGA) passthrough and that's it -- but if you were paying attention, you'd note that what I was discussing was a matter of electrical protocol and not connector shells and so which pins are present on what connector is largely DVI-r-elevant as long as there's enough to send a signal :P
FWIW it's a subspecies of TDMS.
@Leon Mailfert I've seen one or two such connectors as "just wires" VGA adapters you can get on eBay. IIRC I don't have one in the drawer but I'm pretty sure you can get em.
@Leon Mailfert I apologize as well -- I get a bit hotheaded a bit fast these days, and I shouldn't. Life's been getting to me a lot lately.
Where I live is kinda at the exact opposite of LTT land as far as socioeconomics go. It's a tiny town in the rural part of the upper US South. There's not even a Goodwill within an hour's drive of here IIRC, we just have a couple PTA Thrifts in the county and that's it. The universal minimum video standard is still VGA and probably will be around the time James T Kirk first takes captainship of the Enterprise lol. DVI+VGA displays sometimes show up at the local thrift shop but mostly it's VGA only and half of em aren't even widescreen! There's actually a sign on the window still that says, if it's got a CRT inside please don't bring it here.
So to me, it's kind of hard to imagine that one would be unaware of DVI and its variations unless one was a complete neophyte. But I guess this is an odd place to live, as far as that goes...
Personally, I grew up in the 90s and I learned electronics and computers at the same time. I'm a hardware guy and I view and interact with computers specifically through an electronics paradigm. I'm quite capable of component level repair, and although I'm far too incoherent at life to hold down a job, I'm not above replacing caps or pulling a BIOS chip off a board with an iron or my hot air pencil and dropping it into my TL866 II+ programmer if it's being ornery lol (did this once with an HP MIni 5102 that had a BIOS password, back when I still only had my TL866A lol, was its first use actually... still have the netbook, still proud of the fix).
Networking to me is a Dark Art, I leave that to the Voldemorts, Lupins, and Snapes of the world lol... I can't speak C or C++, really, Python makes me want to get the snake-stabber lol, most of these newer languages like Ruby and Rust make me curl my lip and mutter unrepeatable things about hipsters -- and I'm *barely* at the beginnings of conversational with Arduino, even -- my "programming language" of choice is hardware glue logic. I have a healthy penchant for retrocomputing tho so I can also do some pretty cool things in C64 BASIC -- but don't think I don't need a reference manual nearby!
Also, because I just can't keep from mentioning... Steve @ GN makes me cackle with his prebuilt reviews. Guy needs to learn some things... all that stuff that he says "can't be used" after the system dies? I make new machines every WEEK with exactly that kind of stuff. A system build from what I can get on eBay and what's in my closet -- and donations, I have an erm reputation lol -- is my way of livening up a boring afternoon, and proprietary stuff is dirt cheap. 90%+ of what I work with is the stuff he claims you gotta throw out when the system's bunged. No -- you just have to know how to work with it. He's just showing his blissfully ignorant side, and I'm looking forward to calling him on it soon... flagrantly ;) mind you I've already reached out several times and been ignored, so this will be fun.
@Leon Mailfert I've no love for modern iWaste but the Apple II was a machine for which I have deep respect. (Odell Lake, anyone...? :D and the impossible legend that is Oregon Trail...) I've always wanted to muck around with Amigas. The architecture makes no sense to me but I know how powerful they are, so it's just something somewhere that I don't understand. I'm cool with that -- someday I'll 'get it'. Relays have embarrassed me in the past but I'm determined. I like to play around with that sort of thing, see where the bare minimum viable element of computing lies, in a sense...
@Leon Mailfert BTW... you actually sound like a really cool kinda guy. You got a Discord?
I believe the reset button is underneath the front bezel. It's at the end of the small wire that you thought was a temp sensor. That's how my Dell server machine is built anyways.
These desktops don't have anything under the bezels except access to the internals. Server bezels are different because they are _optional_ "security" components specifically designed to prevent system access by unauthorized persons.
This is definitely a computer that's meant to be a workstation for a company, and you'll see VGA ports on a lot of those as a lot of companies still have VGA hardware that they don't want to replace until it dies.
Also, the days of cutting yourself on PC cases is only over for enthusiast PCs/cases. This one will have been built down to hit a price point that makes bean-counters happy, and if there was a hardware problem they'd probably just send it in for a warranty replacement instead of having on-site IT do repairs.
I have a bunch of those Precision T1700s. Good case design, good power supply. Nothing exciting about anything on the motherboard but it's reliable and should get the job done. I should have some spare drive rails if you want them. Dell power supplies haven't had physical power switches in decades. They are definitely nonstandard which can be a pain if you have to replace them, but I've only had one or two fail out of hundreds of Dells I've dealt with at work.
It's ok, but thanks. I'm totally fine with just laying extra drives around the inside of the case. Like velcro to hold on SSD drives LOL! Sketchy, yes, but it works :-)
I never really read anything about TPM since I never cared, but your mention of TPM abd BitLocker made me wonder about one thing.
I personally don't use BitLocker (well, I don't use Windows to begin with), but our laptops at work use it in case a device gets stolen.
So.. what is the point in using the TPM inside the computer instead of a password? If I broke into your basement (well, just hypothetically. I am in Germany, so more than a safe distance away and most importantly I don't do that) and stole this PC, what would it help you to have the hard disks encrypted with BitLocker, if all you need to unlock it would be this exact PC? I am no expert on hard disk encryption, as I never really thought about doing such for my own computers, so is there another reason to do it except to prevent anyone from getting into your data if the computer is stolen? If not, why use the computer itself as the unlock key?
If this reads a bit confused, that's probably because I am... ;-)
If you only set a Windows password you could take the harddisk drive out and copy everything. I don't know about Win 10 but in Win 7 it was easy to bypass the password and get to the data this way. That's when BitLocker and TPM comes in but it depends how it's configured.
If you don't set a PIN and/or Keyfile you only need to do no changes to the hardware and turn it on to unlock the data. There is imho no point in doing so cause the chance someone will only steal the harddrive is very unlikley.
You want at least to set a PIN that you enter or a Keyfile that has to be read before Windows boots. The keyfile can be read either from an thumbdrive or via Certificate Services from an Windows Server.
Now you have the advantage that nobody that has access to the machine can boot into Windows without the PIN or keyfile or take the harddrive out and bypass the Windows password that way. The disadvantage is of course that if your mainboard should fail for some reason or loose the thumbdrive you're pretty much done if there is no backup of your data or NAS where your data is stored. I guess thats the reason why Microsoft don't give you BitLocker on the Windows Home version but not sure about that.
@@Troppa17 It is true that a Windows password does not prevent others from reading the contents of your drive if used outside the computer (the same applies to Linux as well by the way), I still don't see what its benefits are when used at home like in Adrian's basement, especially the way I understood him using it.
When it comes to BitLocker with PIN or key file - yes, I totally see the benefit there, as this is what we are using at work. But that doesn't require TPM. It only requirest a moderately powerful CPU and enough RAM to not make things painfully slow (and again, that's what we did at work...). As I understood Adrian's reasoning, he wanted to change *away* from PIN to using TPM instead which allows the computer to unlock BitLocker upon system boot with no further interaction. Sure, it would prevent the drive from being read in any other PC, but if someone steals the entire computer, which is the most likely of all scenarios, as it is way quicker than taking it apart on site, it's like not having it encrypted to begin with.
And this is what made me wonder. It doesn't protect from data theft via the network while the machine is on, it doesn't help if Mr. Badguy steals the computer in whole and turns it on at their hideout. ;-)
@@Colaholiker The TPM will not unlock the drive if you boot a different OS. (I know this from trying to help recover somebody's data.) If the drive is only readable from its own OS then the Windows password should protect the data.
As an additional "bonus", a BitLocker encrypted system drive may leave you with a system with a Windows grenading itself and seemingly nothing working to successfully reinstall the OS no matter what you try (factory recovery, fresh install, ...). Out of 20+ Fujitsu Lifebook A359s with built-in TPM, Samsung PM870 SSDs and Windows 10 1903 that I deployed, about 5 or 6 eventually developed issues. That cost me a bit of grey hair.
Only when I eventually took out the SSD and connected it to another system was I greeted with a BitLocker error message, and it started to dawn on me. What I had to do was using the recovery console to decrypt the system partition with manage-bde, run chkdsk /f which would invariably find a good number of errors (generally files related to a particular recent update which had me suspecting that BitLocker was being incorrectly suspended or something; note that chkdsk immediately before decryption would pass), and then the reinstall would succeed. Apparently the bootloader would fail to access the system partition otherwise. Sometimes I would catch the system before major disaster, when the first symptom was a recent update being rolled back automatically, and once I got lucky enough in that recreating the BCD got the OS install working again.
All very weird and I have yet to find out the actual root cause.
These Dell (and HP) workstation machines are awesome. You can usually find them pretty cheap on eBay or local computer recycling stores.
Obviously these were very expensive machines when new, so they are built quite reliably. I've helped some friends by getting workstations like these, and throwing in a modern GPU and SSD to make a decent gaming rig on a budget.
I've done the same many times. Very reliable, and many also run Linux very well.
Dell Precision Workstations are great - they last forever. I have a T5600, T1700, and even an old 410 with dual P3s as one of my retro workhorses. With pretty much all the ports internally and externally including SCSI I can pretty much throw any retro drive at it.
I also have a 750Ti, and the reason I chose it is because it can drive a 4k display at 60 Hz, and it was cheap by the time I bought it. Nothing below that level in this generation has that capability. That doesn't mean 60 FPS is guaranteed, of course. I don't have it driving a 4k display, but it's driving four more normal displays (two DVI ports, two HDMI ports).
The system it lives in sounds like your bench machine from two iterations ago -- it's still an AMD Athlon 64 x6. It won't ever see official Windows 11 support, but I don't think your Xeon is going to either. In any case, I did some OBS streaming using NVenc and it is still an order of magnitude faster than using the CPU.
I have the exact same T1700 as my main PC. Ex-Workstation so has a Nvidia Quadro card instead of a GeForce but will play GTA V with no problems. Although even though has a VGA port on the motherboard, there is no onboard graphics with the Xeon CPU.
It’s a solid workhorse, Windows 11 works well on it although not officially supported. Linux is fast on it as well.
I use a SSD for the OS, and then Intel Hardware RAID with 2 physical HDs for data.
That Xeon E3-1241 v3 CPU is essentially similar to an i7-4770 with a slightly higher base clock (3.5 MHz vs 3.4 MHz) except that it lacks the i7's integrated graphics.
The three screws on the back of the drive bay cover are used for mounting the additional optical drive. The manual ought to explain that.
Yes, old motherboards used a "third party" chip for USB 3. On the board, there's probably a VIA chip that's the USB 3 controller. It's possible that chip has gone bad.
Third party USB3 controllers are made by NEC/Renesas.
Hi Adrian and thanks for the frequent videos!
One thing you should try is reflashing your UEFI / BIOS! They tend to loose bits over time which could explain the problems you encountering. As you mentioned ECS something else sprung to mind: Capacitors!
On your newish Dell: Please do yourself a favour and monitor the PSU! They tend to fail silently which causes USB issures as well. You are right: This chassis doesn't use rails for the 5,25 inch drives. However: They use longer screws (which are captured with the plastic thing at the back). The UEFI of this PC has a whitelist of GPUs so changing the GPU is not an option.
With the XEON-Processor I think only ECC RAM is going to work for upgrades, if you desire to do so!
These systems are _way_ too new to be suffering from bit rot on the firmware, plus I believe they also do a checksum verification so it would be detected. Regarding parts compatibility with the new system, I believe you are mistaken. I haven't heard of desktops having GPU whitelists and also the installed installed clearly isn't original. While the desktop Xeon can use ECC RAM it will work fine without it; in fact if you look closely you can see it's currently running non-ECC RAM.
@@eDoc2020 Okay. The bit rot on the firmware occured in my personal history even on PCs which were much younger than the old one of Adrian, so I wanted to state the possibility. Some hardware I had to work on even wasn't five years old and had to be reflashed. Not every UEFI or BIOS for that matter is checksummed equally and there are vendors who don't bother to check the full flash so mistakes coud be undetected.
Dell has a history of putting whitelists in their UEFI and it would not even surprise me, if you inserted a 30 series Nvidia into this motherboard, it would stop working.
AFAIK Dell had whitelists for GPU Chipsets so the vendor of the GPU is irrelevant.
After rewatching the video I have to say: You are correct for the RAM used: The chipset seems to support ECC-less RAM while I don't think you could easily mix them.
The 80+ rating on these are kind of cheated I think because they're only a 12v PSU. They don't generate 5v 3.3 etc. they do that on the motherboard. I don't think that's any more efficient than just putting that circuitry in the PSU but it helps them get a higher score I guess.... I dunno it just seems kind of bogus to me.
While that's a valid point, it would still yield efficiency gains as the lengthy PSU to mo/bo connection is all 12 V. It also saves on wires, which I'm sure penny-pinching OEMs always appreciate.
I believe the Lumix cameras have a clean HDMI output, so it's a good option for a streaming setup. Not sure about the placement if you're sitting right at the bench though, might have to put it at such a wide angle that it looks weird. But I guess it would work if you're sitting back a little playing with a joystick or controller.
I'm also wondering whether moving the windows boot drive from another machine causes any weirdness with the windows license? I know modern machines somehow save the key onboard so it automatically activates with the same key when you reinstall windows. I'm curious if it just picks up the old windows 8 key and activates using that, or if it tries to activate using the old key. Because if it's the latter that probably wouldn't play nice with OEM licensed installs. Probably not really relevant, so feel free to ignore the question.
Anyway, congratulations on a well-deserved upgrade! And you really can't beat that value for money! 😆
I was considering upgrading my old desktop to a mini-itx with an AMD Ricer APU, but my old GPU is still twice as powerful as the one in the Ryzer, and intel chip in my mac isn't that much less powerful than the Ricen (and the eGPU is about twice as powerful as the one in my old desktop!). Either way it's not as much of an upgrade as I'd like.
As soon as Adrian said “it’s been a while since…” I knew exactly what was coming… 8-bit dance party! 😁👍
I highly recommend getting an internal SD Card Reader (plug it into that empty drive bay), it will occupy one of your USB headers, but they usually have additional front facing USB ports to make up for that (you could also add an internal USB 3 PCIe Card which will provide Additional internal headers and external ports on the back).
Edit: those GTX 750s are freakin work horses for non-gaming PCs, I still own a few of them. Though, I would really consider upgrading in the future. Apps that require RTX are becoming more common, and I think some of the OBS stuff can take advantage of it.
Edit: older thunderbolt is usually the "Display port" looking plug.
re: No reset button -- you could also just drill a hole in one of the empty drive inserts and add a panel mount momentary push button (normally open) connected to a 2 pin female header to expose that. (Assuming the board has those pins... if not, I think there are also USB reset buttons you could get.)
re: bleeding
The spirit inside the PC has demanded a blood sacrifice. That's how you know it's a quality system.
One thing: Early thunderbolt used the same connector as *Mini* DisplayPort. The ports on the motherboard were plain old full size DP, which don't carry Thunderbolt.
So no idea what the Thunderbolt option is for. Maybe it has an internal header and a breakout cable that went to an insert for the PCI slots, which was optional?
I'm so sad that I only recently found your channel because I just sold a Core 2 Quad system for a pittance that would have been a great "bridge" system for your workshop. It had IDE and FDD controllers and two PCI slots, but it was a quad-core, 64-bit system with great SATA SSD support, two PCIe Gen 2.0 x16 slots, and dual gigabit NICs. The only catch was it took weird 1.8v DDR3 RAM, but I had a working 8GB kit. Now I know who to tell when cool stuff lands in my workshop!
windows 10 randomly seeks floppy drives when you have Quick Access history turned on in Explorer
and motherboards usually have ps2 ports cuz usb ports are usually turned off in organizations
Speaking as an IT admin, Lenovo and Dell are the kings of non-standard PSUs in otherwise ATX-compliant cases. A real pain if you have a failure. I used to invest in a small number of PSU adapter cables "just in case", though that doesn't help if there's a weird form factor to the PSU.
Good thing you're so handy with electronics in case you ever need to hack an ATX PSU to replace the Dell one.
We modders don't call them 'HeLL' for nothin' ya know.
HP definitely has proprietary PSUs as well, at least from when I was looking at getting a used workstation motherboard to upgrade my PC.
This is much less common these days. I have been stuffing standard ATX PSU's in Dell workstations for much higher end GPU's for years now with no issues. The biggest problem I have found with Dell boards is their custom front panel connectors. Sure, you can buy adapter boards to make them into standard headers, I get that Dell did this to create a single connector solution to plug in everything at once on their assembly lines, but it sure as heck makes them a pain to reuse them on anything other than the case they were designed for.
Adrian, just be glad you don't have the Power Mac 8100 case; those were notorious for slicing your fingers!
Have you got any Loctite Super Glue run some of the glue into the cut and leave it for 10 minutes then you should be as right as rain, it is what it was designed for during the Vietnam War.
You have payed the blood sacrifice to the machine god.
The PC will work well & reliably for years to come :)
I've had a similar problem with an older system I now use as a backup system where plugging a 2.5" external drive for internal drive backup had previously worked just fine plugged into one of the high amperage (1.5A) USB 3.0 front ports, but it recently started exhibiting slow operation and occasional (recoverable) drive corruption during backups. Using one of the in-series LCD display USB diagnostic dongles, it turned out that the ports were no longer capable of reliably powering the external drive without lowering the 5V line voltage too far. So, I just plugged a powered USB 3.0 hub I had on-hand into it and everything is now fine. It might be a loose or oxidized plug connection to the motherboard which I'll have to check.
Those older usb3 controllers seem to get pretty flaky over time.
Had an old gigabyte AMD 990-FXA-UD3 board that I got secondhand off my brother and that thing had zero response from it's own 3.0 ports, no recognition from the OS itself.
Some USB3 cards have problems and won't work properly (full speed) with some non intel chipsets.
I still have a Dell Precision 490, dual quad core CPU's with 32GB of ECC DDR3 RAM. Works great.
you might want to look for a "2 SATA, 1 IDE" PCie Card with JMicronn Chipset. Those should work with ATAPI Devices.
The Promise IDE probably won't work with ATAPI Devices (which the Zip probably is).
PS: µATX was correct. Mini ATX is pretty much dead and not used. EPOX 8KHAL would be "Mini ATX" -> Full size but only 6 Screws...
I actually bought the startech.com one the other day! Yep used that firmware and it works perfectly. Thanks for the tip though!
It's scanning for NICs
Reporting it twice
Adding some disks
So the PC runs nice
SATA clause is coming tonight!
I have a Dell T5500 which I bought second hand. I notice that the drive bay cover you removed to install the ZIP drive has four screws attached to the inside of the bay cover. Neat idea
Watching this on a 2011 Dell Precision! ✊
I had the little USB 3.0 pins braking inside the USB cable so is it downgraded to USB 2.0 speed, so check your cables.
Windows doesn't give you an error in that case because it only check if you are connected to a USB 3.0 controller and not what speed is currently used.
Use an utility like USBView or USBDeview to check the actual speed and other info.
Another thing with the third party controllers especially the first generation of them is to make sure they are using the latest firmware because the older firmware's are known to be buggy.
Keep the flaky MB to repair in 20 years when it is retro. ^_^
Dude, you got a Dell!
Since you mentioned livestreams yourself - gonna do any of that?
So Dell is still producing cutting edge technology!
Windows 10 kills drivers from hardware made from 5-7 tears ago. I can't run one of my AMD 990FX chipset boards on windows 10 because the 3rd party drivers for the NIC, SATA, and USB devices added to the motherboard do not work with windows 10 as of winter feature update 2017. WIndows 10 is an evil OS that has had terrible driver support 2 years after it's release in 2015, possibly by design to force people to upgrade hardware.
I have an am2 board from 2007 and windows 10 finds all the drivers perfectly fine. I’ve even installed windows 11 on a 790fx board and it found all the drivers, I have many more board that windows 10 finds the drivers for. The only boards I have that don’t find chipset drivers automatically are a z270 board and a z370 board.
I bought a new computer case a while back and still wanted one 5.25 and on 3.5 inch bay (call me old fashioned). I like to have the capacity to burn media. The 3.5 inch bay got a card reader / extra usb ports.
You got a pretty cool setup.
You know Adrian... I only ever am able to understand tiny fractions of what you achieve on your channel and I'm often left feeling stupid....but your enthusiasm and passion is infectious! You are a very wonderful and intelligent man and the world is more awesome because of you! X
floppy and usb 3 on the same machine, now I've seen everything.
It is the year 2704. Computers, if you can even call them that, look more like living bodies than machines. For data storage, they use holographic crystals holding millions of exabytes each…but, for compatibility reasons, they are also equipped with 3½-inch floppy disk drives.
19.15 - Although it is an Dell OEM power supply it is actually made by Huntkey, so it is not bad at all.
Ah! I wish I had known you can put a PCI-X card into a PCI slot!
I got a bunch of SATA power to Molex adapters, it's a shame I don't live closer.
Thanks, always appreciate when retro YTers talk about the work involved behind the scenes.
I had the same issue with my HD60S using the motherboard USB ports. Ended up buying a Startech USB3.1 PCIe card and it worked fine using that. It seems like the onboard USB is not providing sufficient power or bandwidth over USB.
Nice video Adrian. I should probably get a lab-PC as well. I only have one desktop PC that I use for everything. It's actually placed in a "technical room" where all my network gear is placed as well. And my office is in the next room and I've routed all the cables for my main setup through the wall. That works fine, it's only about 2 meters through the wall from the PC to my 4 monitors. However. The lab part of my office is a further 3 meters away. There I have another monitor and USB hub and multiple 5m USB extension cords for multiple cameras (you can't use them together through a hub). I also have an Elgato CamLink that I use with my RetroTink and other devices. I sometimes struggle with bandwidth issues as well, but it's sooo nice to have everything connected to one single PC.
Great work Adrian! You are now ready to do a c64 repairathon! 😁👍
My main PC is an Optiplex 7010 with Linux Mint, Core i5 3550, 32GB of RAM and a 1050Ti, still a VERY capable machine despite being 10 years old next year!
Well, power saving mode in windows is designed for notebook/laptop computer, and should be disable for desktop computer, b'cos it connect to the power code 7/24, unlimited power . enble it in desktop computer, creats lots of stange problems. BTW, did you update the BIOS firmware to latest version?
You need a SID that has a SPDIF output that can connect to the SPDIF on the HDMI Video card so the audio comes out of the monitor.
Retired Business Dells are awesome if you want something that will literally just work. Pretty bulletproof. I have a modern Ryzen gaming rig, but my laptop is a trash picked Dell Latitude 5450. It’s awesome because they are meant to be fairly easy to service being business machines. I’ve smashed the screen once and replaced it in 10 minutes, and just recently I had to replace the battery.
I have a X58 board with a Xeon X5650 as my 2nd PC, it also doesn't have an USB3.0 header so I just bought a cheap PCIe card with a header. :)
"What kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?" (Weird Al - "It's all about the Pentiums)
v3 xeon socket is actually really good news! You can buy used v3 cpu from China and this machine maybe can outperform your gaming rig (in some cases... unless you have a Threadripper) ;) Also proprietary power connectors are not good :(
Free computers are fun - I recently got an Asus 8th gen I5 laptop for free for fixing a few laptops for a friend. It had a dud battery that cost $40 to replace. I loaded windows 10 on it (I needed a windows machine) then hackintoshed the second partition :)
You actually got very lucky with getting a 750 Ti. Nvidia dropped driver support for the GTX 600/700 series in August, but the microarchitecture of the 750 Ti is based on Maxwell, the successor of those series. Seeing as the 900 series cards and the ARM-based Tegra X1 (which is the Switch's SOC) are based on the Maxwell microarchitecture, I don't see driver support going away for your card any time soon.
The T1700 is server grade hardware that's why it got PS2. ports. Because USB is unreliable as f*ck and not sufficient for emergency usage. Also it got ECC-RAM and adThe T1700 is server grade hardware that's why it got PS2. ports. Because USB is unreliable as f*ck and not sufficient for emergency usage. For the server reason it got no reset button, too
Also it got advanced virtualization capabilities for it's age.
I got a Dell Precision T1600 for $90. It has a Xenon E1245, 16GB memory and also has a 450 watt PSU. It's a really decent PC! I put an HD 7770 GPU in it for now, but I do have a Sapphire Nitro+ RX 580 which does not fit in the case. I got a riser cable and printed out my own mounts to use it outside the case. I delayed using it though, for now, until I have a better spot to place it. I have a "curious" kitty who will play with the fans on it if I'm not looking! I also am considering getting a better power supply too as 450 watts may be a little weak for the 580...🤔
ECS Motherboards are trash, I got burned 3 times by them many years ago. Tom's Hardware recommended them and the caps all bulged and exploded.
I'm curious as to which cameras you use and how you have them set up? I would like to setup an Overhead view of my bench. I'm currently using my Phone for all the videos, but would like to do something a little more convenient and gives a better view of what I'm working on.
I miss my old machine with my E8400 Core 2 Duo.. When I dismantled him I saved the Core 2 Duo and I saved the 2x 4gb sticks of DDR2 I had in there that my friends called me CRAZY for having 8gb of ram in 2008. I ran him from 2008-2020 the whole time running Windows XP x64.
When I Took apart his Antech 1200, I got rid of most things, including his Radeon HD4870x2 which was the top of the line 2gpus on one card card from Fall 2008 I did save both 1TGB Caviar Black drives and moved them into this machine, I also saved his Optical Drive, and his Power supply which had been replaced in 2018 and was infact the 3rd power supply the machine had had as it blew 2 power supplies in its life without damage to any of the other components.
My plan is when I get the time I am going to get a frame of some sort for my office wall and I am going to mount the Sticks of Ram, The Processor, and the XP Pro X64 DVD in the frame and hang it on the wall .
At this point in my life my wife gets the new computers first in our family and her hand me downs go to me lol.
Eew, you got a Dell, dude. Nothing but trouble. If you have to use a prebuilt system, at least find a used HP/Compaq computer. You're going to need an 800 watt PSU to use any somewhat good video card. Your old system shut down b/c PSU could not handle the video card, and an upgrade would require even more watts (w/8+6 PCIE). I would have pulled CPU and memory, then drop-kicked it to a dumpster. I'll give you a thumbs-up anyway, for your pain and suffering.
I own a Dell Precision T1700. Has worked absolutely flawlessly since day one. Great machine.
I had a home machine 15 yrs ago, with an Adaptec 29160 scsi controller, along with some 15000 RPM scsi discs, when I was a Compaq Proliant accredited platform specialist (cough cough) ;-)
Ahh. Dance party.
You need more room, so you dont risk to hit The screen when Those arms swings around During The party.
Nice video, always lovely to see you at work, Retro or newer stuff.
Instead of that scsi card, you Could (just for fun) install a iee488 pci card. Could be used to grab datalogs from your instruments, Logic analyser, or connect to a pet.
And hey. You did end with a c64 at The end 👍. Ps. Merry Christmas from Denmark. 🎄
5:30 Hah, right as you pointed out the micro-SD reader I was talking to a friend about how I'm using the cheapo one that came with my 3D printer, and realized it's the exact same one!
Yeah, hear you on the drive bay issue. I have no need for optical or floppy drives anymore, but I like the option of somewhere to put some new I/O.
Like, say USB 4.0 comes out, I can easily hook up a PCIe card with USB 4 header/bus and slap a multi-port USB hub into one of the drive bays and I have front USB 4.
That 1241 v3 might be worse than the i7 you had in the other computer, especially if it was a 3770K. The Xeon has a locked multiplier whereas the i7 doesn't. And you also wouldn't be able to overclock on that Dell machine even if it did have an unlocked CPU. The 3rd gen i7's all had integrated graphics too boot. That xeon doesn't. If you're just going for 3.0 ports then the Dell is obviously better but in my opinion it would be a better idea to buy a pcie to usb adapter for the i7 machine. You can get 5-port versions.
I thought everyone that used windows knew that when it started to have random issues, stuff just doesn't work correctly anymore that was working properly, you just do a fresh install of windows.... I think eventually the registry gets all wonky from many programs changing them.... One changes a key then the uninstall doesn't really put it back to original then another program changes it etc until things just get wonky and aggravating.... Can make you think hardware is failing but no it's just windows needing a fresh install lol. It's just how I've always done things since the first time I successfully reinstalled windows
PC not booting - I've seen this too, and I more or less traced it to trying to boot from USB devices. Don't know if that is applicable to you - you do have a thumb drive in there - but turning off booting from USB drives fixed it for me. Oh - whenever I see that open slot for a 3.5" thing, I think of filling it with a DAT drive :) Not because they are of any use any more, but because in the day, that was the ultimate thing to have for your PC - a good SCSI card and a DAT backup.
Congratulations on replacing a kind of OK pc for a crappy, cheaply build machine which was sold for 4 times the money it's worth 😀The Dell PSU and motherboard are really the cheapest of the cheapest build quality. You don't want to know how much Dell Precisions I have repaired and upgraded with non Dell stuff to make them 'reliable'. They do have nice cases though, but yeah, those sharp edges, that you already found out yourself...
The old PC had a VIA USB 3 chipset? I hate it so much, gave me a lot of problems when I had a motherboard with it.
you can use Windows 10 native mbr2gpt tool if you really wanted to convert your installation to UEFI. Just image the ssd first just in case it fails.
I have a Dell Xps 8940 and I "had" the same cooler as your Dell (I think they have a million of them). I upgraded to a Noctua cooler and my temps dropped by 30*c. You really need to do it. The screw offset is the same as a 1151 intel bracket. th-cam.com/video/QE_QFCnIGA8/w-d-xo.html... This video will walk you through on how to do it!.. Don't be afraid to do it. It will make your machine last a long time.
I have a Dell Core I5 and you're right: the power supply is not a standard ATX. If you look at it, you'll notice that the power for the drives comes off the motherboard, not the PSU. There isn't a 5 volt rail like you see on a standard ATX PSU, except for the one that you connect to ground to power up the computer. You'll likely be limited on options for a video board, depending on the PSU's wattage rating, since it really can't be swapped out for a standard PSU
Love the "dredge" part PC. This is how I learned to do Atari 2600 repairs...basically taking the ugliest hodgepodge parts (case, switches, motherboard, etc that function) and piecing them together. Now i have a working 2600 that I'm not afraid to mod or take a *ahem* drill bit to.
My previous PC was built in that exact same case and it died on me. I think those cases are cursed. Funnily enough, the system I replaced it with that I use now... a Dell Precision T1650. Not quite a 1700 but pretty dang close.
I've got an elgato cam link and also have trouble with it on my desktop PC. It would capture the first frame of input then just freeze. Older motherboard maybe 3-4 years old. Works fine on my 1 year old laptop. What I found was that plugging it into a usb 3.0 hub somehow fixed the problem. You'd think it'd steal bandwidth or something, but it seems to work fine, no dropped frames, at least in my limited testing.
Did you remove the old drivers from the device manager? This should give the system another massive boost since it does not have to load all that old stuff from the mainboard, processor drivers and stuff.
You can open an elevated command prompt and enter
SET devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
and press enter and open the device manager afterwards. Click on view and "show hidden devices" and remove the half transparent items one after another. be careful with audio stuff and do not remove the system volume information stuff, since it's the system restore stuff. Otherwise it should be able to install everything (from the audio part for example) by itself again unless you killed a manually installed driver with it.
I did that on LOTS OF LOTS OF LOTS of devices since Windows XP and it always worked like a charm :)
Thanks I'll try that. Yeah it's likely why the network interface is like #5 it something even with just one NIC. LOL! This Windows install has been in 3 or 4 machines now.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 the windows install on my main pc started out on a z77 board with an i5, it went to a b450 with a Ryzen 5 2nd gen, and now it’s on an x570 board with a 4th gen Ryzen 5.
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 in that case it will be more than worth!
It also is, when you use lots of usb devices. Every driver for every device (maybe multiple times, if you use them on different ports) is loaded on every windows bootup, to make them available faster when needed. In that case it may make sense, but having CPU-drivers and stuff automatically loaded is unnecessary overhead. :)
@@JARVIS1187 I can definitely get behind clearing extra entries when they build up but 90% of them won't load the actual drivers if the device is not present. AFAIK the only drivers which will load automatically without a device are non-PnP drivers and the ones marked with 'Start'==0 in the registry.
14:21 That machine was purchased on 06 MAY 2015 there service ended on 07 MAY 2018. I Looked up the service tag.
Nice! I love that it still has multiple PS/2 ports & 5.25″ drive bays. The most modern cases today don't make any allowance for said bays and pretty much just flaunt their RGB bling! It is what it is but it just ain't the same.
Transfer rates are not the same as bandwidth...
Bandwidth is a function of RF modulation, deviation, amplitude, and filtering. It has nothing to do with data rates and transfer rates!
I wish people would stop using them interchangeably because they are not...
PS/2 ports were brought back because they're more reliable than USB for keyboard and mouse. (I personally have seen a machine that shipped with bad USB drivers. If it had had a PS/2 mouse and keyboard, it wouldn't have mattered.)
Serial ports are absurdly easy to implement, and are greatly desired by people like network engineers. (You can communicate with most current network devices by USB as well, but that usually emulates a serial port. If you need to connect to several different devices in succession, this is a pain because each device tends to be a different emulated serial port, so you can't just swap the cable between devices and start typing commands like you can using an internal serial port.)
Have a late 2009 iMac that’s UEFI fyi. Relegated to basic internet access over my Windows gaming PC these days but UEFI was a thing.
The 750ti has cuda cores that can be used for encoding and I believe double the vram than your older R7770
My Ryzen x570 mobo has ps2 ports on it also
The psu rating are not reliable manufactures have been fudging their numbers wildly.