Spec for Windows Server 2003

goreblast · 26 Mar 2006 at 20:14

Due to a reshuffle of my computers at home I am thinking of redoing my Windows Server 2003 box. The hardware left over will be going to either family or the MM.

At the present time it has:

Gigabyte 8VM800M-RZ socket 478 mATX motherboard.
Intel Prescott 3.0 CPU
1gig of Elixir PC2700 RAM
Onboard Unichrome Pro Graphics
Onboard 10/100 NIC (have a D-Link Gigabyte card, but I think it is causing problems)
Tagan 480 PSU
XFX RAID3 PCI card with 3x40G SATA drives as boot drive
Promise SX4000 with 256 EEC RAM and 4 200G WD PATA drives for storage
House in a beautiful Coolermaster SX4000 case

Over the next week or so I will have the follow motherboards, RAM and processors available to put into the machine if there would be a stablity or speed benefit.

The xtra hardware is:

ABIT IC7-MAX3 s478
Intel 3.2g Northwood
Antec 550W TrueControl
Asus 9800XT
Corsair 2x512MB ch-5 RAM
MSi Neo2-Plat s939
Opteron 146 (runs at 2.8 on stock volts on air)
A64 3500 Newcastle
OCZ 2x512 bh-5 RAM

My thought is to go for the Opteron if the MSI will run at 280 HTT or near it and then use a divider to run both sets of RAM at as near PC3200 as possible - I would then have to use the ASUS 9800XT as well as there is no onboard grf, although it would prob be better to sell it and buy dirt cheap AGP card.

goreblast · 26 Mar 2006 at 21:34

Any thoughts?

Lonz · 26 Mar 2006 at 21:47

Is this for a server or what? I'm a bit confused.

marc2003 · 26 Mar 2006 at 22:34

nowt wrong with what you have now. even what you have is way overpowered for a home server. even an old p3 500 with plenty of ram would be more than enough....

Toytown · 26 Mar 2006 at 23:16

nowt wrong with what you have now. even what you have is way overpowered for a home server. even an old p3 500 with plenty of ram would be more than enough....

Yeah, im not sure what your expecting to get from an upgrade. Other than a lot of wasted man hours, on reinstalling software and checking components to make sure there stable. In the end i dont think your going to see any kinda difference at all.

It would probably help if you let us know what the server does, but for basic filesharing/web hosting/ftp/email serving/ics etc, then i doubt the 3ghz processor currently in there, even goes above 5%cpu usage

goreblast · 27 Mar 2006 at 10:34

It is basic file sharing and backup duties.
So upgrading he RAM to 2gb would be the best and only useful ugrade - and get a gigabyte NIC that works!

Its purely that these pieces will be extra to requirments, but I see everyones point, a whole lotta work for no gain - only annoyance is that the mobo in server has only 2 dimms, but I could pick up two 1gig sticks of ram cheap enough.

Lanz · 27 Mar 2006 at 11:08

Adding ram for backup and filesharing is also not needed, as it probably would never peak over 256MB.

goreblast · 27 Mar 2006 at 12:01

I know you are all right, just like tinkering! I think the only thing I will do is change the Elixir Ram for one of the sets I mentioned as they are better quality RAM and I think some instability problems have been RAM related.

I also will maybe invest in a HP server standard Gigabyte NIC - the Dlink one has caused no end of problems since installed.