VMware Communities: Message List - My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

Shane6712 — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:26:36 GMT

Hi Jase,

I messed around with trying to get ESX 3.5, U 2 & 3 and 3i Installable going. With ESXi USB, I could boot, mount a VMFS on the SATA and the host would lock up with an APIC error. I didnt spend a lot of time on it so I just put in a Promise TX2 and problem solved.

I got ESX to install only if I disabled USB and used a PS2 keyboard.

I wanted to get away from local storage anyway so I just put up a NAS and I also have an openfiler 2.3 box.

So no, I am not dual-booting, when I do want to boot the 720 to play games, I just remove the USB stick.

Hope this helps,

Shane

Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

s1xth — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:34:16 GMT

That's really nice setup there...that machine will be a nice whitebox
host...what are you going to be runnin on that VM wise?? I can't wait
for the xeon version of nehalem to see the light of day (1st quarter
09)...love to hear how the VM performance is with those nice new
proc's..:-))

On Dec 23, 2008, at 8:58 PM, Shane6712 <communities-

Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

Jasemccarty — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 02:24:53 GMT

Alright... I've got a question for you.

I have an XPS 720 (sadly not a H2C), but I picked it up on the Dell Outlet for around $1050 a year ago.

I've got a Q6600, with 8GB RAM, an some 250GB and 500GB drives.

My only question is... Do you have it setup in a dual boot configuration, or are you using a USB stick to boot ESXi off of?

Jase McCarty
http://www.jasemccarty.com
Co-Author of VMware ESX Essentials in the Virtual Data Center
(ISBN:1420070274) from Auerbach

Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

Shane6712 — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 01:58:32 GMT

yeah it is a nice machine, i have two nVidia 8800 GTXs in SLI with a CooIT SLI Cooler

CoolIT is actually who designed the H2C cpu cooler.. sadly it is an ESXi machine until I can bring up another whitebox host

Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

s1xth — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 00:54:35 GMT

Damn you got a H2C? Thats a nice looking machine, I just read the review over at HotHardware. Very nice cooling setup....:-)

My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

Shane6712 — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 23:56:04 GMT

My Current lab:

Dell XPS 710 Quad Core 6700 2.66Ghz
- 8GB RAM
- Promise TX2 controller
- EMBEDDED NIC WORKS FINE
- Could not get SATA Storage to work. Gave up and put in the promise.
- HP NC 7170 Dual Port NIC
Dell XPS 720 H2C (this is also my gaming machine)
- 8 GB RAM
- EMBEDDED NIC WORKS FINE
- No local storage
- HP NC 7170 Dual Port NIC
Thecus 5200NB Pro
- 2x1 TB R1 iSCSI targe
- 2x 750 GB R1 Shared iSCSI - CIFS
- Dual 1Gb NICs 802.3ad
2 3COM 4500G 24 port switches