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5 Replies Last post: Dec 23, 2008 10:26 PM by Shane6712
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My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C

Dec 23, 2008 3:58 PM

Click to view Shane6712's profile Novice Shane6712 12 posts since
Jun 20, 2008
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
Reply Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C Dec 23, 2008 4:54 PM
Click to view s1xth's profile Expert s1xth 475 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
Damn you got a H2C? Thats a nice looking machine, I just read the review over at HotHardware. Very nice cooling setup....:-)
Reply Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C Dec 23, 2008 5:58 PM
in response to: s1xth
Click to view Shane6712's profile Novice Shane6712 12 posts since
Jun 20, 2008

yeah it is a nice machine, i have two nVidia 8800 GTXs in SLI with a CooIT SLI Cooler https://www.coolitsystems.com/images/stories/ddbnvid/ddb-nvid.jpg

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


Reply Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C Dec 23, 2008 6:24 PM
Click to view Jasemccarty's profile Champion Jasemccarty 3,805 posts since
Apr 5, 2005

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

Reply Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C Dec 23, 2008 6:34 PM
in response to: Shane6712
Click to view s1xth's profile Expert s1xth 475 posts since
Jul 29, 2008
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-
Reply Re: My Whitebox(s) Dell XPS 710 and 720H2C Dec 23, 2008 10:26 PM
in response to: Jasemccarty
Click to view Shane6712's profile Novice Shane6712 12 posts since
Jun 20, 2008

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


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