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Dell Workstation Owners Club

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Just to share info about test I did on my T5500. I am still Win 7 user but decided to prepare myself for the migration.
To make things more complicated :) I have bought Samsung 950pro and put this little thing inside using cheap extension PCIE card. I expected some troubles but to my surprise - everything worked flawlessly.
Bios (A16) recognizes 950 pro as boot device.
Windows install process went without any problems. Everything has been recognized, no hassle with drivers.
Boots up quick, works fine.
NO magic difference between 860 EVO on Sata II vs 950PRO - in terms of Windows experience.
Samsung Magician shows 1700 MB/S reads and 1600 MB/S writes
 
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Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
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Location
South Florida
System Name BTXTREME
Processor QX6800 SLACP Core2 Extreme
Motherboard Dell 0WG864 LGA775 BTX
Cooling Dell T9303 heatpipe cooler, Delta GFB1212VHG 2 motor fan.
Memory 8GB Dell DDR2@800
Video Card(s) Sapphire Dual BIOS R9-285 ITX O/C 2GB DDR5
Storage Crucial M500 240GB SSD
Display(s) Dell 22" LCD
Case Dell Dimension E 520 MT
Audio Device(s) onboard sound with Logitech Z523 speakers
Power Supply EVGA B2 750W semi modular
Mouse Logitech wireless (two installed)
Keyboard Logitech wireless backlit
Software Win7-64, Throttlestop 6.00 overclock
Benchmark Scores 3DMark 11 P7644 (52% )In Win7 64, Firestrike 6892 ( 58% ) http://valid.x86.fr/l2j5p1
I wonder what you would get if you used the Dell BIOS to stripe another SATAII SSD in RAID 0?
 
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
1,086 (0.34/day)
Location
South Florida
System Name BTXTREME
Processor QX6800 SLACP Core2 Extreme
Motherboard Dell 0WG864 LGA775 BTX
Cooling Dell T9303 heatpipe cooler, Delta GFB1212VHG 2 motor fan.
Memory 8GB Dell DDR2@800
Video Card(s) Sapphire Dual BIOS R9-285 ITX O/C 2GB DDR5
Storage Crucial M500 240GB SSD
Display(s) Dell 22" LCD
Case Dell Dimension E 520 MT
Audio Device(s) onboard sound with Logitech Z523 speakers
Power Supply EVGA B2 750W semi modular
Mouse Logitech wireless (two installed)
Keyboard Logitech wireless backlit
Software Win7-64, Throttlestop 6.00 overclock
Benchmark Scores 3DMark 11 P7644 (52% )In Win7 64, Firestrike 6892 ( 58% ) http://valid.x86.fr/l2j5p1
I would have tried a matching SATA drive first. But everyone seems obsessed with M2 now. Before that it it was SATA3.
But it's nice to know the T5500 recognized the new tech. Everyone seems to want what they don't have. But 3 or 4 way Raid0 or SAS drives are supported. 12Gb/s seems to be already there. Full duplex too.
 
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I think that 950pro is more than enough for my needs. I do not have many cases when very high transfer is required. I have tested starting up VMs from nvme and it is quicker but still do not saturate nvme (Drives meter shows about 300MB/s when VM Player starting up VM on nvme vs 100MB/s on sata).
 
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
1,086 (0.34/day)
Location
South Florida
System Name BTXTREME
Processor QX6800 SLACP Core2 Extreme
Motherboard Dell 0WG864 LGA775 BTX
Cooling Dell T9303 heatpipe cooler, Delta GFB1212VHG 2 motor fan.
Memory 8GB Dell DDR2@800
Video Card(s) Sapphire Dual BIOS R9-285 ITX O/C 2GB DDR5
Storage Crucial M500 240GB SSD
Display(s) Dell 22" LCD
Case Dell Dimension E 520 MT
Audio Device(s) onboard sound with Logitech Z523 speakers
Power Supply EVGA B2 750W semi modular
Mouse Logitech wireless (two installed)
Keyboard Logitech wireless backlit
Software Win7-64, Throttlestop 6.00 overclock
Benchmark Scores 3DMark 11 P7644 (52% )In Win7 64, Firestrike 6892 ( 58% ) http://valid.x86.fr/l2j5p1
I think that 950pro is more than enough for my needs. I do not have many cases when very high transfer is required. I have tested starting up VMs from nvme and it is quicker but still do not saturate nvme (Drives meter shows about 300MB/s when VM Player starting up VM on nvme vs 100MB/s on sata).
I was just making the point that these workstations, and particularly the 2 CPU versions have server type storage options. A look at owners s manual and online surplus vendors may get you what you need. I think the controller on the MB may be 6GB/s and a controller card would be needed for 12GB/s anyway. They have native RAID0 and SAS support in them. Consumer MB and chipsets don't. Before spending money on the latest consumer fad, take as look at what's already there. You may be surprised. SATA3 vs. a 2nd SSD in RAID0?
 
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everyone seems obsessed with M2 now.
That's because the price of NVME drives have come down significantly and its now affordable. Besides only addition cost is a PCIE NVME Adapter which cost $10 on Aliexpress.

But it's nice to know the T5500 recognized the new tech.
:)

Everyone seems to want what they don't have.
just the satisfaction of using an 8-9 years old second hand system and still not missing the new features. :)

But 3 or 4 way Raid0 or SAS drives are supported. 12Gb/s seems to be already there. Full duplex too.
Thats' Great.

If I would be using RAID, then just for safe side, I would be adding a PCIE RAID Card instead of using on-board RAID feature.
Reason being, if anything happens to motherboard then all the Data will be gone (on-board RAID controller will be gone with MB).
Whereas in case of RAID Card , one would just move the RAID Drives along with RAID Card to any alternate system and get back the Data.

 

SixteenWest

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Hello everyone! I'm posting to introduce myself.

I discovered this thread last week, and have read through it twice front-to-back already. What a gold mine of information! Thank you everyone for posting. I'd like to contribute to the knowledge base in the next few weeks, and here's how; For the last 6 weeks, I've been focused on video editing (my GF wants to start an English/Russian bilingual Vegan Youtube channel), and going through an iterative process of hardware selection. My first purchase was a $100 computer with an AMD A8-7600 APU with 4 cores. I installed Linux Mint 19.2, an AMD Radeon RX Vega 64, and some SSDs (1 x480gb, 3 x120gb in RAID0). After dabbling at length with the free open source video editing software available, it became clear to me that I needed more binary horsepower.

I hit kijiji and found a local guy selling some workstations and server racks. He had a HP Z600 and a Dell T7500 listed (among other pieces). The T7500 was set up with dual quad-cores (X55xx series IIRC) and I think 72gb RAM, all for $280CDN. I started doing research on the T7500 and discovered this forum. By the time I confirmed what a good value it was, it had already sold. I was heartbroken, and asked him to let me know if any more T7500 came his way. He told me to stay tuned, because he had a Dual 6-core on deck to be listed. Long story short, I got myself a T5500 with dual 6-core x5650s, 32gb RAM, Quadro 4000 GPU, and 120bg SSD, all for $280CDN! My eyes sure did bulge the first time I saw 24 logical cores on my system resources display.

In the meantime I've been waiting on parts to arrive (USB3.0 adapters, etc etc...) pricing out CPU upgrade options.. RAM upgrade options..... At the same time, I'm preoccupied with the idea of having the full 12 RAM slots of the T7500, rather than the 9 slots on the T5500... I'm also preoccupied with the larger PSU in the T7500.... I HAVE AN ITCH.

Fast forward to today, and I have a different T7500 lined up from Kijiji. Dual x5680s, 48gb RAM... I'll be picking it up this coming Sunday for $350CDN.

Here's what you can expect from me in the next weeks: I'll be reporting on my build as it progresses, and posting some benchmark scores. For video editing, my build performance focus will be on storage speed;
-I will attempt to set up a PCIe m2 NVME adapter and use it for my principal operating drive (Linux Mint 19 OS install, LinMint19 OS boot data on a bootable thumb drive).
-I will attempt to use all 7 SATAII ports (actually 3 x SATAII and 4x SAS -which I believe is backwards compatible to SATAII- ) to set up a 7x120gb SSD RAID0 softRAID array using mdadm.

Predictions:
-Given that my current config on the $100 AMD A8-7600 (SATAIII 3xSSD RAID0) does ~800MB/s read and ~700MB/s write, downgrading to SATAII on the T7500 should decrease the rate by 50%, but going from 3 drives to 7 (+133%) should bring me back up to a comparable (or better?) R/W rate.
-Adding the PCIe x4 M2 NVME... I have no solid basis by which to make an accurate guess at what kind of rates I'll get. I'll install the drive on my AMD machine (which has PCIe 3), and benchmark the R/W rates. Following that, I'll install the drive on my T7500 (PCIe 2) and benchmark the R/W rates. I'm just going on blind hope that I can get something north of 1000MB/s

Wish me luck. I'll report back with wins and losses.
 

SixteenWest

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Update:

Today I received two pieces of kit:
ASUS Hyper M.2 X16 PCIe 3.0 X4 Expansion Card V2
Silicon Power 512GB NVMe PCIe Gen3x4 M.2 2280

I was unable to benchmark this assembly on my $100 PCIE 3.0 machine, as the MoBo (A58M-E3) only has one PCIEx16 slot, and yanking the Vega GPU seemed like an unneccessary hassle. So much for that. I went ahead and installed the assembly in a PCIEx16 slot in my current T5500. I did an initial benchmark having while booted from the 120gb SSD (Linux Mint OS Drive), and did a R/W on the NVME drive. I was disappointed to see that I was only getting ~400MB/s read speed. I ran lspci in the shell terminal and saw that the LinkCap was listed as Width 4x, but the LinkSta was only 1x. A disappointing result, but I decided to go ahead and attempt an OS install anyway.

After some messing around, I was able to successfully install the Mint root directory onto the NVME, and the boot system onto a 4gb thumb drive. The thumb drive currently sits in one of the rear USB slots. I have an inclination to move this boot thumb drive to the little USB slot inside the tower on the MoBo.

File_Sys_Breakdown.png

Having successfully installed the OS on the NVME, I ran a benchmark (Read-only, as a write test isn't permitted while disk is in use) and scored 1.5GB/s!

Bench_PCIE_4x_NVME.png

Somehow, the LinkSta got set to 4x to match the LinkCap! Worth mentioning: At one point in my toils I removed an un-needed network card from a PCIE slot (I'm fine with using the MoBo's jack). I suppose this could maybe account for the rise from 1x to 4x? I hope it's not the culprit, because a USB 3.0 PCIe card is in my plans.

NVME_LSPCI.png

I'll call that my small victory for today. If I can shake come cash loose in the next little while, I'll try and score some cheap M2 NVME drives and see if I can populate the other three slots on the Asus Hyper M2. I'd ideally like to try benchmark some softRAID RAID 0configs on it (NVME x 2, and NVME x3). I'll maybe start with one more NVME and see if it shows up on the lspci report.

Stay tuned!

===================Next Post, 10 minutes later =============================

That went well.

I move the boot thumb drive to the MoBo internal USB port, and it booted up properly.

LSPCI_All.png

I installed a USB 3.0 controller in a PCIex8 slot, and fired up the machine. The USB 3.0 controller It showed up on bus #23. Its LinkCap is 1x and its LinkSta is 1x

LSPCI_Bus_23.png

Miraculously, the NVME controller is still showing x4 in both places where it matters. I even scored a 1.6GB/s on a subsequent benchmark.

DELLicious.

==================== Next post, 10 minutes later ======================================

I plugged a USB 3.0 card reader with a Sandisk 32gb grade 10 SD card into the USB controller and ran a benchmark, which read at ~45MB/s and wrote ~10 MB/s.

Bench_USB_3_Sandisk_Class10.png

Disappointed, I plugged in a USB 3.0 external drive and tried it out. I managed to get an average of ~120MB/s read, and 110MB/s write.

Bench_USB3_External_Drive.png

Side note: While screwing around I disabled the "Fast Boot" option in the bios. Big mistake. Took about 15 minutes to boot up.

Also, my BIOS version is C56. Has anyone heard of this before?
 
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Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
1,086 (0.34/day)
Location
South Florida
System Name BTXTREME
Processor QX6800 SLACP Core2 Extreme
Motherboard Dell 0WG864 LGA775 BTX
Cooling Dell T9303 heatpipe cooler, Delta GFB1212VHG 2 motor fan.
Memory 8GB Dell DDR2@800
Video Card(s) Sapphire Dual BIOS R9-285 ITX O/C 2GB DDR5
Storage Crucial M500 240GB SSD
Display(s) Dell 22" LCD
Case Dell Dimension E 520 MT
Audio Device(s) onboard sound with Logitech Z523 speakers
Power Supply EVGA B2 750W semi modular
Mouse Logitech wireless (two installed)
Keyboard Logitech wireless backlit
Software Win7-64, Throttlestop 6.00 overclock
Benchmark Scores 3DMark 11 P7644 (52% )In Win7 64, Firestrike 6892 ( 58% ) http://valid.x86.fr/l2j5p1
I would get the service tag# and go to Dell.com and see what BIOS updates are listed there.
 

SixteenWest

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@Lex In the BIOS I can see that the system was built for the Honeywell Corporation, and per Dell's service tag lookup, it was shipped in March of 2011. It was originally built with dual X5667 processors, 2GB RAM, and a quad-DVI NVidia NVS 420. Apart from that, nothing remarkable jumps out in the system configuration list on Dell.com.

@ManGupta: No msinfo32 on my machine: Running Linux Mint. :)

@Retrorockit: Dell.com lists A12-A18 available for this machine.
 
Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
1,086 (0.34/day)
Location
South Florida
System Name BTXTREME
Processor QX6800 SLACP Core2 Extreme
Motherboard Dell 0WG864 LGA775 BTX
Cooling Dell T9303 heatpipe cooler, Delta GFB1212VHG 2 motor fan.
Memory 8GB Dell DDR2@800
Video Card(s) Sapphire Dual BIOS R9-285 ITX O/C 2GB DDR5
Storage Crucial M500 240GB SSD
Display(s) Dell 22" LCD
Case Dell Dimension E 520 MT
Audio Device(s) onboard sound with Logitech Z523 speakers
Power Supply EVGA B2 750W semi modular
Mouse Logitech wireless (two installed)
Keyboard Logitech wireless backlit
Software Win7-64, Throttlestop 6.00 overclock
Benchmark Scores 3DMark 11 P7644 (52% )In Win7 64, Firestrike 6892 ( 58% ) http://valid.x86.fr/l2j5p1
I would download the owners manual and go through the setup section and see if there are any different settings available in that BIOS that aren't listed for the rest of us. Honeywell is a Gov't contractor and probably gets whatever they want. I would certaqinly try to make a backup copy of it. Dell charges too much for RAM upgrades. 2GB was probably a shipping configuration.
 
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@Lex In the BIOS I can see that the system was built for the Honeywell Corporation, and per Dell's service tag lookup, it was shipped in March of 2011. It was originally built with dual X5667 processors, 2GB RAM, and a quad-DVI NVidia NVS 420. Apart from that, nothing remarkable jumps out in the system configuration list on Dell.com.
Ok, so a custom bios is installed. It might be possible to update with the retail bios. The update EXE will not allow if it's determined that it is incompatible. So it would be harmless to try, however it might be best to leave the bios as is. Honeywell goes the extra mile to keep their systems updated and hardened.
 
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Joined
Jan 19, 2016
Messages
1,086 (0.34/day)
Location
South Florida
System Name BTXTREME
Processor QX6800 SLACP Core2 Extreme
Motherboard Dell 0WG864 LGA775 BTX
Cooling Dell T9303 heatpipe cooler, Delta GFB1212VHG 2 motor fan.
Memory 8GB Dell DDR2@800
Video Card(s) Sapphire Dual BIOS R9-285 ITX O/C 2GB DDR5
Storage Crucial M500 240GB SSD
Display(s) Dell 22" LCD
Case Dell Dimension E 520 MT
Audio Device(s) onboard sound with Logitech Z523 speakers
Power Supply EVGA B2 750W semi modular
Mouse Logitech wireless (two installed)
Keyboard Logitech wireless backlit
Software Win7-64, Throttlestop 6.00 overclock
Benchmark Scores 3DMark 11 P7644 (52% )In Win7 64, Firestrike 6892 ( 58% ) http://valid.x86.fr/l2j5p1
Dell stops providing updates for their BIOS and will hope you buy a newer system. But Honeywell may have recieved some extra consideration. I would look at the date on the BIOS and see if it's newer than what Dell offers. That may be why it recognized the NVMe drive.
 
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Dell stops providing updates for their BIOS and will hope you buy a newer system. But Honeywell may have recieved some extra consideration. I would look at the date on the BIOS and see if it's newer than what Dell offers. That may be why it recognized the NVMe drive.

In my case Dell BIOS does not recognize NVME drive, but it is just that its First Boot Priority is made to boot from external usb drive that contains a Custom BIOS (not from Dell) which is an UEFI bios with NVME Drivers .

But strangely msinfo32 as well as AIDA64 displays it as Dell / Phoenix A17 BIOS with UEFI Support.

1.JPG
2.JPG
 

SixteenWest

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An update on the NVMe install:

When I had initially installed Linux Mint 19 onto NVMe on my T5500, I had the following drives on board:
1x NVMe M2 on a PCIe adapter board
1x SATA III SSD wired to the MOBO SATA 0
1 x USB Stick (as the Linux boot drive) in a rear port.

When I procured the T7500, I transplanted the following from the T5500 to the T7500:
-The NVMe/PCIe adapter combo (PCIe X16 slot)
-The USB boot stick (internal MoBo USB port)
The T7500 booted correctly, apart from a BIOS AHCI error message requiring an F1 keystroke to continue booting.

For the sake of a clean slate I attempted to do a fresh LM19 install on the NVMe (now in the T7500) using the same steps I used on the T5500. All attempts were failures, with AHCI errors at boot up. After numerous iterations I eventually was able to do a successful install onto the NVMe/USB as I had done on the T5500, by having a SATA drive on board and recognized by the BIOS. Despite the fact that the SATA drive was not involved in the Linux Mint install, its absence was an obstructing factor.

If I unwire (or disable through BIOS) the SATA SSD, the linux OS will boot from the NVMe drive just fine, but will require an F1 keystroke to acknowledge the AHCI error message at bootup.

TLDR: If you install Linux onto an NVME via PCIe adapter card (using a first-boot-priority USB stick as boot drive), you must have a SATA drive on board and recognized by the BIOS at the time of install or the install will fail to boot. You can boot and run Linux on a NVMe/PCIe adapter in conjunction with a USB stick boot drive, but if the BIOS does not detect a SATA drive in the configuration, you will have to acknowledge an error message at bootup.

Here's the article with the steps I used to perform the install.
https://delightlylinux.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/system-boot-when-using-nvme/
 
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Possibly boot sequence should be USB only and SATA ports temporary switched off (during install). My nvme pcie (Sammy 950pro) boots up without any issues.
An update on the NVMe install:

When I had initially installed Linux Mint 19 onto NVMe on my T5500, I had the following drives on board:
1x NVMe M2 on a PCIe adapter board
1x SATA III SSD wired to the MOBO SATA 0
1 x USB Stick (as the Linux boot drive) in a rear port.

When I procured the T7500, I transplanted the following from the T5500 to the T7500:
-The NVMe/PCIe adapter combo (PCIe X16 slot)
-The USB boot stick (internal MoBo USB port)
The T7500 booted correctly, apart from a BIOS AHCI error message requiring an F1 keystroke to continue booting.

For the sake of a clean slate I attempted to do a fresh LM19 install on the NVMe (now in the T7500) using the same steps I used on the T5500. All attempts were failures, with AHCI errors at boot up. After numerous iterations I eventually was able to do a successful install onto the NVMe/USB as I had done on the T5500, by having a SATA drive on board and recognized by the BIOS. Despite the fact that the SATA drive was not involved in the Linux Mint install, its absence was an obstructing factor.

If I unwire (or disable through BIOS) the SATA SSD, the linux OS will boot from the NVMe drive just fine, but will require an F1 keystroke to acknowledge the AHCI error message at bootup.

TLDR: If you install Linux onto an NVME via PCIe adapter card (using a first-boot-priority USB stick as boot drive), you must have a SATA drive on board and recognized by the BIOS at the time of install or the install will fail to boot. You can boot and run Linux on a NVMe/PCIe adapter in conjunction with a USB stick boot drive, but if the BIOS does not detect a SATA drive in the configuration, you will have to acknowledge an error message at bootup.

Here's the article with the steps I used to perform the install.
https://delightlylinux.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/system-boot-when-using-nvme/

As Macio4ever stated ....... the Dell Boot problem without a SATA Drive maybe because Sata Drives may not had been disabled in Dell BIOS and Dell BIOS was looking for it and hence throwing AHCI error.

On powering on the Dell Machine it will first go to Dell BIOS and (if success) then only it will go to Custom BIOS on USB (as set in First Boot Order Priority in Dell BIOS).
But if first steps itself fails ....... it wont go any further.
 
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