Sage Server Questions

[pdxcoop]

Hello,

I am in the process of building a new sage server and was wondering what all you guys are using for a motherboard. With the new technology out there, most new motherboards seem to be lacking in PCI slots to be able to do multiple tuners and in the future and HDTV card. Right now I am still using PATA that uses a PCI slot for my raid 5 and I do not feel it is required at this point to move to SATA. So I was just wondering what all you guys are doing to get around these issues.

Thanks.

[waynedunham]

I just picked up (another!) new Mobo to build a Sage server. My existing machine isn't very old, only a few months but I ran into that exact problem, i.e. a lack of PCI slots. The existing machine is a Micro ATX with two PCI slots, but one of those is unusable with most PVR cards since there are a couple headers blocking the spot where the lower external connectors are on the PVR cards. I found that I could just fit my old PVR250 card in that slot along with my new PVR500 in the other slot.

After seeing the progress of the HD Network encoder, and also being curious I bought a Fusion5 card. Wouldn't you know it, this card also has a connector right where that (*^#@ header is on the mobo.
So after testing out the card by pulling my PVR500 out I decided it was time to buy a full sized ATX mobo and build a new Sage server.

I just got the board today, and the new gaming XPC will arrive tomorrow. Due to the lack of PCI slots in just about any board with PCIe slots I'm going to be doing a big swapperoo putting my existing Sage LGA775 cpu/PCIe video/ram into a new Shuttle XPC that will become my new gaming machine (portable for those lan parties!). The Socket 478 cpu/AGP video/ram from my existing gaming machine will go into the new Sage server (I have an old case I'll re-use).

The new board is an Aopen socket 478 with 6 PCI slots of which 1 or possibly 2 may not work my PVR500 and/or Fusion5 cards. Even those slots may work after doing a quick test fit but won't know for sure if the headers that are very close will clear until I actually get the mobo in the box and all the connectors are hooked up to the mobo.
But even if both of those slots won't accept some cards that still gives me 4 slots.

If you are looking at motherboards, pay close attention to the pictures of the mobo's to make sure it doesn't have headers/capacitors/etc popping up off the mobo between the end of the PCI slots and the edge of the mobo. Once I did that it eliminated ALL of the socket 775/PCIe mobo's on Newegg and left only a couple socket 478 mobo's. There was one with absolutely nothing on the mobo between the pci slots and edge of the mobo but this Aopen had more slots and some other features I liked so I went with it.

I'm hoping this board will work well. Unfortunately I'm working this weekend so I don't know if I'll get a chance to set it up until early next week. Here's the link to the Aopen A4XC MaxII at Newegg.

[waynedunham]

Yes, home does require activation, but "supposedly" it allows for at least one major hardware swap (i.e. mobo I'm assuming) without having to buy a new copy/relicense your copy.

Edit: A few above posts were snipped out for langauge and/or suggestions related to installing 'borrowed' copies of Windows XP. - Opus4

[JasonJoel]

What's the big deal? If you replace enough hardware, sometimes it requires a reactivation. As long as you don't trigger it too frequently you can re-activate it in like 3 seconds via the internet.

I don't see the issue, except some weird aversion to having to do it in the first place.

I've triggered the activation on my XP Pro copies 5-6 times in the last year, and never had to call via the phone to activate. Always let me do it via internet. 3 seconds. Big freaking deal.

Oh, and not all WinXP Pro's are exempt from activation. Normal retail versions ALL require it. Some OEM and corporate versions do not require activation though.

Jason

[waynedunham]

JasonJoel,

Here's hoping that what you say is true. I've heard that XP Home isn't as forgiving as XP Pro though. Don'cha just love M$? NOT!!!

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

What's the big deal? If you replace enough hardware, sometimes it requires a reactivation. As long as you don't trigger it too frequently you can re-activate it in like 3 seconds via the internet.

I don't see the issue, except some weird aversion to having to do it in the first place.

I've triggered the activation on my XP Pro copies 5-6 times in the last year, and never had to call via the phone to activate. Always let me do it via internet. 3 seconds. Big freaking deal.

I've had to call a few times, but on those occasions, basically everything changed. It's annoying, but that's about it.

[JasonJoel]

I've had to call in via phone before on a friends machine. Annoying, but at least it was all computerized (no human to mess it up). Actually I was surprised how well the computerized phone system worked in recognizing the letters/numbers I spoke.

In any case, activation SUCKS. I don't like the concept at all. But in reality at least it is rather unobtrusive!

Jason

Originally Posted by stanger89

I've had to call a few times, but on those occasions, basically everything changed. It's annoying, but that's about it.

[JasonJoel]

Actually, I have to support various *nix varieties at work... As well as Windows machines.

I can honestly say I do prefer supporting the MS machines... Even with the hoops you have to jump through at times with MS. I actually think they have done a lot to move the industry forward (in general). Call IBM with an AIX question, DEC on an old VMS question, or any of the Linux distro companies for support (we support a number of them) and you will know what I mean. You'll see that MS isn't all that bad...

Just my opinion. But I agree activation sucks (although I understand why MS did it).

Jason

Originally Posted by waynedunham

JasonJoel,

Here's hoping that what you say is true. I've heard that XP Home isn't as forgiving as XP Pro though. Don'cha just love M$? NOT!!!

[stanger89]

Yeah, IMO, MS has some incredible Engineers/programmers/tech people, and some incredibly stupid marketing/money people.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Yeah, IMO, MS has some incredible Engineers/programmers/tech people, and some incredibly stupid marketing/money people.

Funny, I would have those two roles reversed. M$ to me is all marketing/hype and very crappy execution.

[stanger89]

Ah, but it can go either way, marketing/management can quite easily, and probably quite often force stuff out that the programmers/engineers don't think is ready.

[Stobor]

Originally Posted by JasonJoel

In any case, activation SUCKS. I don't like the concept at all. But in reality at least it is rather unobtrusive!

As far as anti-piracy goes I don't mind this solution, I rarely reinstall my OS. I also like "steam" which I consider to be equivalent, I will never have to dig through my pile of "stuff" to find my half-life 2 CDs. At worst I just request a password reset and download the program from valve, perfect!

On topic though I'm not really sure what your after so I'll just make a very generic recommendation assuming that your looking to build from scratch. I'd go with an AMD socket 754 motherboard based on the nforce 3 chipset (so it has a full compliment of PCI slots unlike the nforce 4). I'd suggest a board that uses cool and quiet to minimize power use while you're not viewing. The advantage to this set up is that it will be rather inexpensive right down to the ram (mb, cpu and 512MB ram starting at 175) and most of the socket 754 proccessors should have enough muscle to decode HD in real time (such as WMV-HD) I'm basing this assumption on my 2Ghz cpu that uses about 67% decoding it. Also something to note here the socket 754 semprons are getting 64 bit support, those started shipping this week. So if having the 64 bit upgrade option is important you could probably hunt down one of those. If not you may be able to get a good deal on a sempron without the 64 bit support as retailers try to get rid of their old stock.

[silkshadow]

For a higher end Sage system I cannot recommend this mobo more: http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...tinum&class=mb. First of all its one of the few nforce4 mobos with 4 pci slots.

Second, it comes with a 1-4 drive sata raid 5 capability for *free* via a SiI 3114 controller. Yeah its a software solution, and its not perfect. My results determine that Sage can record to a 4 drive sata raid 5 array fine (no skips) but it does make other things slower. Not terribly, at all, but noticably. I have an amd64 3500+ in this mobo. Mostly I use the raid 5 array for storage (music, videos, backups, etc). For that purpose its perfect with no system effect. Don't get me wrong, I write to it all the time but mostly for copy/move operations.

Thrid, performance is very good. Maybe not as good as the DFI lanparty series but, for a sage server, it screams (nero recodes, mpeg2 editing, etc).

Lastly is its drive option ability. It supports 8 SATA drives and 4 PATA drives. Thats 12 drives and you can mix and match sata and pata drives to create raid arrays (though why anyone would want to is beyond me).

The only downside is that it can be picky with RAM. Make sure you check their list of compatible ram before buying.

[waynedunham]

Originally Posted by Stobor

8<snip>8 I rarely reinstall my OS. 8<snip>8

Gee it must be nice to buy new computers every year or two.

Seriously, I can't seem to get beyond a year or so before Win starts behaving in wierd ways (yes I have and use up to date AV and Spyware programs). It's just all the garbage that programs leave behind when you install/update/uninstall them.
Right now my registry must be a mess because things that are running and supposed to show up in the taskbar don't, I no longer get the icon in my taskbar to stop and disconnect USB/Firewire devices, etc. I had one program that stopped appearing in the taskbar even though it was running and worked fine. I uninstalled a completly unrelated program and then it re-appeared in the taskbar. Sadly, another program which had been appearing no longer does.

I've had this type of behavior with every flavor of Windows from Win3 all the way up to XP. Run it for a year or so and then be faced with a re-install and if you're crazy enough to run Norton of some of the other stuff out there then cut that down to about 6 months plus suffer with crappy system performance as it steals all your resources.
If you limit the use of the machine to dedicated purpose and install little software you can get a lot further. My HTPC's have always been very good since I almost never install/remove anything from them. Same with my gaming machine although I do more install's/uninstall's. It's my "main" computers that have always suffered from these problems.

[pdxcoop]

Silkshadow,

Thank you for the help. I have been looking at this motherboard and it does look very good. I know that both Abit and Asus just released new motherboards that only have 3 pci slots, however, they have a Heatpipes on the north bridge. Now too bad MSI has not released a new version with a Heatpipe. I would buy that in a heart beat. Though I do know a few people that have replaced the fan with a heatsink but they seem to be having issues. I am going to look around some more and figure it out.

I also noticed that there is a hdtv device that plugs into your usb port instead of a pci slot. That would techincally take care of the extra need for a pci slot. And if i get the wintv pvr 500, then I really would only need 2 PCI slots.

So we will see what happends.