Dell Precision T7400 bios Rom

[giboni]

Ok do not blame me if they do not fit LOL ! The base of the heat sink looks the same. You will need a long phi lips driver. Not sure but bet their is a fan inside. I would simply take one unused sata rail long one. Cut it. Attach the wires from the fan inside of the New Heat Sinks. If it is a sensor. you will have to go to Dell web site study the layout and see if their is an extra sensor male pin unused on the mother board

I know under prolonged load the Front case Fan Speeds up. So their is some sort of Temperature sensing system on this Board. Better if its a Fan. Make sure it points away from the front Bezel fan. Can't hurt to have extra cooling. I added an extra fan in the back and a few small but powerful fans from a server. I like to hear my computer working !

Fit nice in the rectangular slot on the right. Where the Stand offs to hold the Perc 6 cables are. Picked up used super dirt cheap some 26GB flash Sata 2.0 Drives. Going to put the operating system in raid 0 on a pair. Just for the fun of it. Uses less power. Very Small.Then have more room for a few Terabyte drives in raid 1 or 2 striped? figure it out when I get to it.

Enjoy let me know how these Mac Pro Heat Sinks compare to the Original Heat Sink.

Reminds me have to purchase some real Heat Sink Compound. What I have been using works well. One big drawback. It almost glues the heat sink to the Chip LOL ! Hopefully won't need to put a crow bar on my Heat Sinks LOL ! Lucky Have extra OEM Heat Sinks.

[T7400]

I tried to do some research on the heat sink and what computers it could be used on but found very little on people using it for anything except the mac pro it was made for. However the heat sink is made for the same series xeons and the location of the mounting holes make it look promising.

I figure though if for some reason I cant make it work I can most likely sell them and make my money back since all the other identical heat sinks were priced higher that $35. So there shouldn't be any need for blame haha.

Running raid 0 on a couple solid state drives sounds like it should be pretty sweet. I always wondered how the 15k hard drives in my computer would copmpare to a SSD. I'm sure the SSD would beat it but by how much is what I wonder.

Did you mount a fan on the back panel by the I/O shield. I tried placing one of my extra fans on the spot on the back that obviously looks like it is meant to have a fan however when I tried, the holes mach up perfectly but some of the plastic on the fan prevented it from being installed properly. Also I could not find any way to plug the fan into the power supply or into the motherboard so I gave up. Did you just cut one of the sata power cables and splice the wires to power your extra fans?

I will definitely let you know how the Mac Pro heatsinks go.

[giboni]

I tried to do some research on the heat sink and what computers it could be used on but found very little on people using it for anything except the mac pro it was made for. However the heat sink is made for the same series xeons and the location of the mounting holes make it look promising.

I figure though if for some reason I cant make it work I can most likely sell them and make my money back since all the other identical heat sinks were priced higher that $35. So there shouldn't be any need for blame haha.

Running raid 0 on a couple solid state drives sounds like it should be pretty sweet. I always wondered how the 15k hard drives in my computer would copmpare to a SSD. I'm sure the SSD would beat it but by how much is what I wonder.

Did you mount a fan on the back panel by the I/O shield. I tried placing one of my extra fans on the spot on the back that obviously looks like it is meant to have a fan however when I tried, the holes mach up perfectly but some of the plastic on the fan prevented it from being installed properly. Also I could not find any way to plug the fan into the power supply or into the motherboard so I gave up. Did you just cut one of the sata power cables and splice the wires to power your extra fans?

I will definitely let you know how the Mac Pro heatsinks go.

The MacPro CPU Coolers look taller. Clearly enough room in the case for a taller HT Sink. I found recently a chassis in the street stripped. The owner left 6 120mm Fans. They have speed control switches ! On Ebay 8.00 each plus shipping !

What I put was a nominal 120MM Fan. Flimsy Cheap but Led. Bought a Bunch 5 years ago on Ebay for 1.09each Shipped from China. Removed the lower Back plate held into place with I think 5 screws. The fan was a Tight fit.

I took a Sheet rock cutter razor blade and carefully sliced off shavings evenly wherever it was tight. Not much material. Till it was a smooth Fit. Then simply used the enclosed screws to attach it to the Back Plate.The fan behind the back plate. Went right in. Then the screws to hold the back plate to the lower chassis. In the cluster of wires coming out of the almost KW power supply their is actually One IDE connector ! Simply connected the female from the fan to that one. It is nice with all those LEDS ! Routed the wires through the plastic loops that held the SAS cables from the Perc 6 raid controller.

The scuzzis are fine . SSDS or a Flash Drive (ssd) actually will be faster on Boot up. Also starting programs. One of the many reasons modded them out was to make space for tetrabyte Sata drives 3.0. Where the Perc 6 was. Installed a 3.0
Sata Raid card. The PCI-X x 4 slot. Saves power. Less strain on the PSU. Have several video cards. Going to try to run 14 monitors. 3 Pony Nv400s Nvidia Cards 2x Evga Fermi. 520 I. So figure save power and upgrade to new Technology. The NV400 though old technology runs four monitors each. They fit in the PCI-X 100mhz slots

Did have to Solder a bit to get the Server 1U fans powered up on the right grill just above the back plate to the Left. Once I get out the GLUED practically Heat Sinks. Will mod them with a few Fans. Push Pull. As I want to play a little with different CPU's until the almost new Skull trail shows up. Going to Upgrade an old Dell 690
with this board. Dell 690 looks the same and same size as the T7400. Internally same great cooling set up. Almost the same power supply. Just a bit less.

John

[T7400]

Cool I will have to try doing that with my fan.

Nice find on those 6 120mm fans you found in the street.

14 monitors thats insane and once you get that skulltrail that should be way sweet. What a motherboard.

[elik745i]

Guys I'm new to overclocking this Server, Recently I got 2 T7400 Servers, bot equipped with Quadro 1700 8GB RAM and one XEON E5430 processors. Right After purchase I moved processor and memory into empty slots, so now I have One T7400 fully equipped and ordered 2 processors and 16GB memory from ebay to make 2nd one working.

QUESTION is when I use SetFSB 2.2 I have to tick Ultra box, after that overcklocing is available, however I have other issue - even if I move slider slightly and apply new setting system hangs-up! sometimes right away, sometimes after few minutes, is it because I did not apply BSEL mod???

I paid attention that this Servers are very unreliable even without overclocking, maybe it's because I got them in used condition, however even do those are used very minor and looks great.

1) I could not install Win 7 on them, I did managed to install on one, but other one hangs-up in the middle of finalizing installation, I think it's because of issues with HDD, at the moment I'm scanning it for bad sectors...

2) When I moved all memory to one computer, some of them did not show-up in the BIOS, it looks like the slots are bad quality (not tight contacts) It took me a while to reseat memory modules few times to get it shown up and calculated in the BIOS.

Can you guys comment on above as looks like you guys have much more experience in overclocking this things?

[giboni]

Hi,
I have four used T7400. Never had a problem with them. My suggestion is first go to Dell web site. Download Install Latest Bios. Now I do not know if that will effect Slic. Have one spare working T7400 board

The ability to have a Legal Copy of Windows on the Machine. I like Server 2008R2 but have restore Discs for Windows Business Vista 64. Going to try installing on a few machines. Dual Boot.
Might have to re-flash Bios with AO4 from this web site.

For stability you cannot go past 410 or 412. With Set FSB. The Pad Mod bumps the 1333 Xeon Server CPU to 1600 MHZ. Then a gentle push with Set FSB for a bit more CPU Speed.

Another thing. No time due to Work Commitments and the Fact my Home got trashed a bit by the Hurricane. But will post more on my hobby. The Fastest T7400 in the World.

Lordy. I am going to have to learn how to modify Bios. Bet a bunch of very Smart young adults here could help this Geezer and Crack this Bios. Impressive these T7400's.

The pad mod/Pin Mod works quite well. You have to really make sure that you are covering only pin 5,6 from the bottom. Cannot do it tonight. Will take a few HD Photos and see how to add them Here.

Remember Quadro Cards are for specialized software like Cad. Depending on the driver actually. I flashed old 768MB 8800 Nvidia Ultra Video Cards with the FX4600
Quadro Bios. Guess what. They show up as FX4600 now. LOL

You cannot mix as a rule different brands of FB DIMM. Put two in at a Time. Run your built in Dell Diagnostic. Do a Diagnostic on the HD.

I bought a Sata Raptor on Ebay Used Lasted 3 hours. Was doing Raid 0. Oh well. Maybe get another one with a bad spindle but good logic board.

Use your Bios Options to check your Memory. You have Diagnostic tools through the Kazoo on the T7400. Before you try to boot. Or put an operating System on them.

What ever it is worth to you Server 2008R2 can easily be made to look like Windows 7. Simply Google Server 2008R2 as Work Station. A vista Program can be used to Auto Configure. You then can Add whatever you want. I like Simple no Bloat Ware. No Aero .Just minimum resource consumption.

But you could make Server look like W7 if you want.

Unfortunately one of my T7400 part of the COA is rubbed off. I have a feeling. Despite this. Will be able to use a COA from another T7400. With a Legal copy of Vista 64 installed.

Then can use the cheap Upgrade Windows 7 64 Microsoft Disc. Even Windows 8 !

For surfing the Internet boot into windows 32. For everything else Boot into Server.
But I am Bored so that will be another project LOL !

All Vista 64 Drivers bet will work in Windows 7. All the Nividia and other Vista Drivers I needed worked in Server 2008R2.

Have Fun !

John

[elik745i]

Hi, thanks for reply,
Yes all memory modules are exactly the same. I have 8 modules each 2GB, however I Need 32GB or either 64 as I want to run quite heavy scenes using Autodesk 3ds Max.

At the moment I'm using my fashion Core I7 2.8Ghz quad core single CPU board overclocked to 4.2Ghz on GIGABYTE X58 UD3R motherboard with 24GB or DDR3 RAM, but I need more processing power to render animation using 3DS Max Design.

Do you think I can get this T7400 with twin XEON running faster that my Core I7???

At the moment I'm running Windows 7 x64, with all updates, however could not find drivers for T7400 on official site of dell for Win7 x64, can you help me to find latest drivers for this chipset and periferials installed???

I'm getting new trouble, now system does not hag byt giving me BSD, can I fight this beast?

Do I realy need to cover pins on processor? is it really necessary to overclock??? as it looks like SetFSB works, I can set new FSB, but I'm getting BSDs both in normal mode and in overclocked mode, What is the point of covering pins? just to get motherboard to set BUS to 1600Mhz?

Also how can I play with CPU voltage, maybe increasing voltage will give more rock results?

Sorry for so many questions I just want to get this thing running, I relay need more processing power... I can't believe that this twin processor board with XEONs can not run faster than single core I7???????

[giboni]

Hi, thanks for reply,
Yes all memory modules are exactly the same. I have 8 modules each 2GB, however I Need 32GB or either 64 as I want to run quite heavy scenes using Autodesk 3ds Max.

At the moment I'm using my fashion Core I7 2.8Ghz quad core single CPU board overclocked to 4.2Ghz on GIGABYTE X58 UD3R motherboard with 24GB or DDR3 RAM, but I need more processing power to render animation using 3DS Max Design.

Do you think I can get this T7400 with twin XEON running faster that my Core I7???

At the moment I'm running Windows 7 x64, with all updates, however could not find drivers for T7400 on official site of dell for Win7 x64, can you help me to find latest drivers for this chipset and periferials installed???

I'm getting new trouble, now system does not hag byt giving me BSD, can I fight this beast?

Do I realy need to cover pins on processor? is it really necessary to overclock??? as it looks like SetFSB works, I can set new FSB, but I'm getting BSDs both in normal mode and in overclocked mode, What is the point of covering pins? just to get motherboard to set BUS to 1600Mhz?

Also how can I play with CPU voltage, maybe increasing voltage will give more rock results?

Sorry for so many questions I just want to get this thing running, I relay need more processing power... I can't believe that this twin processor board with XEONs can not run faster than single core I7???????

---

Trouble Shooting.

1) Do not use SetFsb.
2) Run your Memory Disgnostic. Two Sticks at a Time.

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/sy.../tools.htm

SetFsb is limited by the Bios and other factors on this Mother Board. Mostly Bios. It can only give a slight stretch to the FSB divider from 399.00 to 410-412.

Your biggest boost Processor Speed will be. By using the Fallowing CPU's in Dual Configuration using the Pin/Pad Mod.

E5450 1333mhz To 1600 MHZ Stable on my Machines up to 410-412 depending on which one I set FSB at 410-412 divider on Server2008r2 OS.
Possible Windows 7 does not work well with Set FSB? Or your board is slightly different than my Boards.

Have used E5440 Stable, E5430. Stable. E5462 Stable. All 1333 mhz
Possible Candidates for a nice over clock are the fallowing.

X5470 1333 Best possible Over Clock with Pin/Pad Mod. 3.33 mgh at 1333fsb probably 3.8-3.9 at 1600 mhz. Also X5460.

These X series run Hotter than the E series. Which Sugests they use more electricity. Also they LACK Hyper Threading. Believe the Eseries Supports Hyper Threading. Something that might be important to what you are doing.

Consider possibly looking into Evga or Nividia Gaming cards at the 2GB level and Match them up to Quadro Cards. (GPU)Then Flash the Bios of the much cheaper Video Cards with the Quadro Drivers. Change them to Quadro's. Mod your Dell Supply to support a Pair in Dual SLI.

No time to investigate your Soft ware. But the best Boost for the Buck right now on a poor Man's Mac Pro is the pin/pad Mod. Ebay is flooded with these processors used and new.

AS I SAID BEFORE.........Vista Drivers will Work on Windows 7. On the dell web Site. They work in 2008r2. Which is Windows 7 without the Bloat Ware.
You will have to get the riser Card. To get to where you want to go. Seen them. Buy it now $20.00 free Shipping ebay.

Pc2 6400 FB DIMM will be best for you. Too expensive now.

However. I am Experimenting with different used Brands of Pc2 6400 off of Ebay. To compile a List. Since Dell and Dealers all with Hold the information.

When I am sure will post a List of Server Memory that I have tested that will work in the T7400. One thing is that CL5 Pc2 6400
has worked in all my Machines. Ran into one set CL5 which would not work at all. Worked in the servers it was designed for though. So far every cheap used set of Pc2 5300 FB Dimm has worked fine in the T7400 and my Dell 490's. I will not pay more than $2.00 per gig or less for Pc2 5300 FB Dimm.

It is a significant increase in GTS to go with Pc2 6400 instead of Pc2 5300. However do not know how that would translate in the real world with your application and Soft Ware. Cuda based Software. Physx etc. Seems to be getting Market Share.


Best Enjoy your Boat anchor video Work station. Pin/Pad Mod is the way to go. it is VERY VERY VERY EASY. I have bullet Proof Glasses. Use an External Magnifying Glass. Roll of Black tape was 69 cents.


John Have FUN !

[elik745i]

Thanks John, what does this mean? " I have bullet Proof Glasses. Use an External Magnifying Glass. Roll of Black tape was 69 cents." sleng?

Sorry mate I'm from other side of the earth, so My understanding of other slengs are quite a bit :-)

Can you please guide me through Pin/Pad Mod in more details, what needs to be done, step by step procedure would be great if that would be illustrated too, I surfed the net, could not find one, you may know the resource?

My processor is E5430 2.66Ghz XEON, both of them,

Thanks for note, I'm running diagnostics now and used Vista drivers, some worked, some not, however I think most important ones such as chipset and videocard (Downloaded latest from Nvidia site) worked. What else is important, can you suggest?

Also what would you suggest to get, I mean from ebay? what could be good upgrade for my existing processors? do not want to spend more that 20$ each...

Also about the RAM, I have pare of Server RAMs PC2, but strange thing is that modules wount go into the T7400 slots, key is 2-4 pins off, really strange to me as those are server memories too, ECC!!!

[giboni]

I have problems with my Vision !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL

1) Many different types of Server Dimms. They Look alike. They even Fit. But do not Work. They the Dimms quite often are Specific to different configurations/Processor combinations and Board revisions of even the same series of Mother boards. Also the Lack of or including the Heat Sink does not guarantee it will work in the T7400. So far Pc2 5300 that go into Dell's and HP Workstations/Blade etc. Servers work in my Machines. I.B.M. Into Mac Pro's Blade/Servers and Mac Pro 2006, 2008 all work. NOT Pc 6400 though.

I learned the hard way. Buy buying Memory which was not Compatible. Stick with PC2 5300 FB DIMM up to 4 Gigabytes for Now. So far no issues with any Brand. You have to take the time Research and Ask Questions of the Seller. It is cheaper as a rule 1gig-2 gig on ebay. Ebay is Flooded with Pc2 5300 FB Dimm.

Those Xeons will work well at about 3.1 to 3.2 over clock with the pin/Pad Mod and a GENTLE Stretch of FSB divider to 410-412.

Another list of good candidates are the low Voltage Series of 1333mhz Quad cores. Rare when they show up on Ebay. L Series

Expect to pay $25.00 each. A year from now. Maybe a bit less. The XSeries are Still quite expensive used and New Xeons. However my feeling
as stated earlier is that The Ability of Hyper Threading is Probably a Plus for Video editing and Transcoding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Int...processors

The best Bang for the buck is E5450. $25.00 each FREE Shipping. $50. Or New $100. Free Shipping.

Possibly the Dual Core Xeons at 2.00-3.4 1333 mhz might be superior to your application/Software. Using two you have in effect a quad.
pin/pad Mod to 1600 MHZ . Running at 4ghz. the 3.4 version However believe Some have

Direct communication from the Caches of all the Cores is Important also. Go to CPU World to look up the characteristics of the different Xeon Family's.

No money usually pushes the Intellect to discover a cheap way to accomplish a needed computer configuration task. I know already that at 3.6 with E5450 T7400 is Blowing the pants off of a current Mac Pro bare to the Bones in the $3,000 range.

Best John