Server Class PC Components
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Computer Network Central
Dual PIII 733MHz, 1Gb RAM Windows 2000 Server on the right (components below);
Athlon Thunderbird 1GHz, 512Mb RAM Windows 2000 Pro workstation on the left;
other computers on the network:
Duron 700MHz 512Mb RAM Windows Me workstation;
K6-2 450MHz 512Mb RAM Windows Me workstation;
RRAS NAT to cable bridge at 380+kbps up and 1.5mbps down to the Internet.

Intel dual Pentium III 733Mhz
133 FSB CPUs

Coppermine 0.18 micron, Slot 1, 
256Kb L2, 64 bit cache bus 
(front side and back side shown)

Corsair PC-100 ECC CAS2 registered SDRAM DIMMs
4 - 256Mb modules (1Gb total)

The ECC module has an additional chip in the center on each side -- this memory is 100% stable at CAS2 at 100Mhz (the Intel 840 chipset, originally designed for RIMM or RAMBus, uses a 100Mhz SDRAM memory bus using a paired module interleaving scheme -- see below for info on the Intel MTH chip of the 820/840 chipsets) -- ECC corrects for single-bit errors most frequently caused by Alpha particle radiation draining a memory cell charge before it can be refreshed -- ECC is generally recommended for increased fault tolerance in machines with more than 128Mb of DRAM -- meets all Intel PC-100 specs, registered (smaller chips below the memory chips), BIOS serial presence detect (SPD) on module, clock to cycle: 8ns, access: 6ns

Interim
Motherboard
(see below for original design motherboard)

Tyan Tiger 133 - S1834D ATX Motherboard
VIA Apollo Pro 133a chipset, dual Slot 1, 133 FSB, 4 168-pin DIMM slots, 6 32-bit PCI slots, 1 shared 16-bit ISA slot, 4x AGP slot, dual UDMA ATA/66 EIDE, floppy connector, 2 serial, 1 ECP parallel, 2 USB, PS/2 keyboard & mouse

For those interested in excellent value, this board is less than $150 if you shop around. Remember that Windows '98/Me does not directly support dual processors, so you'll need to go to NT 4 or Win 2000 to use full processing power.

You can read about the VIA Apollo Pro 133a chipset here:
http://www.via.com.tw/products/prod133a.htm 

Creative Annihilator Pro video card
NVidia 300Mhz Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) under fan and heat sink - 32Mb of DDRRAM, quad-pipeline, 60fps true color - 1 gigabit per second throughput - 4x AGP slot. Replaced on 9/14/01 with ATI Raedon 64Mb DDRRAM video card.

Creative Platinum Live! sound card
(see also Live Drive front panel below)
Dolby Digital/Surround, Environmental Audio, 
PCI 32 slot
SCSI and NIC add-ons for interim board
to bring it up to near original system design capability
Adaptech 29160N SCSI Card
32 bit PCI dual channel U3/160 SCSI,
supports LVD SCSI drive arrays and
15 SCSI devices
Linksys 10/100 EtherFast Card
32 bit PCI 10BaseT and 100BaseTX NIC,
Wake-on-LAN sensing
(WAN NIC)

Final configuration is multihomed with
additional 32 bit PCI 10/100BaseTX NIC
(LAN NIC)

US Robotics / 3Com 56K
V.90 data/FAX/voice modem
v.42bis/MNP5 compression, v.80 videoconferencing, 
routing control, PCI 32 slot
(backup connection for SDSL outage)

VSCom ECP/bidirectional parallel port
card for LPT2
PCI 32 slot

Entegra 7-port powered USB hub
(can be daisy-chained or starred for up to 127 USB devices)

Western Digital Expert 27.3Gb
UDMA ATA/66 EIDE 7200rpm hard drive
(there are 2 of these in the computer - 54.6Gb total)

Supermicro SC-760A full tower ATX server case
with 400 watt power supply - note that 4 board bay cooling fans and 5 drive bay cooling fans can be installed; this one will have 2 of the 3 front panel board bay cooling fans installed (the 4th board bay fan shown is regulated by the board based on CPU temperatures) and 3 of the 5 drive bay cooling fans installed (all fans are 8cm), power supply has dual cooling fans; top panel removable, side panels hinged at rear, easy lift off front panel is key lockable so no panels can be removed without key, case intrusion alarm - original plan was to install the HDDs high up at the top of the case for cooling, but the 18" maximum length for the ATA/66 EIDE cable forces the HDDs to a more traditional location (one at bottom of drive bay, and one at top of board bay) - motherboard not yet installed

Top of case front panel with
Teac 3.5" 1.44Mb floppy drive, 
Creative 52x CD-ROM (replaced
by a just released sixth generation Pioneer 16x/40x DVD-115),
 open slot is for
HP CD-RW 4x4x24x 8250i drive
from old computer

Lower part of case front panel showing
Seagate 20Gb SCSI Ultra2 Travan
backup tape drive
and
Live Drive
for Midi, microphone, headset, and digital connectors (connects to Platinum Live card)
Master HDD is behind the
Antec Drive Cooling Unit
(Live Drive placement provides cooling space between HDD and tape drive)

Logitech iTouch RF wireless 
Internet/multimedia keyboard
and 3-button wheelmouse
(RF transmitter/receiver shown at top center connects to PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports)

Wacom Intuos 12"x12" USB Digital Tablet
stylus shown on pressure sensitive drawing surface - stylus has "eraser" end - tap function key and color controls at top of drawing pad

 


Logitech Wingman Force 
USB Joystick
force feedback, 8-way hat, 9 button, throttle wheel
(not quite the real thing, but close)

LifeView RoboCam USB Digital Video Camera
640x480 full-screen 30 frames per second video
and stills with hardware or software shutter button

Altec-Lansing ADA 880 80W Dolby Digital/Surround Speaker System
4 - 3" standard speakers, 2 - 1" tweeters, 1 - 8" voice coil subwoofer; digital or analog input, remote control (two top standard 3" speakers can be removed and set in independent bases for surround speaker placement)

Labtec Clearvoice 
stereo headset with boom microphone
designed for speech recognition applications,
on-cord mute and volume control

Samsung SyncMaster 955DF 19" .20 dot pitch flat screen monitor

Original server design called for either of 
the two following motherboards

Intel stops production on the Memory Translator Hub (MTH) / Memory Controller Hub (MCH-S) chip of the 820/840 chipset due to reported memory fault problems of the chip causing lockup or reboot

Oh, the fun of trying to acquire the newest technology...

So it looks like both the Supermicro PIIIDM6 and the Tyan Thunder 2400 are out of the picture. All manufacturers have stopped making the Intel 820/840 chipset based boards which use the MTH/MCH-S, although Tyan is still showing the 2400 on their website. Boards using the 820/840 chipset with Rambus (RIMM) are not affected.

The latest word from Intel is that the MTH/MCH-S chip of the chipset will not be produced and therefore the 820/840 chipsets will only support Rambus effectively doing away with SDRAM support.

Supermicro PIIIDM6 ATX motherboard
Intel 840 Carmel chipset, dual Slot 1, 133FSB, 4 168-pin DIMM slots, 4 PCI 32-bit slots, 2 PCI 64-bit slots, 4xAGP Pro slot, dual UDMA ATA/66 EIDE, dual Ultra 3/160 SCSI,  floppy connector, on-board 10/100 RJ-45 Ethernet, sound, 2 serial, 1 ECP parallel, 2 USB, PS/2 keyboard & mouse, and 1 infrared

Tyan S2257 Thunder 2400 ATX motherboard
Intel 840 Carmel chipset, dual Slot 1, 133FSB, 4 168-pin DIMM slots, 4 PCI 32-bit slots, 2 PCI 64-bit slots, 4xAGP Pro slot, dual UDMA ATA/66 EIDE, dual Ultra 2 SCSI (Ultra 3/160 optional),  floppy connector, on-board 10/100 RJ-45 Ethernet, sound, 2 serial, 1 ECP parallel, 2 USB, PS/2 keyboard & mouse, and 1 infrared

HP ScanJet 4p

Other components from old system
HP LaserJet 5L
HP DeskJet 870Cse (retired - 
replaced with HP DeskJet 1220c
wide carriage printer)
Casio QV-300 Digital Camera (retired -
replaced with Sony DSC-P1 3.3 
megapixel digital camera)

Operating Systems

Multiple OS boot
Windows Me
(does not use 2nd CPU directly),
Windows 2000 Server
Windows 2000 Professional
 separate boot partition with
Red Hat Linux 6.1
(compatible with dual Intel 733 CPUs, PIIIDM6
with Intel 840 chipset Supermicro motherboard)
and just for old times sake, good old
MS-DOS 6.21/6.22
(it still comes in handy every so often)
Major Applications

Microsoft Office 2000 Premium
Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, FrontPage, Publisher, PhotoDraw

Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 Professional
WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Paradox, Presentations, Trellix, Dragon Naturally Speaking

Lotus SmartSuite Millennium
WordPro, 1-2-3, Approach, Freelance, Organizer

CorelDRAW 9 Graphics Suite
CorelDRAW, PhotoPaint

 

 And just in case you want to know what an ATA/66 EIDE cable looks like...
It's the same width as an ATA/33 EIDE cable, but with twice the wires. Unlike the regular old EIDE cable, it makes a difference which connector gets the master, slave and board attachments, hence the color coding. The maximum cable length is 18", so it reduces your drive placement flexibility a bit in a full tower case.

And, if you've never seen a SCSI U160 LVD drive cable, here it is...  Note the wire twists between drive connector segments, and the cable terminator on the last connector on the right. SCSI drives on this cable segment have a data path over 240% faster than ATA/66 EIDE drives!

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