DELL Poweredge T105 $249

Saw this on PCWORLD link, the standard is $284 on the Dell site this saves you a little bit.

NOTE: they are discounting Windows Small Biz and other versions, and rebating too if you need an OS.

Seems to be a yearly option, I usually get a few just in case and have not retired one yet in 6 years, just repurposed and tough environement, shop/warehouse usage.

oops saw it is on a Dell deals tab too

Dual Core AMD® Athlon™ 4450B; 2.3GHz,2X512K Cache
2 160gb drives
2gb memory
1yr service

I've had one at home now for close to a year. Absolutely fantastic product.

This brings me back to the old SC400 days, I still have one of those and it still runs great.

Is there like, a link to this?

Link

Also, consider they had this same deal back in february, so that was over half a year ago. I would think that the relentless march of progress would have driven the price down a bit or at least added a few extra features but apparently not.

Also, these have two pci-e x8 slots though from what I found I don't think you'll be able to use graphics cards in them (if if you cut pins off the graphics card or hack the slot though I could be wrong). You'll also need a soundcard if you want to use it as a desktop.

Counterfit said: This brings me back to the old SC400 days, I still have one of those and it still runs great.

Exactly! I bought 2 of SC400. Running both of them 24/7 for about 5 years now. Absolutely no problem! Paid about $195 each and came with some Dell PDA free. eBay'd the PDA for like $55.00, bringing each down to about $140!!

HyperX said: Counterfit said: This brings me back to the old SC400 days, I still have one of those and it still runs great.

Exactly! I bought 2 of SC400. Running both of them 24/7 for about 5 years now. Absolutely no problem! Paid about $195 each and came with some Dell PDA free. eBay'd the PDA for like $55.00, bringing each down to about $140!!

True. If they threw in a free netbook with this I'd buy.

De11 Small Biz had this last week at the same price (after coupon) but with the first drive being 250GB. I bought one and upgraded the 2nd drive to 250GB ($50), and also upgraded to 4GB RAM (Two 2GB sticks, $32), for a pre-tax, pre-ship price of $311. ($25 ship, $15.88 tax in MO). I bought it with the intent of using it as a PC. I received it last Friday and installed the OS on Sunday.

A few words of warning to those who might be thinking about using this as a PC - things I learned after the fact. De11 only supports SERVER Operating Systems on this box, so if you intend to run a non-server OS, you might have a challenge finding drivers. I loaded Vista Ultimate 32 bit. It loaded fine, but when I first tried to connect to a network, it couldn't. I discovered via Device Manager that Vista couldn't see the network card (no driver). That problem alone killed over 2 hours (digging up a driver), but I eventually found one (using H-P's Broadcom NetExtreme driver) via a .NET site in India.

Site containing reference: Discussion of Vista network card drivers
Site containing H-P drivers previous link refers you to: Broadcom network card Vista drivers

When I tried to load those drivers via USB stick, Vista "kind of" saw the USB stick but wouldn't present it as a drive. So I burned the drivers to a CD and loaded them onto the T105 that way. Actually the H-P driver install program failed (didn't run to successful completion), but it ran far enough to actually install the driver files onto the T105's hard drive, so I pointed Device Manager to that directory, installed the driver successfully, and I was off and running, connected to the net.

Over 100 Vista patches via Windows Update later (another 3-4 hours), all is working as expected, running Vista SP2 (including reading USB sticks now).

A couple of other unanticipated things: Since it's a server, it has no sound card, thus no ports for speakers or a microphone. It also has bare-bones onboard video, so you'll need to pop in some kind of video card if you intend to do much there. It also does not have a parallel port (I have an old parallel H-P LJ that still gets the job done). I have ordered a USB-to-Parallel cable and also a USB sound "stick", both only a couple of bucks each via e-Bay, we'll see if those work. I know USB sound sticks don't get great reviews, but I'm not looking for much, and for less than $4 shipped, it's worth a shot.

After some tense setup moments wondering if I'd made the right choice, all in all I'm very happy with the T105, it's a pretty nice box for $300. So far the fans have only come on for a few seconds at boot time (they're fairly loud), but they haven't come on during use yet. Again, I'm using this as a PC, not as a server cranking thru transactions where it would get hot and need the fans).

Does it have AGP?

does NOT have AGP, has 2x PCI-e 8x according to above. PC's either have AGP or PCI-e, I think nothing out there currently has both anymore.

@advocatus - I had an SC400 that had the power supply die as well. A number of them had motherboard issues (capacitors) or power supply issues. I'd replace yours soon.

supafast said: does NOT have AGP, has 2x PCI-e 8x according to above. PC's either have AGP or PCI-e, I think nothing out there currently has both anymore.

@advocatus - I had an SC400 that had the power supply die as well. A number of them had motherboard issues (capacitors) or power supply issues. I'd replace yours soon.I went through a motherboard and a replacement power supply. I had to decommission my SC400 a few months ago after it refused to boot up...likely another PS or motherboard issue. I imagine it lasted about 6 or 7 years running non-stop. Definately worth the few hundred I paid for it.

psuJC said: Does it have AGP? no - but it does have a VESA slot and MFM hard drives

valeadmagnet said: psuJC said: Does it have AGP? no - but it does have a VESA slot ROFL...

anyways, look at www.kodeks.hr/Assets/Pdf/PE_T105.pdf

While I'm a big fan of Dell's products, I have one of these at home (Running Server 2003), and I have nothing but bad things to say about it. I bought this in April of 2008 on a similar deal at the time. Since then, I've had the following go bad/replaced (All in seperate issues, not as a collective)...

1 motherboard
1 processor (Yes, the processor itself)
3 hard drives (All Dell provided)
1 power supply
1 Front USB panel
1 memory stick

It's current state? Dead. ANOTHER (making 4) hard drive went after it exited the warranty period. Server sits in a server cabinet that's actively cooled and runs off an APC Smart-UPS 800, so it's not an enviroment issue. No problems with other equipment in the same cabinet.

I'm sure my experience with this box is an extreme case, but buyer beware.

Whatatay said: Red for not posting what this is in the title. Is this a computer, a printer, an edge trimmer? Oh its a T105. One of 5 billion model numbers I forgot to memorize. Then you can't even post a link to it.

If you don't know what a PowerEdge is, you don't need one.

I repurposed my SC400 as a WHS server after numerous upgrades to it--this might be a good box for WHS.

shipping -- $25?

I got in on the SC400 deal and I even remember being able to return parts for a credit. I think mine cost me about $120. Still running it with upgraded 3.0 P4 processor. I can even heat my house with this thing. I did buy a used one to replace the mb last year and am finally ready to trade up to a Quad 8300 that I got from HP.

But those were good times.

HyperX said: Counterfit said: This brings me back to the old SC400 days, I still have one of those and it still runs great.

Exactly! I bought 2 of SC400. Running both of them 24/7 for about 5 years now. Absolutely no problem! Paid about $195 each and came with some Dell PDA free. eBay'd the PDA for like $55.00, bringing each down to about $140!!

LOL, I remember that deal. I still have one of those crappy white PDA's with the rubber flap cover!

unadog said: How many bays for drives? thinking of using this as a media server and partial NAS. Guess I'll go have a look.

But recently there have been quad copre machines with OS and DDR3 for $400+ a bit. The problems with those have been slim cases, but I am thinking better to just buy another case and shove that motherboard and power supply, etc. in a tower to get more drive bays? Might be cheaper in the long run with a $60 case.

Thoughts? Thanks!! Michael
I had the exact same question. After a quick search I found the Manual ~8MB. It looks like there are 2 external 5-1/4", one external and two internal 3.5" bays. There are 4 SATA ports on the M/B (not sure if the DVD drive takes up one port). I don't know if Dell is using a standard layout so you can gut it out and stick it into a tower case with lots of drive bays. Anyone else know?

I also had an SC400 ^^. I just installed WHS + flexRAID on my XPS400 only for it's M/B to die (lights 1 and 4 during POST) so I think this might be a good file server (though the small number of drive bays means I'll have to have some drives sitting outside the box).

Edit: ebates has 1% cb for dellSB

advocatus said: HyperX said: Counterfit said: This brings me back to the old SC400 days, I still have one of those and it still runs great.

Exactly! I bought 2 of SC400. Running both of them 24/7 for about 5 years now. Absolutely no problem! Paid about $195 each and came with some Dell PDA free. eBay'd the PDA for like $55.00, bringing each down to about $140!!

I was in on the 400SC as well, and I love mine.. however I think I have power surges from the PS... as I've replaced three optical drives and a hard drive. I think it's the power supply. I guess none of you guys have had that problem.
I still have 4 (yes four) 400SCs in use currently. Of all the 400SCs I purchased, only my BIL's one needed replacing the caps. Since I run so many of these still, I have two sets of caps in case I lose any one of 'em. Fantastic product I say. I did lose a PSU on one of 'em.

I just upgraded this to Win7 from XP and now can't figure out how to get the sound to register. I forgot what sound card I put in here, how can I find out?