Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 22:30:47 -0500 From: Mark Mayo <mark@vmunix.com> To: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> Cc: hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Decent case for an Asus Dual PPro ? Message-ID: <19971130223047.63784@vmunix.com> In-Reply-To: <199712010250.NAA00475@word.smith.net.au>; from Mike Smith on Mon, Dec 01, 1997 at 01:20:34PM %2B1030 References: <19971130190040.24494@vmunix.com> <199712010250.NAA00475@word.smith.net.au>
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On Mon, Dec 01, 1997 at 01:20:34PM +1030, Mike Smith wrote: > > Hi all. I just picked up one of those Asus Dual PPro boards - the > > P6UP5 main board with the C-P6ND daughter card. The thing seems really > > hot (pun intended), and I'm looking forward to trying out > > FreeBSD-3.0/SMP on it! > > > > The only problem is that the only case I could find to fit it in was > > a super el-cheapo minitower that I could yank the 3.5" cage out of > > (to accomodate the long daughter card). This case sucks, and if I leave > > the metal enclosure on it gets much too hot for my comfort. > > > > So I'm wondering if anyone could recomend a decent case that works > > well with this Asus daughter card stuff. > > What footprint is this board? You might want to consider buying a > "real" chassis for it; either a rack case (moderately expensive, but > very robust) or a decent server tower. Have a look at supermicro's > site for some ideas on what real boxes look like. You should be able > to find someone in your area (Ottowa?) that carries their stuff. It's a 3/4 AT footprint - but that's not the problem. The daughter card that the CPUs are on plugs into what would normally be the "top" PCI slot, and extends all the way across the board. This mean that pretty much all cases that have the 3.5" hard-drive/floppy cage hanging down over the board are useless since it blocks the daughter card... I'm actually just outside Toronto, which means there's almost certainly someone in Toronto that actually carries real cases - the problem is finding them! I called about 20 PC shops in the phone book, none of which had a decent case. Arghh. I gave up and figured if someone was having success with a company that will ship me one I'd do that. I may look for some toronto newsgroups and post there looking for recomendations. Unfortunately for me, time is a factor... I'm starting to think that a rack may be the way to go, since I have a couple hubs and maybe 1 or two other PCs I wouldn't mind stacking in a corner and freeing up some desk space. I guess this is the first time that I've built a "real" server farm, so I've never had to deal with rack mount chassis, and real PC cases before. :-) It's sort of fun! You certainly get into frustration with the local generic PC clone shops though, who don't know anything about building reliable, redundant PCs.... I was *very* close yesterday to giving up on building a real fileserver out of a PC, and caving in and giving Network Appliance a call. :-) I just opened the SuperMicro page - cool stuff. Looks like they'll have what I'm looking for, I'll call them and find out who in my area carries their goods. Thanks for the tip. cya, -Mark P.S. I just spent the last hour ripping apart a 10 year old SGI "floor wheeling" box - wow. Talk about a different era in computing when the construction of cases was actually an engineers job! I'm planning on stripping it out and figuring out a way to mount 1 or 2 PC motherboards, a couple power supplies, and some HDs in there and turning the old gem into a PC power server in disguise :-) > > mike > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Mayo mark@vmunix.com RingZero Comp. http://www.vmunix.com/mark finger mark@vmunix.com for my PGP key and GCS code ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Win95/NT - 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company that can't stand 1 bit of competition. -UGU
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