clutch

The CPU of choice for most manufacturers? LOL!

I am not entirely sure, but I am under the impression that it was done by SHS. If it was, I believe he has his reasons (even if they were a little hard to understand at the time ).

If you have Win2K server, your best bet is to can ICS and use RRAS with NAT enabled. As for (what sounds like) your name resolution issue, did you put your ISP's DNS servers in the forwarders tab of your local DNS box?

Congrats, but always remember that you CHOSE this profession (a great reminder when you realize how much it starts to suck after a few years into it).

Start>Run>"cmd" Then, enter "cd %userprofile%\cookies" and knock yourself out...

Sounds more like you have auto-insert notification turned off than anything. I haven't seen that bug in 6 WinXP Pro installs, or in the 3 Beta installs that I fiddled with a while ago.

What mobo do you have?

Well, you managed to find one company that will use them. With any luck, maybe they'll be worth my time in the future...

I already have a fair amount of air going through my main system, but I have been thinking of redoing my home server to cool the drives a bit better. I will probably have to take a look at them tonight and see how they are running. Tnx for the info.

I think that www.cramsession.com might be a decent resource to start off with. Otherwise, I would really have to suggest getting some books (like Sybex stuff) and start reading up on it.

@OK, What are the ambient and case temps at the time that these drives are cool? I haven't had any issues with my drives overheating, but I have been thinking of an active cooling situation anyway.

I understand and appreciate your point, and I do hold out hope for AMD in the future (especially for the nForce chipset that will also power it), I just know that when a person is a solitary admin it's much easier to buy once and then "forget" about the server than to have to deal with simple issues like heat buildup/cycling and component compatibility, let alone server stability. So many of our members here are desktop tweakers and host what they consider to be servers, but are actually PCs running copies of a server OS on them. Many of these people don't even realize the amount of tweaking and adjustment that they perform on a new installation to "bring out the best" of his/her installation, as this is second nature. When setting up a server, searching for drivers and hardware that are compatible with the OS, hardware, and one another is the LAST thing you want to mess with. This is like my love of IBM harddrives; I use them in my personal workstations and wouldn't give them up, but I have had one die on me and another die on a friend while many here have had the same issues. Therefore, even with a RAID setup I still can't really recommend any of their ATA offerings to low-end server builders since they *seem* to have a QC issue at hand. AMD has some kick-a$$ processors, that's for sure. I just don't believe that they are *quite* up for the challenge of production servers yet.

I have used older versions, and found them to be hogs when I am performing a burn, but then again I dedicate a separate system for burning CDs. Are there any other applications that you are trying to run at the same time? Any virus scanners running in the background?

I think that the point that I am making is that Intel has built solid technology for a long time, and is very reliable. AMD, on the other hand, has not. They are just getting their act together (which I have repeated) and do not try to sell their regular processors as server class or enterprise class. As for my personal opinion, I wouldn't load MS Money on any of the current AMD platforms, let alone any ERP system or anything that I would (as the thread starter pointed out) classify as "crucial" to my business. Oh, and one more thing, has anybody here run NT 4 Server on any of these chipsets from AMD being mentioned? I have on the ones I brought up (BX, i815, i820, etc), but I haven't seen anyone mention that they are running their accounting databases on it. As for the 1U system, I wonder who has 10 of those bad boys stacked and running anything major on them. Must be one helluva sauna in that rack. Speaking of a sauna, it would appear that "overheating" is still a major concern with respect to that custom server being built for Boeing. But, if you will build a completely custom chipset I am sure that they can get it to work just fine. But, as I have stated before, AMD procs are known for heat, and this heat can kill a server over time. I just want to see someone using a 2 way AMD server (I would rather see a 4 or 8 way box, but alas AMD can't seem to do that yet) to its limit for months at a time, and then speak of how durable it is. You don't have to go far to get that kind of information from Intel admins. Mission Critical servers can (and in my case do) run dual processors at times. I run SQL server 2000 and SMS 2.0 on my admin server, and I will be ordering either another duallie or a 4 way unit for our ERP system (not sure if the Progress DB software scales that well to 4 processors for our application) and the SQL box not only maintains our SMS system, but it also handles our ePolicy orchestrator (McAfee), a couple of website databases, and website logging databases. As I have jobs running almost constantly in one thing or another on this box, it's pretty important for us. No issues, no worries. The 1U server with dual 866 processors runs quite cool, and the only problem I had was one of the 3 power supply fans was generating false failure codes (which the server alerted me to via email). I simply called Compaq and a tech drove out with another power supply and changed it. We have actually had our ERP databases running on a Compaq Proliant 5500R with a 400MHz Xeon in it, and it has worked really well. We are just outgrowing it at the moment, and plan on combining the file sharing of the ERP application with the database and EDI handling of it into one server (hence the possible need for a 4-way unit).

At the time, that is correct. However, you will be hard pressed to find anyone that would do it now. Compaq sells AMD processors in their workstations, but not in their servers. Ever wonder why that is?

Check out the configs, and you'll see an interesting pattern from the Anandtech peeps; all of the heavy number crunchers (database and forum servers) are running Intel platforms. Those would be "mission critical" applications. Since they have several "cheap" AMD servers that run in a load-balanced configuration (load balancers on Intel platforms as well since there were no 1U AMD mobos, probably due to heat buildup) they can act in a redundant fashion. So, they followed the example I listed. As for the other link shown, that's Sun and they've been "Mission-Critical" and "High Availability" for a LONG time now. But then again, try pricing one of those bad boys out some time...

AMD has had a long history of dealing with thermal issues since their processors tend to run a bit hotter than what Intel is willing to release. While I am not a huge fan of Tom's Hardware, here is a followup article on their first one showing what happens when their units overheat. While this may not seem like something that would happen in a workstation, try using 10 1U dual-processor servers in a rack and see how much heat is generated (hence a reason why you don't see them from mainstream server vendors). Also, that link show's that it was more AMD's fault (as I would believe) since they are the ones that have to not only fabricate the internal workings of the CPU to be read, but write the guidelines for mainboard and chipset manufacturers to use in order for that function to work. While you may have been working with desktop class systems, server class is a whole different world. AMD may be getting the last bugs ironed out in desktop systems (for which I have hoped a prayed for a long time), but they have quite a ways to go in servers. They are fast and cheap for desktops (well, the motherboards are a bit more expensive than Intel counterparts it seems) but I simply want stability at this point. The systems are already running so fast anyway that I just want the thing to run when I install new equipment. My Via board (Apollo Pro 133a chipset, their "Top-of-the-line" at the time) wouldn't use my USB UPS, didn't work in standby, let alone hibernate, and hated my GeForce2 Ultra. Yet, my Celeron 300a@450 in my old BX-based motherboard didn't have any of these issues and actually ran faster in some situations running Windows 2000 Pro (and the Apollo Pro had my P3 800 in it). Now, I read about infinite loop errors and wonder when they are going to get their act together. So, now you have my reasoning. Been doing this for a while, and while I wait for someone to dethrone Intel from the server/high-end workstation front, I will continue to use and recommend their hardware.

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-8145809.html?tag=tp_pr This should cut down on the questions about about Advanced Server and ISA Server, right?

OK, as for mentioning "server" and "overclock" in the same sentence to a new person building a server, I don't think it's such a hot idea hence the response. As for CPUs not being responsible for the majority of crashes, what CAN be responsible for a large amount of crashes is a poor chipset that has compatibility issues with the hardware that's installed. I've seen simple driver updates make SCSI controllers have total fits (one actually scrambled the drive letters on a system and rendered it inoperable) on really nice equipment that was expressly designed for high-availibility applications, so when I hear about this week's "4-in-1" driver coming out and STILL not resolving a problem with a mainstream video card, I have to wonder about reliability when it comes to a server. As for the issue with the recall, I believe you are referring to the MTH (Memory Translator Hub) that was used in the i820 chipsets to make them run SDRAM. That was more of a marketing decision since RAMBUS was hell-bent on making everybody pay a premium for technology that they (allegedly ) stole from open source memory infrastructure groups. The MTH was an afterthought so the systems could use cheaper memory subsystems, but it didn't work well. And now, as for "performance" being better than Intel, tell that to a person that keeps crashing because of a simple driver issue. Oh wait, you just did, as I had repeated issues with Via-based systems when we tested them in telephony products. AMD has some great processors, but nobody came come up with a mission-critical backbone for it, period. Now, I was just advised by another patron of this board that Cyrix is indeed the way to go, and after extensive research I have to agree. Here is their new ultra-modern facility, complete with gas pumps courtesy of www.somethingawful.com: Click above image for more marketing information! So, you have your choices, and good luck with them.

Which is fine, and it is your opinion. However, so many people have had issues with playing games and getting relatively simple hardware like video and sound cards to run in a stable manner with Via-based products (and they are the major MB-chipset supplier for AMD, from what I have read), that I can't imagine even installing a hotplug split-backplane SCSI RAID controller on it, or Fibre controller, 10/100/1000 controllers into an AMD system. And it appears that I am not entirely alone in this thought process, as I have yet to see a major server vendor produce any server based on AMD processors as of yet. AMD can't even get any on-board high-temp shutdown process to work properly as of yet, while Intel has had it working for the last several years (system might lock-up or slow down in case of cooling failure rather than blowing the CPU), so while I applaud their increase in perceived value in the desktop arena, they have to big shoes to fill for server-class computing. But, if you can show me a major vendor that produces them (Compaq, Dell, etc) or even if ServerWorks produces a chipset for them (which I doubt), then I would be very interested in seeing it as I am about to buy another server for work. This one, however, is budgeted at $25,000...

If you want stability, stick with Intel CPUs and Intel-based motherboards. Also, you should never, ever overclock any server (or workstation for that matter) that contains mission critical data. It shouldn't even come up as a possibility. A server should be designed around stability as well as speed, and Intel delivers on both.

I am checking out these media player add-ons, and I was wondering if anybody has heard anything on them: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/windowsxp/buypacks.asp Just wanted to know if there have been any issues that someone might be aware of.

Over here: http://www.xp-erience.org/article.php?sid=650&mode=thread&order=0 They have a nice write up on using a floppy distro of Linux as a router/NAT system. I haven't fiddled with it, but it seems pretty nice (maybe similar to Smoothwall?).

There are admin utilities that can be passed out from an Exchange server to address it, but I don' think that would apply to you . Basically, there's some regkey that handles this, but I use TweakXP to take care of this for me. www.totalidea.de I am sure there are other utilities that will handle this as well, but that's all I can think of. Oh, and there's no conventional way to remove SP2 or the security update from Office 2K, which is why I never bother with it.