Blade server connections

[Tippon]

Hi all 🙂

I may have made a bit of a mistake with an Ebay purchase…

I bought a server, thinking that it was in a standard case, with the usual connections, but it turns out that I bought a Blade server by mistake. :wacko:

Any ideas how I’d hook this up so that I can get it up and running? Ideally I’d want to access it like a normal PC, but even getting it running Windows headlessly would work.

Thanks in advance 🙂

[PlaneMan]

I think you need the rack to make it work.

Could well be wrong though.

[RSB]

Is there no normal conection on the back, I have seen some with and without. Have you a link to the specs?

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Tippon]

Yeah, looks like it needs a blade enclosure, and the cheapest ones go for about £600+. This is the link to the one I bought:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/122007641629?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

I looked at so many different things on Ebay that night, that I missed the Blade part  :unsure:

[JayCeeDee]

There are some interesting answers HERE and HERE. – especially about the noise levels of the fans.

How long ago did you buy it – could you swap it for the product you wanted from the same people??

[Tippon]

Thanks John 🙂

It’s literally just arrived. I opened the box and realised how small it is, then saw the Blade connector on the back and realised what I’d done. I’ve spent the last few hours between researching this and fixing a washing machine, so I could do with a win 😛

One thread I saw suggested gutting it for useable parts and getting a cheap board, so I may do that. I have found a crazy guy on Youtube who’s modded one to run off another 12V PSU, and he’s got it booted with a noisy fan pointed into the case. Considering that it was only £35, I’m tempted to play with it instead.

[Tippon]

Apologies if I don’t come back to this thread for a few days. Trying to fix the washing machine last night while I was tired may have made things worse – error codes and now no power. I may have spilled water from the drawer onto the PCB when I tipped it up to get at the pump  :wacko:

 

 

P.S. I like the smileys here  :good:  :yes:

[RSB]

Always this time of the year something goes tits up! 🙁

Americans: Over Sexed, Over Payed and Over here, Wat Wat!

[Richard]

Oh dear it has all gone silent, I hope that the silence does not mean that more than the washing machine has suffered a power incident…

Modern machines doe not respond well to repairs, all too often the first sign of a problem is the signal that the device life expectancy is about done and dusted. I remotored a machine a few years back but I only got about 12 months out of the stupid thing before the laundry manager decided that a new one was required for some reason or another. So the procurement officer was pressed into action to supply a replacement. Now that one is a cause for complaint.

With a new baby on the scene I guess that washing could soon pile up so perhaps you have been on hand wash duties while sat in the dog house waiting for a new device. Dog houses do not always have internet so perhaps that is why silence has reigned (rained down) on you.

All the best for Christmas and trusting that all is not too dire.

Richard

[Tippon]

No, I’m still alive 😀

I almost killed the washing machine when I fixed it though. I turned it on its side to get to the pump and pipes, but didn’t realise that doing so moved the detergent drawer to above the control PCB and switches  :unsure:

Luckily for me, a quick strip and clean of the affected part got everything back to working order, and the mountains of washing that come from a baby with a stomach bug and a natural talent for projectile vomiting were soon cleared  :yahoo:

I’ve been doing the obligatory family time for the last few days, so any hope of playing with blades, server or otherwise, has gone out of the window. Hopefully I’ll get a bit of time again tomorrow, as I remembered that I have an old Max Black server downstairs that can be butchered. It’s of the age where most of the parts are not worth salvaging (socket 604 Xeons, DDR2 ECC RAM, 120GB IDE drive), but the PSU and rackmount case may be handy.

[Dave Rice]

It’ll be a proprietary connection.

You won’t get it to work outside of the correct chassis.

[Tippon]

Not the best video, but looks like it can be done, albeit not as neatly:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEv0RGPz3oM

Now that I’ve got it, I may as well give it a go. It just means that I’ll have to put it out of sight instead of where I wanted it.

The original plan was to modify the cooling, as I thought it would be loud like a rack server, then put it under the TV for video processing. Now it can go somewhere else and just take files from the video server, process them, then send them back. The program I use for organising files doesn’t need a lot of power, but works better with a lot of cores 🙂

[Author]

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