May 7, 2019

Upgrade Dell Precision WorkStation Dual Xeon

Dell Precision 530mt Dual Xeon WorkStation. I decided to upgrade my 530 workstation from motherboard 2H882 and Forester processors to faster Prestonia Xeon 2.8 (sl6yL) mp processors, and upgrade to motherboard 3N384. The Prestonia Xeon processors have a 2meg L3 cache and are hypertheading enabled unlike the stock Dell cpu. The final Dell bios for this computer is ver A11, and must be at least A06 before installing the newer cpus. All of the Precision 530 systems use 400mhz frontside bus speed processors, and RDRAM, rimm memory. Intel introduced Hyper threading after the 1.7ghz therefore changing the motherboard specifications, and later Dell started shipping the 530 with part # 3N384 motherboard and 1.4 - 3.0ghz/400fsb Xeon mp processors The (VRM) voltage regulator module model number, 0G512, MUST be used with this processor upgrade.
This old Dell workstation got the upgrade treatment to be purely a video capture and editing computer. The operating system is windows Xp on a Quantum fireball hdd, attached to the onboard Adaptec scuzzi controller. A PCI-X sas controller provides SATA connectivity up to 4 storage drives. Futher upgrade to memory capacity is possible with the use of rimm socket adapters, however these are becoming rare finds in 2019, and 32bit winXP pro is limited to about 3.5gig. Why would I do this?? Well for starters learning video editing software takes time. I have been using Ulead videostudio since W2k and ver.8. Now on videostudio 11, which is nearly the same but works in HD mpeg. My video capture card is an ATI All In Wonder agp, and works great. A usb2 plus a 1394 fire wire card and I have a commercial grade machine that you cant purchase off the shelf at Best Buy at any price. WinXP pro and this hardware and editing software all play nice together, why fix what ain’t broke, unless we can upgrade it ;-) = SHARE ROCKNTV1