Looking to put together an Ubuntu server setup. I'm in a backwards
predicament....

I have six 512mb PC 2100 DDR ECC DIMMs and no hardware to put them in.
Normally, I pick up a barebones Compaq minitower or SFF machine from
eBay, then put my own HD and RAM in it. This time, I have RAM but
don't know what computer to it them in. I don't want to build my own
hardware, I'd rather have something already together to save myself
some time. Just pop the gb of RAM in and go.

Can anyone recommend a (barebones) desktop from Compaq/HP/IBM/etc?

Thanks.

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:32:46 UTC in comp.os.linux.hardware, cs
<craft.steve@gmail.com> wrote:

> Can anyone recommend a (barebones) desktop from Compaq/HP/IBM/etc?

PC2100 DDR RAM is vrey old and anything you find that will use it will be at
least 5 years old to start with. I suspect you'd do better to Ebay your 3GB RAM
and put the $20 it will raise towards something newer and better!

--
Trevor Hemsley, Brighton, UK
Trevor dot Hemsley at ntlworld dot com

On Sunday 29 June 2008 20:33, someone who identifies as *Trevor Hemsley*
wrote in /comp.os.linux.hardware:/

> On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:32:46 UTC in comp.os.linux.hardware, cs
> <craft.steve@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Can anyone recommend a (barebones) desktop from Compaq/HP/IBM/etc?
>
> PC2100 DDR RAM is vrey old and anything you find that will use it will be
> at least 5 years old to start with. I suspect you'd do better to Ebay your
> 3GB RAM and put the $20 it will raise towards something newer and better!

Hmm... Not necessarily so. The OP is talking of ECC registered DDR RAM,
which is not quite the same thing, and does not follow the same upgrade
frenzy as consumergrade PC hardware does.

It is however true that systems for pc2100 are getting more rare by the day,
and presumably a second-hand offer on eBay - such as a couple of Opteron
servers we've managed to pick up from there - might be easier to come by
than a new machine, but unless I am mistaken - I haven't checked recently -
servergrade manufacturers like Tyan or Supermicro /might/ still have
motherboards in their offer that support this kind of RAM.

Of course, the question will then be whether this type of RAM isn't too slow
to accommodate the powerful processors those motherboards were designed
for.

I happen to have a machine with pc2100 still here myself - an Intel
motherboard with two P4-based Xeons, and the memory even only works at
pc1600 specification there (albeit in dual channel mode). This machine was
built in 2002 and was "middle of the road" in terms of Intel server
solutions back then, meaning that newer and faster already did exist, but
AMD stuck with first generation DDR until only about three years ago, and
many motherboard manufacturers still support DDR-1.

But like I said, it would be slow, compared to the power of the processors
intended for those "last of the DDR-1 generation" motherboards.

Should the OP decide to sell his memory modules on eBay, then I would surely
suggest a higher asking price than 20 US Dollars. ECC memory is more
complex and more expensive, and typically also comes with a limited
lifetime warranty from the manufacturer.

Your mileage may vary... :-)

--
*Aragorn*
(registered GNU/Linux user #223157)

On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 09:32:46 -0700, cs wrote:

> Looking to put together an Ubuntu server setup. I'm in a backwards
> predicament....
>
> I have six 512mb PC 2100 DDR ECC DIMMs and no hardware to put them in.
> Normally, I pick up a barebones Compaq minitower or SFF machine from
> eBay, then put my own HD and RAM in it. This time, I have RAM but don't
> know what computer to it them in. I don't want to build my own hardware,
> I'd rather have something already together to save myself some time.
> Just pop the gb of RAM in and go.
>
> Can anyone recommend a (barebones) desktop from Compaq/HP/IBM/etc?
>
> Thanks.

You can get 4G of DDR2-800 for $80 so it makes no sense making a purchase
decision based on utilizing that RAM. Everything in a modern systems will
be bigger/faster and cheaper than something from the era of DDR RAM. If
you can find an old Xeon system for free then you might want to use that
RAM, otherwise the best thing to do would be to throw it into your scrap
box and forget about it.