DELL PowerEdge 4100 2x Pentium PRO 180 MHz review - RETRO Hardware

[@Teksers]

"It took me some time to get a 2nd one"... Then shows box full of CPU's, you are a legend.

[@raylu324]

And the second cpu doesnt even work. LOL

[@RETROHardware]

:-)))) Yep from 50 pieces you will get: 45x 200MHz/256 4x 200MHz/512 1x 180Mhz/256

[@unnamed715]

RETRO don't play no shit!

[@garyblanton418]

LOL!!!!

[@bernardogaetani]

@@RETROHardware so, this motherboard handles 2 x 200Mhz processors?

[@RhysWilliamsEsq]

This takes me back, these were the first servers I worked on. They served us for years running file servers and Lotus Notes servers. I remember investigating slow down on one server only to find that a colleague had enabled a pretty intensive screen saver!

[@bitosdelaplaya]

yeah : allways disable the 3d screen saver

[@jmd1743]

Why I cringe when I see people destroying rare CPUs for 5 bucks of gold.

[@jamezxh]

n/a n/a rare I’ve got about 30 Pentium pro cpus in my shed

[@thedude1574]

@@jamezxh Thanks for hoarding them all

[@jamezxh]

@@thedude1574 hah yeah bought them for 5 bucks each about 10 years ago from a computer wrecker

[@mustangrt8866]

they better collect street garbage, it's more profitable

[@selami32]

Coz you know the art behind them

[@RETROHardware]

Photo gallery for this video: facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=retrohw&set=a.705205526557409

[@RETROHardware]

jo

[@RaoulB.]

Always appreciate your videos. This one makes me want to fix my dual processors slot one board which is not working right now : ( I hope to get it fixed.

[@mrsaizo0000]

So are the SCSI drives in RAID, if yes, what mode?

[@userfreebsd6675]

It can run half life 2?

[@joaodas1024]

@@RETROHardware Could you make a video with Windows 2000 installed on this machine? I think Windows 2000 may already have all native drivers for all parts of this server.

[@no1bandfan]

I remember hearing a story about scientists scanning old computers with X-rays to see through the different layers. This was for computer from the 70’s and 80’s. Surprisingly we have little info on how a lot of the older stuff was made and how it works. For every successful business that made computers, there were 10 that failed and their knowledge went with it. A lot of the people who worked on and designed the first generations of computers are dying off. Glad some people are looking at what came before.

[@mstandish]

People would look at images or copy fabrication masks to try and copy/reverse engineer processor design (USSR, China, etc). I think you are wrong on having little info on how older stuff works. It isn't that old and hobbyist are still recreating old CPU designs (NuXT, Commander X16, AltairKit, many 6502s from a breadboard, etc). Documentation was great back then and a home micro would come with a book teaching you how to program it. I am in my early 40s and know the computer in the video inside/out from when I was a young sysadmin in the Military. I would like to hope I am not dying off.

[@SerjLevonyuk]

Russian FSB still make x ray pictures of the electronic boards to find hardware backdoors.

[@natr0n]

That noise is haunting. It reminds me of the quantum bigfoot drives.

[@lelandclayton5462]

Reminds me of the Seagate ST-225, Had two of them in a 386 once. Sounded like a jet the whole time.

[@timothygibney159]

@@lelandclayton5462 I think the ballbarings are going out on those fans hence the noise :-/. I would look to see if there are modern replacements if I were him

[@chrwl007]

Still have my Quantum Bigfoot in a closet somewhere. Need to power it up to check whether it still works.

[@raven4k998]

@@chrwl007 could you imagine how scary it would sound with ssd's running in it then the fan noise would be the most noticeable thing about it instead

[@J4ckCr0w]

That noise is awesome. I adore SCSI.

[@jblyon2]

There was a PowerEdge 4200 at my first job out of college in 2008. Dual PII server. It belonged to the US Navy as part of a contract. They actually sent someone out to package it on a pallet and sent a truck to pick it up in 2009 as it was no longer needed for the contract (replaced with a PowerEdge 2550 they also owned) and they had it slated to go into production elsewhere.

[@moardargons8160]

The 4200 uses the Pentium II instead of Pentium Pro. (The 2200 is the single-CPU version)

[@PhaQ2]

Wow, I haven't seen a Conner HDD in decades. What a trip down nostalgia road.

[@ItIsNot1984]

Like 20 years later, Corsair puts a window on the side panel, sprinkles in some RGB and calls it a day.

[@Neodestro]

yep lol 0:30

[@Dreadnorth7734]

It’s looks more case labs 🦆

[@RuruFIN]

As a Carbide 740 Air owner I must admit that you're having a point there. :D

[@ItIsNot1984]

@@RuruFIN It is a handsome case even all these years later. I'm partial to my carbide 500R - been using it a long time or I'd probably have gotten a 740.

[@aunabreslingaming3279]

@@Dreadnorth7734 exactly what I thought.. the 1996(beige) equivalent to jarry's 2012 rig (barnacles nerdgasm) it does look like a caselabs case though! I agree

[@Raven-fu1zz]

"who in the right mind would really need more than one core" -my dad a really long time ago, man times have changed

[@vadymvv]

I Remeber my own words: "who's gonna need flash memory when we have dvds!?". It was max 16mb back then.

[@NonsensicalSpudz]

@@vadymvv haha I like how you just thought nah increase in capacity is not gonna happen :P

[@vadymvv]

@@NonsensicalSpudz i mean, that memory was very expensive back than.

[@NoNoseProduction]

@@vadymvv everything always gets cheaper or you get something that is better

[@steriftes]

And then there're intel with 16 cores

[@foxyloon]

I had an old Data General server of the same era, and it was quite a beast, much like this Dell! I don't recall the exact model, but It could take 4 CPUs (it was populated with two 200MHz 512k cache Pentium Pros when I got it), had 256MB of ECC RAM, as well as two IBM 4GB drives. It also had a remote management card, much like Dell's DRAC, or Compaq's "Lights Out" card. I attempted to resurrect it, but realized it was next to impossible. Didn't have any of the original utility software, and parts are especially hard to find. (To upgrade it, I needed more drives and caddies, and VRMs/heatsinks to be able to fully populate the CPU slots.) Ended up parting it out after the drives failed. (This particular server had insanely high hours on it, after all.) At least one of those Pentium Pros I salvaged, along with four of the RAM sticks, ended up being used to resurrect an old Gateway 2000 G6-200 board I found on eBay for $20.

[@forjo]

I still have two of these in my garage! They were fully functional on Windows 2000 the last time I booted them years ago. Maybe I'll try turning them on one day! :)

[@rwdplz1]

13:45 "Of course all attempts failed" Windows. Windows never changes...

[@jani140]

Wonder if linux would boot and consume both CPU's

[@zarkeh3013]

I remember doing this, back in the days... bleh. (edit: though, being successful) ... Also, had dual pp200's running ubuntu as a test

[@rudolfabelin383]

I ran three of the Dell PowerEdge 4200 for many, many years. They were very good systems. The only drawback was the stupid SCSI disk trays, that used an "in between" adapter between the disk and the back plane.

[@kingcrimson234]

Dell PowerEdge are still great to this day, and are my go-to when it's time to build a new server. They're unstoppable tanks that will just keep working for years. Decades, even.

[@bunter6]

Ahhh old Barracuda's from back when Seagate Enterprise drives were something to covet.

[@sc0or]

Windows NT was a piece of rock literally. After 95 which I had to reinstall every month(!), NT survived two years without a re-installation. A separate dos process in each console window was an awesome feature.

[@ethanspaziani5269]

I love you man this kind of stuff is exactly what needs to be preserved and saved from the dumps I have tried in my life to preserve technology and different things that I and passionate about my life is very hard and I don't have the money and resources to do it you're doing amazing work PS please be careful with those old power supplies you should try taking them to somebody who really knows what they're doing and have them thoroughly examined and or refurbished

[@demoniclese]

Oh the memories.....i was building those Pentium Pro machines when they were new! As soon as MMX came along the PPro was useless....takes me wayyyy back!

[@patriceo344]

0:14 that misaligned "Pentium Pro" sticker is ruining everything

[@MRHOTCAKE]

You should install some 120mm fans infront it looks like it has the right holes

[@RETROHardware]

Yep this was original cooling 3x 120mm fans + big heatsinks without fans.

[@ZoruaZorroark]

imagine getting a fully speced out machine back when this was new

[@foley2k2]

Neat, I have one of these style beasts with quad Slot 2 Xeon, 3 PSUs, and 1GB of EDO. It's an oddball and can make for a solid end table. MSRP could have easily been $10,000 in the 90s.

[@jon199680]

It would make a great sleeper PC. Imaging how much modern hardware and cooling could fit in the case.

[@fadingbeleifs]

It would require so much modification that it wouldn't be worth it man..

[@fadingbeleifs]

It's not an ATX board in there..

[@fadingbeleifs]

Cases were purpose built on many systems back then...

[@ozpin8329]

@@fadingbeleifs Somehow, I think that anyone who was determined enough to use this case would be able to mod it.

[@Bruno-Guitarist]

@@ozpin8329 It´s not even a hard mod.

[@GeoStreber]

You know... that case actually SCREAMS for a sleeper build. If I ever come across a broken one of these, I'll build one inside.

[@BoomBox02]

That is one big beast. The sound when you powered on the Dell might be hard on the ears for some, but i found it quite pleasant as it drowned out the ringing in my ears from my tinnitus. Thanks for sharing, and i look forward to seeing this beast in action with the second CPU working. In the meantime, could you benchmark the the system with one CPU in action and then benchmark again when you get the second CPU working and compare the scores??

[@timrahto658]

seeing the NT 4.0 device manager brought back some memories. Not all of them pleasant.

[@MR-vj8dn]

Nice video. I remember this server. Back in the second half of 1990s, I used the PowerEdge 2200 to host around 15 web sites. It was for all the schools in a municipality.

[@pcclassic]

You need to check your HAL, Bro, and reinstall it if your HAL is for Uniprocessor PC. Oor you have a string NUMPROCS=1 in your boot.ini

[@skavossis5377]

That absolute UNIT! That shutdown noise is the spookiest thing heard this month so far.

[@AttilaSVK]

Pekne spracovane video :) Z prizvuku mi bolo hned jasne, ze budes Cech, a nazov stroja PREROV1 mi to len potvrdil. (a mimochodom prave som sa subscribeol)

[@cyberluke]

Prerov, tam jsem casto prestupoval na vlak z Ostravy :-D

[@lelandclayton5462]

I had one of these, well kinda. Back in 2000 I got ahold of the Case and Power Supply. Gutted the Power Supply and popped in the guts from a Rosewill 350Watt Power Supply. Had a AMD K6-2 system in it then upgraded to a Athlon 64 when it first came out. Would of kept the case and probably still be using it but couldn't take it when I moved out and my mother lost the house a year later leaving my huge pile of Retro Computer parts behind. Of course at this time no one was into Retro Computing.

[@TexugoFTW]

one of the coolest pc cases ever made

[@baasbassinnababylonrobert-9963]

looks like a old version of my workstation! great machine to build in a monster pc! love the classic looks!

[@Not_SatoruGojo]

Wow, fully modular PSU back there is really impressive

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

absolute mad lad I love this video

[@RETROHardware]

Not so fast but works fine :-)

[@the16bitsdigitalboy]

Hola amigo, buenas tardes; vi tu video y te agradezco por mostrarnos como eran los servidores de aquellos tiempos. yo soy autodidacta de la informática y siempre quise saber como eran esos servidores por dentro; gracias por tu video.

[@AgeofReason]

How does it perform? Did you ever do anything with it beyond this setup demo?

[@notarealhandle123]

Weirdly, this video reminded me that today is the day to vacuum my place.

[@PROSTO4Tabal]

that's some heavy duty retro pc going on. you can now create some Quake maps w Qoole ;) or other 3d rendering or CAD

[@RETROHardware]

Heavy ... yes I think +/- 35kg. In next days ... my hands are 10cm longer than usual :-)

[@HMods1991]

I have the PII version of this one… been in the family since new. Ran my dad’s business from 1998ish to 2003. Then was stored until around 2012 when we moved it to my house where it has sat ever since… I need to get it going again

[@alexitservicesgta7631]

I like how you use your hand to hold the CPU in when locking it. Pentium pro brings back some memories. Nice videos just discovered you

[@thatLion01]

This brings back memories. I almost forgot 3Com used to make Ethernet controllers

[@benrogersdevon]

Remember UNC?

[@michaelheimbrand5424]

I see a lot of comments on modern silent fan upgrades. I never worked with Dell in those days. I was a Compaq-guy. But anyway, silent machines are nice, but this is a server. The fans are very powerful, probably monitored and very much needed. I have seen some really big servers with fans that no modern gaming machine could be compared with.

[@thatLion01]

Please post more server stuff really love this content

[@kcinplatinumgaming2598]

I had similar a long time back there not light in weight .. easily break your spine with them .. bit of nostalgia again

[@pablohuento5190]

hola amigo , me encantra tus videos de esas pc retro . saludos desde bs as .

[@dr.ignacioglez.9677]

Yo trabajé con este servidor cuando recien terminé Teleko... good times

[@c.p.7266]

In about 20 years, could you do a Threadripper build?

[@michaelsasylum]

Comments be like "LOL, you only had 32 cores back then, how did you dinosaurs survive."

[@thegreatoutagesign9204]

@@michaelsasylum I think the bigger change will be base block speeds over core counts. as it'll be cheaper to manufacture, alongside that there's really a practical limit to how many cores you can utilize.

[@sHpAaKu316]

great work Man! Absolutely stunning effort and passion. Keep up the awesome work. You bring back the golden times of PC era. 🙂

[@Quietruck]

I always enjoy your videos, they relax me.

[@somegreenguy]

Amazing to think that the power of this one huge machine can be condensed into a tiny box nowadays

[@kingcrimson234]

A budget Wear OS smartwatch puts that machine to shame now lol.

[@ziggyprime]

I supported one of thee for a vet lab back in 2002.

[@juukagamer1522]

Very cool!! Congratulations on this rarity! I love old machines! I am technical and I love informatics! s2

[@nisemonoyarou]

Some say if you add 0.022 A to the Fans, it could create a resonance-cascade....

[@jeremykamel9655]

Nice resto! I would love a case like the that with a modern motherboard and hard drive drives.

[@Kuraio]

Amazing those capacitors haven't bulged a bit.

[@Wasmachineman]

Server grade stuff, Dell doesn't joke around when it comes to that.

[@borlibaer]

Such kind of fully equipped MPS Intel based Server Hosts had made sense as Microsoft based database / application, or file servers. In the professionel industrie realm, Sun SPARC, HP-UX PA-RISC and that IBM AIX stuff was used.

[@Queso305]

Those hard rives sound so good!

[@albertoolmos21]

I like Dell Computer mechanical design. It is very well engineered, a place for everything and everything in its place.

[@virtualinfinity6280]

Seagate Barracuda Harddrives. Haven't seen those in quite a while. Used to be among the fastest SCSI drives at the time. IIRC, the first 7200rpm drive.

[@miked8722]

I like the porn music playing in the background.

[@selami32]

every music is porn music if you want :d

[@J4ckCr0w]

Porn is on the screen too, only computer kind.

[@J4ckCr0w]

@Maurth Maurtheson It taps back!

[@_huskysoul1512]

Guys, at 0:44 it has an MSI motherboard. I am currently using MSI FXA990-GD65 ^^

[@Wilson84KS]

Cool thing, got a ways newer feel to it than it is, the backpanel of the mainboard, but also the BIOS, all the settings ways available on home pc's many years later, but the PSU is the highlight, the big screw is ugly, but everything is modular and functional.

[@Ligmasick]

That screw in power supply is great

[@chocolatemilkinafijibottle4143]

Your box of Pentium Pros is glorious. much love for the channel

[@joelcrocker1094]

if ya have any problems with the ram dims - all the dims need to the same speed & from the same company

[@RETROHardware]

No problem with RAMs.

[@talos86]

That noise... my first to do would be replace the PSUs stock fan with a high airpressure Noctua... and ofc replace the CPU fans with NoiseBlocker or Noctua fans.

[@Murdoch493]

That noise is 90% hard drive

[@talos86]

@@Murdoch493 Not exactly. Ive been built server racks in my workplace and those fans are extremely loud(ear protection is required if u want to enter the test area). Those are used in power supplies and for cooling in 1U-2U racks because of their high air pressure capability. We use those fans at SMT manufacturing too. Those are fixed in 4x4 clusters at the exit side of the wave soldering machines for cooling the finished boards. Mechanical HDDs are nothing compared that noise.

[@lordterra1377]

What a awesome machine. May I ask where you source these cpus and other parts in your collection?

[@RETROHardware]

These CPUs are random collect. I have many other in complete setups.

[@Eremon1]

When your IO card needs it's own RISC CPU...interesting that the dev team for that processor eventually went on to work on the Pentium Pro which is also in your system. Cool rig. On boot it sounds like a jet spinning up it's engines. Great old sound.

[@mstandish]

Most RAID cards have a dedicated RISC processor.

[@michaelsasylum]

I used to see a lot of those i960 CPUs in parts bins in the late 90s early 2000s. Lots of dumbasses stripping super expensive SCSI cards for parts not knowing their true worths.

[@lycanananas_sq5fox]

Nice video. I waiting for more!!

[@ckmhax]

Just spotted my 4X NEC CD-ROM drive in your lovely server. :)

[@HarrySinanian]

I picked one up a similar one for $300 mid ninetlies, those batteries on the SCSI were a pain, but it rain as a backup server for another 10 years untouched!

[@tobias_mx]

I love the sound of those old hdds

[@xiaochris7467]

I wonder in that year 1996, despite the OS Windows NT server 4.0, if it is possible to install other server OS, such as SCO openserver, Linux with kernel version 2.2.x, etc.

[@blingking501]

She's a beauty! I'd love to just mess about with it and see what I could run on it. Another great videos boss man.

[@drdysl3xia795]

I use to work on these this server back in the day. The Perk Raid Card are crap compared to Compaq's Raid Card. The Compaq 5000 was my favorite server.

[@Kuberniccus]

First ,new and silent collers(on source aswell|)/second change with ssd (with adaptors pata ),maby the mainboard suports higher cpu s /enyway,classic server

[@uncannyfox]

I love the sound she makes when she powers down!

[@mrbasscow]

UncannyFox yep that was sweet

[@gisp4245]

4:00 min Amazing barracuda

[@soton000]

Super. Ja ma compaq z 4 procesorami PPRO tylko 3 vrm mam i czekam na 4 :-)

[@cyberjack]

nice ,,,takes me back to good old days

[@5argetech56]

Almost looks like a Sun Microsystems case❤❤

[@michaelsasylum]

Bite your tongue, Sun cases back then were a work of industrial art.

[@qix76]

Now I remember how noisy it was the first SCSI driver I had, it was a Fujitsu u160 18gb: the noise was so loud I had headache after 5 minutes! :) Thanks God they improved the noise in u320 drives :) but now with SSD we complain about fans noise but that's another story :)

[@TechITMobile]

You probably try to install some newest OS than NT Server, like Windows 2000 Pro (support for 2CPU build) or Windows 2000 Server, but don't know if it will run setup at all.

[@benrogersdevon]

Regarding the OS and CPU issue; could install the ‘uni/multiprocessor compliant system driver, though I’m not sure where from for NT lol

[@madmat2001]

It would have been really easy to remove the sleeving on your existing power cables and just swap the shells onto the pins.

[@speedyjon28292829]

I was giving two of these when I was younger, and never really knew what I had until it was gone. I think the power supplies went bad though.

[@todornikolov2063]

Amazing. Thanks for sharing it with us...

[@索敵のナカーテ]

個人用（7:29） 圧巻のHDD同時起動音。縦に並んだいくつものインジケーターランプの明滅は 俺たちがイメージする、まさに「コンピュータ」の姿。

[@TheChadXperience909]

Should've played some 1996 era techno music to go along with the theme. Oh well... Missed opportunity.

[@sonicfon]

4:40.

[@Starfireaw11]

This brought back a lot of memories. I always used to install the multiprocessor kernel, even on single proc boxes, for this very reason. Given that the Pentium Pro 180 has an FSB of 60 MHz and a multiplier of 3, you should be able to bump it to a 66 MHz FSB for a moderate overclock to 200 MHz. I'm yet to find a ppro that can't be overclocked.

[@upgrade1373]

Never thought I'd say this about a Dell but that thing is amazing

[@XeonProductions]

I wonder if you could try Windows 2000 on there. It's not period correct, but it might be easier to get the second CPU running.

[@moardargons8160]

I have the little brother of this, the PowerEdge 2100/180, currently dual booting DOS 6.22 and Windows NT 4.0 Workstation with 128 MB RAM. (There also exists a PowerEdge 6100 with four CPUs, but I have never seen one.)

[@nalinux]

I had quite the same at work running NT4. Switched for a Pentium 933 and Samba :P

[@behradofia1975]

I love you and your channel

[@timothygibney159]

You need the SMP kernel from a WIndows NT uniprocessor install cd. They were were seperate back then but the serial numbers should work if you can find one off ebay. Also, Linux from 1997 and later have SMP with mediocre Scsi support which will run great for a web server. FreeBSD will run AWESOME on such a machine which back in the 1990s had great scsi support but no SMP. FreeBSD 3.x was from the late 90's and is very lean. Windows 2000 will run too but a bit slower. With Windows 2000 you can at least get USB working and it will do SMP with both processors out of the box. Cheers! I would cream my pants for this shit when I was a kid back then wanting to learn NT and Unix and have a real machine ooohh. This is a great Unix workstation as well as NT 4 ... with the right kernel install.

[@w888w]

贊！😍 保持得真完美； 中央處理器都拿來做鑰匙圈了！

[@aarongreenfield9038]

I used to work in a meat market, and that thing sounds like the bandsaw I used to use.

[@CoolDudeClem]

And now we have computers with multiple cpus on one chip! How far we have come.