Re: PowerEdge SC600 memory upgrade
- From: "Bradley Walker" <bawalkerREMOVE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 16:46:50 GMT
Those are all great ideas and many of those I've already covered. For
example everytime I work on a Dell I either remove or relocate the I386
folder sometimes deleting it alltogether and informing smarter customers to
keep their CD on hand for when it's needed. Anyway I spent the time
addressing many of the other issues especially with removing unnessecary log
files, temporary files, and actually reinstalling several programs to
D:\Program Files from the C: partition. This aleviated a big crunch where
free space had gotten down to as little as 50MB free.
Speaking of network printing, they are connected to HP print servers that I
actually setup a few years ago to bypass this very problem. This company
isn't very large. They do have 6 on site employees but because it's the
only trash company in this county, they do all of the billing for
residential and commercial customers through a specially written "trash
program" which was written in VB4 and is very poorly written in my opinion.
This program *has* to be on the C: drive of the server otherwise it won't
work with XP or 2000 or NT based OS's for the server install, plus it's
client side install only installs the basic DLL's needed to function when
sharing the network app. It's setup via a shortcut link on their desktop
that goes to a mapped drive/shared folder in C:\Program Files\trash program.
It's had printing problems from day 1 on those OS's as well and even more so
with network printers. One of the first problems I had with that setup was
that the trash software wanted to print to LPT1 and refused to recognize TCP
port based printing. So this software definately isn't your standard run of
the mill Microsoft 'compatible' software. In fact they have been using this
since 1996 if I'm not mistaken.
Anyway with that said, that is what I feel that adding more memory should at
least help alleviate part of the problem. My client refuses to have custom
software written for them as it would cst $12,000-$15,000 to do so as well
as the fear of newer software being incompatible with the current format.
I've tried to explain that's what custom programs do, written around your
specific need. I think they are a little over paranoid sometimes, but it is
their business and not mine. I just support the I.T. problems. But back to
the current trash software. Support with the current software company (one
man coder-support person) is very non-existant sometimes and when he does
support the product, it's hard to get technical information out of him or
even request changes to the code due too incompatibilities etc.
For the time being when my client does their monthly billing which roughly
takes 2 days to accomplish, they access the customer account data in this
trash program, and begin printing. Normally when all 5-6 employees are
accessing the network application, the server behaves just fine. No
slowdowns, no virtual memory issues, nothing. However it's when the one
office person is accessing the network app, printing out around 10,000 bills
for their residental and commercial customers that the problems start. I've
sent an email to the programmer asking how exactly that program is working
when someone is printing from it. Is it swelling up with massive temporary
files, is it not opening and closing other files correctly, and so forth.
The two resolutions I mentioned to my client was that we could either add
more memory (doesn't have to be maxed out at 4GB - but they brought that up
before I did) if the program itself is getting memory hungry, or secondly
would be to modify how their hard drives are setup. HOWEVER, they don't
have a backup solution in place as of yet. Thats another reason I'm helping
them at this time... is to get BackupExec installed (on D:\ of course) and
get a weeks worth of full and incrimental backups before I so much as even
consider touching the hard drives.
But yes, the core question I had in all of this is what memory would be
compatible with Dell. ECC and Registered are a requirement. I didn't know
if Micron, Crucial, Corsair or other high brand names would work, or if
their voltages was different than the "Dell branded", etc.
Brad
"Christopher Muto" <muto@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:rshXf.329$v9.103@xxxxxxxxxxx
this reads like one of those reading comprehension tests... lots of
information but all you are asking about is how to inexpensively upgrade
the memory in a pe 600sc* from a single 512mb stick. the short answer is
crucial.com or dell.com (yes sometimes they are cheaper). crucial has
512mb sticks for $100 and 1gb sticks for $200.
but you raise lots of other issues that should be addressed. the limited
disk space on the primary drive can be dealt with in many ways before
having to resort to resizing the partition or some other drastic thing.
like was suggested you could reduce the swap file size. often i find that
a \i386 file usually exists which can be moved or deleted. this folder
contains the uninstalled version of the os (a copy of the \i386 folder
from the os cd). you can move this folder to another location so that you
have quick access to a live copy or delete it altogether if you don't mind
inserting up the os cd when you make certain changes to the os. you can
also delete temporary files like windows temp files and internet explorer
internet files. you can limit the size of temporary file cache so it
doesn't get out of control. you can delete rollback files that were
created while installing service packs. and assuming that there is a
backup program like backupexec used i would image that there are lots of
logs files that can consume lots of space and they can be deleted. you
can also move applications from the primary drive to another location. it
may require uninstalling and reinstalling which makes things that are
service specific better candidates for such a task (again, the backup
program comes to mind). but that all said you so not need very much free
space for windows 2000 server to work properly. but when it is low you do
have to keep and eye on it.
you didn't say how large this organization is but you did mention printing
was slowing down the server. unless you have some need to audit print
jobs (like to bill back to a particular department or client) then you
should not be using the server as a print server. each computer should
print directly to each network printer. this not only eliminates the
server wasting it time with the job but also means that the print job only
travels once over the network (pc->printer instead of
pc->server->printer).
and if the thing is just a file server (not running exchange or any
database application etc) then 512mb of ram is probably enough. but for
$100 you might as well upgrade it with another 512mb for a total of 1gb as
it certainly could not hurt (unless you buy some dubious cheap memory that
results in the system freezing and/or corrupting the registry - so don't
be cheap about it, buy from crucial or dell).
hope that gives you some things to think about.
* i assume that you mean 600sc, i don't know of a sc600 unless you are
perhaps in another country
"Bradley Walker" <bawalkerREMOVE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%deXf.4485$kg.959@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
One of my clients has a Dell PowerEdge SC600 P4 server that they use as
the backbone for their business. Today I visited on site to review a
complaint regarding virtual memory errors, severe slowdowns and having to
reboot the server after a major printjob. The first thing I saw when I
logged onto the server was that they are running a 3 disc raid array that
has a 4GB C:\ partition and a 116GB D:\ partition. The OS is Windows
2000 and after having that installed along with basic other software,
they are down to 384MB remaining free on the C:\ partition. Basically
the virtual memory has no place left to go.
We had a discussion on how to solve this and I suggested that what they
are asking of their server in general, they need to upgrade beyond the
512MB single stick of memory that they have in there now to possibly max
out the server with 4 x 1GB sticks. However on Dells website,
PC2100/ECC/Registered is listed at $274 per 1GB stick. My question is,
can I goto newegg or tigerdirect and get them PC2100/ECC/Registered
memory at around $150 per stick instead? Does dell run different voltage
for memory? Anything I need to be aware of?
Brad
.
- References:
- Re: PowerEdge SC600 memory upgrade
- From: Christopher Muto
- Re: PowerEdge SC600 memory upgrade
- Prev by Date: Re: Dimension L700cxe problems
- Next by Date: Re: PowerEdge SC600 memory upgrade
- Previous by thread: Re: PowerEdge SC600 memory upgrade
- Next by thread: Re: PowerEdge SC600 memory upgrade
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
|
