Re: Dell PE1400sc

[Diana Eichert <deichert@wrench.com>]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2002, Nick Holland wrote:

> Øyvind Vadset wrote:
> > 
> > I am changing a web/mail server and was looking at Dell PowerEdge 1400SC,
> > my question
> > is easy. Have anybody had any problems running OpenBSD on it ?
> > 
> > -- Øyvind
> 
> I booted and installed OpenBSD on a PE1400sc recently, I do believe,
> client's machine destined to become a Netware server, but got
> sidetracked for most of a day as I tried to verify that the new MBR
> code worked properly on it...
> 
> Answer: Apparently worked well with a few gotchas:
> 1) The *stock* MBR code does not work, as is true for many Dells. 
> This is fixed in -current, or by the proceedure in FAQ 14 on "Drive 0
> Partition 3".  As this machine has a maintenance partition, this
> really shouldn't be an issue for you, *if* you set the machine up
> "properly" (i.e., load maintenance partition on all HDs before loading
> OpenBSD), you won't end up installing the OpenBSD MBR.
> 2) The Dell servers typically use the Serverworks IDE chipset, which
> is NOT supported in UDMA mode by OpenBSD at this point.  This means
> your IDE performanc will, uh, suck.  As I recall, the SC stands for
> SCSI, so this may not be an issue for you, but the CDROM is IDE. 
> Note, this isn't to say the IDE doesn't work, it is just running in
> the "compatability" mode, a.k.a. PIO, a.k.a.,
> beat-the-heck-out-of-processor mode.
> 
> Other than the above, fairly nice box.  Dual SCSI channels which are
> nice, so I could have the HDs and the tape drive on separate channels
> (drives were Ultra160, the tape drive was content at 10MB/s...bad
> things to pair up).
> 
> Note: The machine spent <24 hours running OpenBSD, and never really
> *did* anything productive, so I really can't say how well it worked,
> but it appeared to run fine in the time I ran it.
> 
> Could I ask that you not send subjectless messages to the list?  Makes
> it very hard to figure out if no one has responded or if ten people
> have already said the same thing I am telling you...
> 
> Nick.
> -- 
> http://www.holland-consulting.net

I've been running OpenBSD on several of these since July of last year with
2.9.  I did have the "dreaded Drive 0 Partition 3" problem listed in the
FAQ on 1 of the systems, reinstalling the MBR per the FAQ fixed that
problem.  Odd thing was I did the exact install on 3 other systems with no
problems.

We have the SCSI versions and didn't use the CD for the install so I can't
comment on that.

diana