Something special: The HP Netserver LX Pro Quad Pentium Pro

tbird_

tbird_

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 5, 2002
Messages
158
Hi all,

as promised here, I want to show you what was Ultra-High-End back in the days of 1997 (25 years ago!).

It all started with a server from my high school, equipped with 2 166MHz CPUs and 256MB Ram. Over the years, i got 4 1MB 200 MHz Pentium Pros (aka 'Blackies'), the corresponding CPU boards, a 4 GB Ram Board with 16 * 256MB EDO Dimms, 2 RackStorage / 8 Hard drive arrays, new NetRaid 3si Controllers and so on ...

I don't want to loose too much words (although i'm not a native english speaker, so excuse any mistakes i make) :D


Here's the beast, weight is around 160kg with the two RS/8s:

c6jmv.jpg


wmkvm.jpg


Boot Process:

0pkwd.jpg


Drives and a LOOOT of space:

vfk0v.jpg


A little bit Quake?

FB_IMG_1614527953991.jpg


Sneak Peek inside:

k6jhb.jpg


4 GB Ram Board:

h9k5v.jpg


And i've got a couple of Videos of the Running Server as well ... :)





It would be nice to know if there are more NetServer Lovers out there??

Greetz,
Martin
 
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That's just awesome! Which version of windows was that? NT with 4 processor support?
 
SamirD : It's Windows NT 4.0 SP6 - Seems to support 4 CPUs out of the box with the 'Multiprocessor Kernel', which is detected during installation ... :)

wvkbh.jpg
 
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dawsonkm said:
Nice job with it. It must have been a beast back then
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Beyond a beast. This thing could do gigs of ram when 128MB was considered overboard, it had 4x processor when a single pentium pro was 'all you would need'. It had scsi buses for days when just 3 buses was god-like. This thing was like a data center in a box back then. Must have cost nearly $100k new.
 
It was one of the backbone servers of the "Belwue" high-school network in Germany . His name is Hugo (yeah, no joke! Also had a sister named Lisa).

Cost of that thing with current spec is around 200k - plus the two RS/8s.

Yeah, that WAS a BEAST. THE beast.
 
tbird_ said:
It was one of the backbone servers of the "Belwue" high-school network in Germany . His name is Hugo (yeah, no joke! Also had a sister named Lisa).

Cost of that thing with current spec is around 200k - plus the two RS/8s.

Yeah, that WAS a BEAST. THE beast.
Click to expand...
Super cool you know the full history. :) Were Hugo and Lisa in some sort of HA or failover setup? That would have been ultra bleeding edge back then if they were. And how did they implement something like that if they were?
 
I don't Really know the exact Setup - but both were connected simultaneously to the network and had the same specs. I could image some sort of fail over cluster... Maybe with some special controlling software.
 
Awesome! My most memorable moment with an old quad socket involved a quad PII box. Also my most memorable electrostatic discharge event. Got my finger too close to a CPU in the middle of winter and *zap*. Machine crashed. Thankfully it was fine. Nothing broke, it just crashed and rebooted. I have to confess I'm more fond of 2000s era multi-socket setups as retro rigs since that's when I was running dual socket machines. I was a student and couldn't afford one in the Pentium Pro days. I had a dual P3, a dual Athlon XP (not a typo -- bridge mod) and a dual socket 940 as my main rig. If I built an insane retro multi-socket rig I think I'd go with an 8-way socket 940 Opteron with one core per socket. I quit doing dual sockets when multi-core came out. I wonder if my quad socket F machine still works. I got that one free from work, though I spent a few bucks on ram, CPUs and disks. I haven't powered it up in a few years. I should try firing it up sometime.
 
Love this!!!! I had an NEC Quad PPro 180 in about 1998. It was so slow LOL. Very cool that you have yours up and running!!!
 
tbird_ said:
Hi all,

as promised here, I want to show you what was Ultra-High-End back in the days of 1997 (25 years ago!).

It all started with a server from my high school, equipped with 2 166MHz CPUs and 256MB Ram. Over the years, i got 4 1MB 200 MHz Pentium Pros (aka 'Blackies'), the corresponding CPU boards, a 4 GB Ram Board with 16 * 256MB EDO Dimms, 2 RackStorage / 8 Hard drive arrays, new NetRaid 3si Controllers and so on ...

I don't want to loose too much words (although i'm not a native english speaker, so excuse any mistakes i make) :D


Here's the beast, weight is around 160kg with the two RS/8s:

View attachment 439420

View attachment 439421

Boot Process:

View attachment 439292

Drives and a LOOOT of space:

View attachment 439294

A little bit Quake?

View attachment 439293

Sneak Peek inside:

View attachment 439291

4 GB Ram Board:

View attachment 439290

And i've got a couple of Videos of the Running Server as well ... :)





It would be nice to know if there are more NetServer Lovers out there??

Greetz,
Martin
Click to expand...


Pure awesomeness. (y)
 
tbird_ said:
as promised here, I want to show you what was Ultra-High-End back in the days of 1997 (25 years ago!).

It all started with a server from my high school, equipped with 2 166MHz CPUs and 256MB Ram. Over the years, i got 4 1MB 200 MHz Pentium Pros (aka 'Blackies'), the corresponding CPU boards, a 4 GB Ram Board with 16 * 256MB EDO Dimms, 2 RackStorage / 8 Hard drive arrays, new NetRaid 3si Controllers and so on ...
Click to expand...
Congrats. It was my dream PC back then, is still today and will be ever&4ever :woot:

Four Pentium Pro's gives this computer quite considerable processing power.
Can you provide Cinebench times for single/multi? Might be interesting to compare to Pentium 3
 
XoR_ said:
Congrats. It was my dream PC back then, is still today and will be ever&4ever :woot:

Four Pentium Pro's gives this computer quite considerable processing power.
Can you provide Cinebench times for single/multi? Might be interesting to compare to Pentium 3
Click to expand...
There were Pentium III models clocked as high as 1.4GHz. The Pentium Pro was only ever clocked as high as 200MHz from the factory. Sure, it was faster than Pentium II 233MHz CPU's but that was about it. There is virtually no chance a quad CPU Pentium Pro would compete well in any application against any higher end Pentium III.
 
Dan_D said:
There were Pentium III models clocked as high as 1.4GHz. The Pentium Pro was only ever clocked as high as 200MHz from the factory. Sure, it was faster than Pentium II 233MHz CPU's but that was about it. There is virtually no chance a quad CPU Pentium Pro would compete well in any application against any higher end Pentium III.
Click to expand...

You forgot about the Pentium Pro Overdrive which was clocked at 333MHz.
 
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