Posted: 5/24/2007 6:37:02 PM EDT
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I picked up this server from a buddy for free. I was thinking i could use it a as a home PC, only faster. I think i bit off more than i can chew. Can i use this as a home PC? I hooked up my monitor and keyboard and mouse and booted it up, no picture on my monitor nothing. I am wondering if its a network only type thing? Is it worth anything? It sems to be pretty new, ASUS, it holds 6 SCSI hard drives, ( i only have 1) Intel Xeon. If nothing else and i cant use it for a home PC? what is it worth? Maybe i can trade it for a new laptop or something. Any suggestions wold be greatly appreciated.       ETA: It worked when it was unhooked 5 days ago. I should be able to just hook up my monitor on the back along with my mouse and keyboard and see something correct???? The light on my monitor reamins yellow, and the light on the front of the tower that appears to be an exclamation point in a triangle blinks red. |
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If it doesnt boot it's broken. No such thing as a "network only sort of thing". It's just a big loud power-sucking computer that won't run any faster than a commodity desktop PC and probably has a shitty graphics card. Probably can be used as a decent file server though, if you can get it to turn on. |
| It should be good to go, although you should get at least something on the screen like the BIOS post when it boots up. Looks like hot swapable SCSI HD's and dual redundant power supplies, might be worth more on Ebay than you will get out of it. Would make one hell of a Bittorrent Pron server. |
| Everything posted thus far is accurate. The power required to run that thing isn't worth even turning it on. However, if you are so inclined, go burn yourself a copy of Unbuntu and build yourself a linux box for the garage. Run a wire, or affix an 802.11g wireless adapter and host movies or mp3s. Put it in the garage, it will keep the garage warm. |
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Yeah, would be a great file server, or maybe a dedidated linux game server, webhost, etc. it would be an all right desktop, if not loud. Gaming on it is probably right out, servers usually have pretty weak vid cards. If it is not even posting, that's bad news. But, before you freak out, go through it, make sure everything is seated in the slots, no loose screws got under the motherboard, no fans fell off, etc. If everything appears to be in tip top shape, it might be busted. But you said it was running a few days ago, so it should be booting up....They most likely formatted the drives, though. But, you should still post and get the bios screen. If you want to sell it....shoot me a PM before you post it on eBay or something. |
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Update! I was just playing with it, and put in a new video card, BIOS display came up, but kind of garbled, i tried to "jiggle" the card and reboot a few times to no avail, i then attempted to try a PCI card and now it no longer show even garbled text again.  This suxors!! |
did you physically check ? I"ve had 'em fail because a board creeped out a bit and you couldn't tell from looking at it. is there a physical jumper for onboard video? (if so, correct as necessary) If you're using known good components, your mb could be hosed. eta: is there a case intrusion switch that is tripped? is that a gateway dual xeon cpu mb? I had problems with mine a while back.. never got that POS to come to life! (did you put the memory in, or was it as supplied? .... some MB's need proprietary memory) |
Good News! the guy who i got from just got a call from the company that built it, They would like to remove some "sensitive" information from it. (it was the server for a dental office) So im dropping it off to them for the weekend, hopefully they can get it working.  Edited for Idiocy 
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Just a heads up: the "right" way for them to get the sensitive info off the computer is to run a program that completely wipes the hard drives. When they're done, the drives won't have an operating system, so don't expect it to boot up to Windows, Unix, or anything. |
Yup, we do a DOD wipe on everything that leaves the office. Though loading something up on it when you get it back should be no big deal. That is if it posts and boots. |