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Solid State Drives - For x86 machines

Chuck(G) said:
I've gotten 98SE and several linuces to run on the HP Neoware CA19 and CA21 clients. Yes, you do have to go prowling for the drivers, but they're still available. It helps to open them up and look at the chips to discover the chipset. In the case of the CA19 and CA21, drivers can be had from the VIA website.

Which thin clients do you have?
Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't see this sooner. I have two models of thin clients. I have three HP T5730s, two of them with the expansion box, and one stand-alone. And then I have a single HP 5630.

On one of the 5730s, I have Ubuntu which I installed on an actual laptop hard drive. I removed the 1gig DOM and put that in it's place.
On one of the other 5730s, I have Windows XP which my wife uses to print coupons (so we don't worry about getting all kinds of crappy malware). In this case, we also removed the DOM and installed an actual IDE hard drive. The other 5730 thin client is basically busted.

On the HP 5630, I installed DOS 5.0 and GeoWorks... which works awesome, but there's nothing really to do with GeoWorks... heh.

I'm thinking I'd love to get larger DOM modules for the two 5730s, and actually use them for stuff. My wife's XP machine for coupons is unbearably slow... and I'd actually like to use the Ubuntu machine, but with an IDE drive on a 1ghz machine, it could be better...
 
Todd82TA said:
I'm thinking I'd love to get larger DOM modules for the two 5730s, and actually use them for stuff. My wife's XP machine for coupons is unbearably slow... and I'd actually like to use the Ubuntu machine, but with an IDE drive on a 1ghz machine, it could be better...
Click to expand...

Yeah, there were definitely some compromises made in the design of thin clients. Still, as a server running text-mode Debian with an 800 MHz VIA C7, it does its job well. An awful lot of CPU cycles gets eaten up by GUI interfaces.

At least you've got a client where the CPU's in a socket!
 
Chuck(G) said:
Yeah, there were definitely some compromises made in the design of thin clients. Still, as a server running text-mode Debian with an 800 MHz VIA C7, it does its job well. An awful lot of CPU cycles gets eaten up by GUI interfaces.

At least you've got a client where the CPU's in a socket!
Click to expand...


You know, I don't remember if it is or not.


The 5730s actually have a 1000mhz AMD Semperon processor on the board. I thought this was pretty cool, but really bummed me out when I realized it was actually soldered to the motherboard. There are dozens of Semperon processors out there, and if it was socketed, I could install like a 3ghz Semperon (or whatever) on there and it would fly. I'll have to check again, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't socketed.

On the other thin client, the 5630, I can't remember, but I don't think it's socketed either... I think they too are soldered to the motherboard. I'll have to look up the specs, but I seem to recall that they were like also 1ghz machines. It was a different processor, not like an Intel or something...

Lemme do a quick search: Ok, just looked it up, it's a VIA Eden 1ghz chip. Of course, I have GeoWorks and DOS 5.0 on it, so... it actually does fly.


They are pretty nice machines though... they've got tons of features on them. Basically fully loaded machines circia 2005. But... no drivers for Win 98 SE or 2k. I'll have to look some stuff up I guess. Like you said, I was able at one point to find a driver for something, don't remember what.
 
If you really want to pimp out those 5730s, have a look at this thread.

What kept me from the bigger thin clients was the higher power consumption. I think the CA21 works out to about 18 watts peak, while the 5730 is about 50. But the idea of modding a 5730 to run 2.4GHz dual-core x64 CPU is kind of interesting... :)
 
The installation/live cd ISO is only around 135 megs. It'll fit on a 512meg or 1gig drive (the puppy site says 2 gig is more than ample) quite happily depending on what you have installed. The whole OS will load and run completely in around 256megs of ram last time looked at it.

I see they've swap to a Slackware based distro now but the requirements don't seem to have changed much.
 
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Interested, but ignorant (as usual)...

Figuring that if amazon sells it there's a chance it's not a scam,
I punched DOM into amazon's search engine - Oops...

Jack
 
Caluser2000 said:
The installation/live cd ISO is only around 135 megs. It'll fit on a 512meg or 1gig drive (the puppy site says 2 gig is more than ample) quite happily depending on what you have installed. The whole OS will load and run completely in around 256megs of ram last time looked at it.

I see they've swap to a Slackware based distro now but the requirements don't seem to have changed much.
Click to expand...

I'll have to revisit Puppy then--I do have a spare 1GB DOM. I don't care much for the stock alternatives--WinCE, XPe, Arch Linux.
 
Chuck(G) said:
If you really want to pimp out those 5730s, have a look at this thread.

What kept me from the bigger thin clients was the higher power consumption. I think the CA21 works out to about 18 watts peak, while the 5730 is about 50. But the idea of modding a 5730 to run 2.4GHz dual-core x64 CPU is kind of interesting... :)
Click to expand...


Holy grab-ass Batman!!! I was looking back over your post, and looked at the thread you mentioned, and you guys are right... the processor on this motherboard IS actually removable. It's an S1 socket, and it's totally removable. I had no idea!!! I can't believe I never noticed this before. Apparently I can easily put in a dual core processor instead of this 1ghz processor.


When I take apart this thin client, I kind of realize that maybe HP had more intended for this machine than what was actually used. It's got pinouts for a second RAM bank, but there's no socket soldered on it. There is an onboard IDE controller which has the 1 gig DOM on it (I just ordered a 16gig DOM...), and there's even a slot in the frame, and pinouts for a compact flash card... but no socket soldered into it. The one thing the guy in the thread didn't realize, is that there is an add-on caddy that plugs into the side of it which gives you a full PCI card slot and a serial and parallel port.

Anyway, thanks for the info. I'm definitely going to try to max this thing out... not sure how far I want to go with it... but definitely want to make it at least somewhat functional.
 
Let me know how it goes--I think thin clients are an overlooked resource that are often surplussed by the boatload. If it works out for you, I might look into a 5730 for tinkering myself.
 
Chuck(G) said:
Let me know how it goes--I think thin clients are an overlooked resource that are often surplussed by the boatload. If it works out for you, I might look into a 5730 for tinkering myself.
Click to expand...

So, I thought about it... I added up a lot of the cost, and it really didn't make sense. If you enjoy that stuff, it's totally worth it. The system is really a heavy duty system that appears to have been "watered down" by HP.

So, like I said there are provisions already on it for:

1 - A built in compact flash card slot (but no slot soldered in)
2 - A second ram-connector (means you can have 4 gigs on there, but the connector isn't there)
3 - Can support up to a 2.4ghz Dual Core AMD 64-bit processor.
4 - You can buy a side-caddy that installs on it (just makes the computer 1" wider and looks normal) that gives you a serial, parallel, and medium length / full height PCI slot.
5 - An IDE controller that will support 2 hard drives or 2 IDE DOMs.
6 - Provisions on the MB for an onboard fan (little painted box that says FAN1, but no pins soldered in)


So, honestly, after you end up blowing like $300-350 bucks on all those little parts, while it definitely is cool to say "look!" it really comes down to... is it worth it?

I ended up buying a brand new HP 4-port KVM w/ PS2 ports, and built in sound, for $74 shipped.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/260787458078

Anyone looking for a really REALLY nice KVM for older machines with sound / ps2 / vga... this is totally worth it.
 
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