I bought a ThinkStation

[LeFrettchen]

To replace the old 2007 Quad core, I planned to buy a ThinkStation C30.
So I spend a lot of time on eBay searching a good deal.

But another model caught my attention.
I found a ThinkStation P700 for 950€ ($1100), shipment included.

It's way more expensive than a C30, but it's a good machine, and the price seemed to be very attractive, so...

It was shipped yesterday, it should arrive at home tomorrow.

Some details :
- Lenovo,
- P700,
- dual Xeon E5-2620 v3 @ 2.4 GHz,
- 32GB RAM : 16 on the purchase, but the vendor said he added 16 more as a gift,
- nVidia NVS 295,
- 1 x 240 GB SSD on the purchase, another one added as a gift,
- 490W PSU.

A good machine, but with two problems :

1. a 490W PSU won't be enough for a CPU or GPU upgrade, I'll have to upgrade it first,
2. nVidia...

[fvgit]

How is the noise level?

[LeFrettchen]

Not delivered yet, will tell later

[LeFrettchen]

OK, the machine has been delivered about 1 hour ago now.

The noise level is good.
I can hear the fan, but the noise is very subtle.

I downloaded a sound level meter on my smartphone.
I don't know if it's really reliable, but it can gives an idea.

Sound levels recorded :
- Ambient, no PC running : 10 db,
- my old 2007 Quad running, very quiet : 16 db next to the PC,
- the P700 running : 20 db next to the PC, opened case.

My purring cat is much more noisy.

Edit :
The DVD-drive is very quiet, no noise at all, except opening & closing.

[jmccue]

Curious what you did about Nvidia, guessing from the post it is working fine for you

[LeFrettchen]

Well, I had no choice but to take the Quadro off, since it has two DVI, and I have only VGA or HDMI cables.

So I picked up the GT 710 from the Quad.
I really must find my Radeon...

Anybody wants a nVidia Quadro NVS 295 ?

[fvgit]

Thanks for the info. Generally speaking, are you happy so far with the new machine? At least as far as first impressions go?

I'm in market for a new workstation myself. Every odd month or so I take a look around, but I can't really settle for anything. Plus I don't know if it's a good time to buy cpu-wise, as I tend to use my hardware until it literally falls apart.

[LeFrettchen]

Yep, it's a good beast, I definitively appreciate it.
It's a real high-end PC, not a gamer high-end PC, but a professionnal high-end PC, designed to be robust and easily maintained, you can feel it.
A quick look inside shows no cables everywhere, or stuff like that, everything is compartmentalized.

Pros :

• its silence,
• its speed, my old (Quad+HDD) is no match for (dualXeon+SSD),
• the FLEX system : a lot of parts can be removed/upgraded in a tool-less process, I think only the CPUs heat sinks need a screwdriver,
• enough USB ports on a machine, 4 front, 8 back,
• 8 HDD (or SSD) bays,
• Surprise ! I've heard the workstation : installed VLC, opened a movie to test, but wasn't expecting to have sound. It has an internal speaker.

Cons :

• Was delivered with Windows 10. Never used it. Was suspicious. Tried it. 2 hours later, boom, gone !
• A cooling baffle is missing.

[ibara]

Send a dmesg to http://dmesgd.nycbug.org/

[LeFrettchen]

I will...

For the moment, I only installed Win7, due to the enormous amount of updates and the time needed.
Windows is really a pain in the ... for that.
But no choice, some peripherals only works with Windows or OS X, like my video capture box.

Now, I'm gonna install OpenBSD

[LeFrettchen]

Whoa, OpenBSD 6.3 install was painful.
I encountered several problems, and some of them were unprecedented.

1. USB boot failed, I had to burn a CD. Not a big trouble.
2. The WiFi firmware was outdated. I had to download it on another PC and manually install it. Not a big trouble, but still annoying.
3. pkg_add wasn't able to find any packages, but I was able to ping openbsd.org. That was unprecedented.
   I tried several times, checked and double-checked everything, no way.
   I had to unset the PKG_PATH and re-set it !
4. And after that, no screen detected ! What ? You must be kidding me !
   Stupid nVidia ! I had to create a xorg.conf file.
   And now, I'm stuck with this stupid 1024x768 screen resolution. Fine !

Oh, and I've tried to use my old Radeon HD 5450, but nope, the PC refused to boot with.

Ok, that's enough for me today, I'll check all that tomorrow...

[LeFrettchen]

Originally Posted by ibara

Send a dmesg to http://dmesgd.nycbug.org/

Boom, done !

[LeFrettchen]

I bought the ThinkStation 9 months ago, time for a little feedback...

The P700 is a very good PC, very silent and pleasant.
But it has two main troubles :

• The wifi signal is not really good. My ThinkPad has a really better signal, even if they are one next to the other. But it's not an integrated chipset.
  At least, it works
• The boot sequence is horribly long : about 30 seconds before disk boot !
  No kidding : about 15 seconds with a black screen and only the Lenovo logo, then 15 seconds with the BIOS message (kind of Wanna enter BIOS ? press Enter).
  First, I thought it was a BIOS or UEFI trouble or incorrect setup, but nope.
  After checking on the Lenovo forum, it seems to be a recurrent problem on the Px00 series : most of the P700, if not all, are impacted, but not only, the P500 and P900 also.
  And Lenovo searched but didn't find how-to fix that.

Annoying, but not crippling troubles.
But it sure helps to have a rock solid OS