Last Piece of the Puzzle

Embedded graphics, or what I understand about them, are related to the CPU that you install in the motherboard, and the T1700 socket, named LGA 1150, can house many different CPU variants, and the model I chose was the i5-4570 which is an Intel Core i5-4570, Haswell, Quad core processor with integrated Intel HD Graphics 4600.

There is a benchmark for those graphics and that can boil it all down to a single number, the average G3D mark, for the Intel HD Graphics 4600 that number is 715. I have a few spare graphics cards around, so I chose a compatible card that would run within the constraints of the power supply and the PCI express port, that card is the Quadro 2000 and it has a G3D mark of 1316.

The maximum TDP of the Quadro 2000 is 62 watts, so it can be powered by the PCI express slot and does not need any external connection, it may be considered as a step back by some as it is reported as Direct X 11.0 and not 12.0 like the Intel HD 4600 but it has it's own memory (does not share) and a higher core and memory clock.

So the last piece of the puzzle, after installation of the operating system, was the installation of the Quadro 2000 graphics card.

Getting ready for an Operating System

I do have a video card that I will be adding to the build, but the time has come to tidy all those wires up, mount the SSD and install Windows 10 Pro.

A couple of light duty bulldog clips are good enough to mount the 240 GB Kingston solid state drive and five or six zip ties are used to make those proprietary cables look tidy, fix the SATA cables to stop them flaying about, secure the thermal sensor and finish off the internals.

Overall, the project has cost under two-hundred and fifty Canadian dollars, which is actually quite expensive when compared with buying a full system from the Asset recovery centre for about a hundred less, however, this entire project has been fun to plan, research and build.

Cable Management Two

The Dell T1700 motherboard uses a five pin power switch connection, if you go online to solve this for a classic two pin momentary switch solution (as with all third-party cases on the market) you will see numerous discussions, some possible solutions, wiring diagrams and a lot of almost correct information relating to other Dell products and not necessarily the T1700 fix.

The motherboard socket on my switch assembly, from the original Precision T1700 Workstation, the wiring colors and what I did with them :

Using the black and yellow wire from the 5/6 pin harness as a momentary switch worked, however, the Dell system on startup would report "Alert! Power Button Cable Failure" so the solution in this case was to splice the red and yellow cables together as power switch A, this resulted in the case momentary switch working as expected without the log error. I am going to ignore the blue and orange wires. 

This made my OCD very happy as now the system has no startup alert messages, except for the missing boot drive one, which I will fix soon by adding an SSD (Solid State Drive). 

This iteration of cable management also meant I added the cable (SATA channel 1) to the optical drive, I then used a couple of twist ties to tidy other things up and of course, I was happy to use some of my shrink fit tubing on the cable splice which you can see just to the left of the optical drive

The machine is starting to look like someone cares about it.

The Work Zone

In the last decade if I was setting up a computer I would always take command of the kitchen table for a short period of time, something that Karen was used to, but I was wanting a more permanent bench to keep stuff going for an extended geek session.

This bench has been in the garage for years, but mostly used as a recycling centre, so when I reconstructed our recycle area in the Summer, using the base of an old bed, the metal bench became available. I think this was originally one of those door crashers at Canadian Tire, too inexpensive to ignore but without a purpose.

It now has one.

Cable Management One

The process to tidy the inside of the case has started and the first order of business was to mounted the Dell internal speaker securely in a little cubby, away from other things that may touch it, or damage the little circuit board.

I mounted the speaker to a plastic disk and then used a zip tie to mount at the side of the lower drive bay, to the right of it you will see the Antec 120mm fan for scale. You can see how things are not all as they should be with Dell items, four wires for basically a mono speaker?

The speaker does have a printed circuit attached that is a little amplifier, and logically there is a common ground wire, power wire and mono audio, so the puzzle was the fourth wire, which I will assume is the speaker detection wire, relaying information back to the motherboard.

Front Panel

This computer may be the last one I build with an internal optical drive, as essentially one is not really needed any more, although I still find them useful and this LG model was sitting in a cupboard for a while, seemed lonely and unwanted, so it too will find a new home.

The DVD drive needs to be mounted flush with the front panel, so the front panel needs to go back on again, along with the additional wires connected to USB 3.0, USB 2.0, Power Switch, Reset Switch, Power LED, hard drive LED and High definition audio. All those wires are fed in around the DVD drive and this is now my enhanced bowl of spaghetti.

It's Alive!!!

The hoops have been jumped through, albeit on a temporary basis, and the computer shows signs of life, an error free POST log (except for a missing boot drive) and the alternate CPU is happily married to the server board.

When power is turned on, POST (Power-On Self-Test) is the diagnostic testing sequence that a computer's basic input/output system (or "starting program") runs to determine if the computer keyboard, random access memory, disk drives, and other hardware are working correctly. In the case of Dell and similar proprietary systems from Lenovo and HP etc, the POST also checks for various unique sensors and gizmos that should be present. The additional wiring items I bought serve to provide that information to the system, although I aim to circumvent one or two during this build.