Dell Workstation Owners Club

[Retrorockit]

In T7810 there is one 8 pin GPU connector on PSU power board. In owner manual states in video section that "up to 2 full-height, full-length (maximum of single 225 W) ", the same for T5810
I have checked older models like 3610/5610 (up to 2 full-height,full-length (maximum of 300 W) and T7610 (2x8pin) [up to 4 full-height, full length (maximum of 600 W)]

It seems like one 8 pin PSU connector can deliver 300W (2x150)...

You need to take into account the 75W each PCIe MB connector provides for GPUs with no added power cable.
2x75W PCIe 16x slots, plus 2x 75W, 6 pin PCIe cables =300W total for 2 GPUs. Or 1x75W slot and 150W cable (2x6, or 1x8 pin)=225W single GPU. That's what the dell specification means. The T7610 doubles that.

So the MB cable provides 150W (2x75W 6 pin )officially. I'm not seeing 300W on that cable officially from Dell.
6+8 pin would be a 75W stretch. 8+8 pin would be double the rated power. The 300W 6+2(8) and 6+2(8) cable IS available, it's FOR Dell, but not FROM Dell. For the OP who just needs a few Watts over the rated 225W it's a good solution. But if you tried to run 2x225W 8 pin GPUs there's no guarantee it would work.

Here's something I found that may be useful. The computers using those 685W power supplies have a PSU card in between the PSU and the MB. The T5610 card has a 2nd CPU 8 pin connector.

The extra CPU connector could be adapted to power a bigger GPU.
The T3610 card doesn't have that extra connector. It should also allow the T5610 optional 825W PSU. But w/o the 2nd CPU probably not needed. Warning- The CPU 8 pin pinout is not at all like the PCIe 8 pin. Don't plug the same cable into it.

 

[Macio4ever]

You are probably right and my understanding of Dell manual was wrong...

 

[Retrorockit]

You mentioned a user at Dell Community Forums running just the 8 pin connector. It might be interesting to run the 2x6 cable Dell provides and see if it produces a similar result. The 2nd 8 wire sense pin tells the GPU 150W is available, with just the sense 1 wire the G{U should "know" that only 75W is there.
I used to refer people to some "unofficial" CPU compatability listings there. Dell took the pages down. Now I can't even view their public pages. I seem to be banned there. It's a good place to look and see what others have tried. Just be aware that some kinds of success stories get edited out.
I stopped reading Dell Comics a long time ago.

 

[sepheronx]

You mentioned a user at Dell Community Forums running just the 8 pin connector. It might be interesting to run the 2x6 cable Dell provides and see if it produces a similar result. The 2nd 8 wire sense pin tells the GPU 150W is available, with just the sense 1 wire the G{U should "know" that only 75W is there.
I used to refer people to some "unofficial" CPU compatability listings there. Dell took the pages down. Now I can't even view their public pages. I seem to be banned there. It's a good place to look and see what others have tried. Just be aware that some kinds of success stories get edited out.
I stopped reading Dell Comics a long time ago.

I have an Alienware Aurora R5 headed my way, do you have that unofficial cpu support list?

 

[Retrorockit]

Those things happened on a system by system basis there.
userbenchmark.com is a good place to start. You can see what has actually worked in those, and the relative performance. You can also spot some overclocks by looking for out of line CPU rankings.
I haven't looked at that one yet.
Ok now I looked.
i7-6700K 90% CPU ranking 4.5GHz turbo.

Alienware Aurora R5 Performance Results - UserBenchmark

www.userbenchmark.com

In all 39 pages of results the i7-6700 is looking like the default CPU. So not a lot of reason to swap CPUs. No Xeons seen, and everything else was a step down.

 

[sepheronx]

Those things happened on a system by system basis there.
userbenchmark.com is a good place to start. You can see what has actually worked in those, and the relative performance. You can also spot some overclocks by looking for out of line CPU rankings.
I haven't looked at that one yet.
Ok now I looked.
i7-6700K 90% CPU ranking 4.5GHz turbo.

Alienware Aurora R5 Performance Results - UserBenchmark

www.userbenchmark.com

In all 39 pages of results the i7-6700 is looking like the default CPU. So not a lot of reason to swap CPUs. No Xeons seen, and everything else was a step down.

Yeah, I saw that and was hoping to find some kind of Xeon or something else that would work. Cause those 6700's are ridiculously expensive.

 

[Retrorockit]

Skylake Xeons require a workstation chipset to run and are all 2 CPU versions so no cheap unlocked Xeons.

IDK what the Alienware supports in the way of OC settings but there is this.
Overclocking of unsupported processors[edit]
Officially Intel supported overclocking of only the "K" and "X" versions of Skylake processors. However, it was later discovered that other "non-K" chips could be overclocked by modifying the base clock value – a process made feasible by the base clock applying only to the CPU, RAM, and integrated graphics on Skylake. Through beta UEFI firmware updates, some motherboard vendors, such as ASRock (which prominently promoted it under the name "Sky OC") allowed the base clock to be modified in this manner.[30][31]

In February 2016, however, an ASRock firmware update removed the feature. On February 9, 2016, Intel announced that it would no longer allow such overclocking of non-K processors, and that it had issued a CPU microcode update that removes the function.[32][33][34] In April 2016, ASRock started selling motherboards that allow overclocking of unsupported CPUs using an external clock generator.[35][

Skylake (microarchitecture) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Alien Arena is an AW forum for enthusiasts maybe they know something.

 

[Imprecision]

You mentioned a user at Dell Community Forums running just the 8 pin connector. It might be interesting to run the 2x6 cable Dell provides and see if it produces a similar result. The 2nd 8 wire sense pin tells the GPU 150W is available, with just the sense 1 wire the G{U should "know" that only 75W is there.
I used to refer people to some "unofficial" CPU compatability listings there. Dell took the pages down. Now I can't even view their public pages. I seem to be banned there. It's a good place to look and see what others have tried. Just be aware that some kinds of success stories get edited out.
I stopped reading Dell Comics a long time ago.

Yeah I can try that when I get my hands on it (shipping takes forever). The guy who tried with just the 8 pin used it for mining, not sure if he had flashed some VGA BIOS for mining on it.

I also read that card actually has two different BIOS chips, one with a "Boost" BIOS that sets the clock to 1411MHz, and a "Silent BIOS" that sets the clock to 1340 MHz. I will try to set it to silent bios to see if that takes care of those 10 extra watts.

 

[bullet308]

Hi, all.

I have been a longtime fan of the T3500, having run one as my main rig for the past five or six years now. It has done everything I have asked of it and it is still fabulous. I didn't particularly need to upgrade from it, but the bug bit me and so I bought a T5500 motherboard and installed it into a spare T3500 case I have. Combined with a T5500 wiring harness and a 1000w T7400 power supply, it all went together and functions perfectly... as a single processor machine.

But a T5500 with one processor is pretty much just a T3500, and so I ordered in the appropriate riser board and installed it along with a matching processor and RAM. Plugged everything up and went to start it up. It POSTs okay, but it keeps throwing an error about something being wrong with one of the DIMMs on the riser, and it seems specific to SLOT 2 and not a particular stick of RAM. Looked at it and cleaned it a little bit. Still with the RAM error. But that is not the big problem. I hit F1 and it continues to boot normally, then it starts to load the OS and suddenly, the power is cut. <click>, and off.

I don't think it is thermal, because I can run the entire pre-boot memory test without issue and it will idle indefinitely at the BIOS screen, but the first time it tries to load Windows or Linux off of either a hard drive or a flash drive, it gets to the same point in loading the OS and just shuts off.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[Retrorockit]

You might see if tipping it over to desktop orientation makes any difference. One of the 2nd hand Dell vendors said the T5500 can have an issue with the 2 nd CPU riser sockets not working as they should. Not sure if it's the MB or the riser card.

Post #502 in this thread is where the reply on this was posted.

 

[Macio4ever]

Dismount riser, put case in horizontal position and put riser back. I use also a piece of wood under riser to support it. It may help.

 

[jeanpat]

Hello
I have a T5500 with 3x4 Gb Ram (4Gb 2Rx8 PC3 10600R-09-10-B0-D2):

I'd like to upgrade to 24Gb for less than 25€, the same ref can be found for ~75€ (42+33 shipping) on ebay.

I Found a similar RAM in my budget, but the ref is: 4Gb 2Rx4 PC3-10600R-09-10-E1-D2

for less than 25€ (with shipping!):

Can I mix these RAM modules with mine?

Thank you for your advises.

 

[Retrorockit]

One possibility I see is to buy 6 of the 2Rx4 and sell the 2Rx8 and maybe come out ahead.
I've seen 2Rx4 being sold secifically for T5500. So that looks good.

Dell 8 Gb Memory Module for Select Dell Systems - 2rx4 Rdimm 1333mhz Lv Manufacturer Part# : Snpp9rn2c/8g | Dell Part# : A6996808 Compatible with Precision Workstation R5500 Precision Workstation T5500 Precision Workstation T5600 Precision Workstatio

Buy Dell 8 Gb Memory Module for Select Dell Systems - 2rx4 Rdimm 1333mhz Lv Manufacturer Part# : Snpp9rn2c/8g | Dell Part# : A6996808 Compatible with Precision Workstation R5500 Precision Workstation T5500 Precision Workstation T5600 Precision Workstation T7600 Poweredge C1100 Poweredge C2100...

www.amazon.com

I've seen some notes that many systems can't run x4 and that's why it's cheaper than x8. So in some way they're not fully interchangeable.
Dell lists rules for 1R,2R, and 4R modules being different (especially 4R) but no mention of X4, and X8 considerations.

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/precision-t5500_setup%20guide_en-us.pdf

Nehalem, and Westmere based Xeon CPUs handle RAM a little differently regarding populating all 6 slots. Nehalems will slow down RAM speed with 6 modules. That would work against this suggestion.
But there is memory control on the chipset, the CPU, and the RDIMMs themselves. So there may not be an answer that applies to all situations and configurations.

 

[jeanpat]

One possibility I see is to buy 6 of the 2Rx4 and sell the 2Rx8 and maybe come out ahead.
I've seen 2Rx4 being sold secifically for T5500. So that looks good.

Dell 8 Gb Memory Module for Select Dell Systems - 2rx4 Rdimm 1333mhz Lv Manufacturer Part# : Snpp9rn2c/8g | Dell Part# : A6996808 Compatible with Precision Workstation R5500 Precision Workstation T5500 Precision Workstation T5600 Precision Workstatio

Buy Dell 8 Gb Memory Module for Select Dell Systems - 2rx4 Rdimm 1333mhz Lv Manufacturer Part# : Snpp9rn2c/8g | Dell Part# : A6996808 Compatible with Precision Workstation R5500 Precision Workstation T5500 Precision Workstation T5600 Precision Workstation T7600 Poweredge C1100 Poweredge C2100...

www.amazon.com

I've seen some notes that many systems can't run x4 and that's why it's cheaper than x8. So in some way they're not fully interchangeable.
Dell lists rules for 1R,2R, and 4R modules being different (especially 4R) but no mention of X4, and X8 considerations.

https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/common/precision-t5500_setup%20guide_en-us.pdf

Nehalem, and Westmere based Xeon CPUs handle RAM a little differently regarding populating all 6 slots. Nehalems will slow down RAM speed with 6 modules. That would work against this suggestion.
But there is memory control on the chipset, the CPU, and the RDIMMs themselves. So there may not be an answer that applies to all situations and configurations.

This is a batch of 8x8 =64Gb for 34$ ? wow

 

[Retrorockit]

I think it's 8x1GB modules. They're using the term "module" loosely. You notice 64GB is not mentioned anywhere.
It is "a" matching "module" of 8GB capacity. I count 8 sticks of RAM.
Not 8x 8GB "modules".
That would be my interpretation unless someone clarifies it otherwise.
I only posted that to show that the T5500 supports that type of RAM. Not because it was a good deal.
I may be wrong. The Dell part# they use A6996808 does bring up a "single" 8GB DDR3 module. So I "guess" that's what you would get. Not sure what the photo would represent then? Not 8x1GB, and not 8x8GB?

 

[jeanpat]

I think it's 8x1GB modules. They're using the term "module" loosely. You notice 64GB is not mentioned anywhere.
It is "a" matching "module" of 8GB capacity. I count 8 sticks of RAM.
Not 8x 8GB "modules".
That would be my interpretation unless someone clarifies it otherwise.
I only posted that to show that the T5500 supports that type of RAM. Not because it was a good deal.
I may be wrong. The Dell part# they use A6996808 does bring up a "single" 8GB DDR3 module. So I "guess" that's what you would get. Not sure what the photo would represent then? Not 8x1GB, and not 8x8GB?

Thank you, it gives a reference. I can try to three 2Rx4 4Gb modules and bet it would be fine, if ready to possibly loose 25$

 

[Retrorockit]

Or buy 3 more and cash out the 2Rx8s if needed. My guess is it will work. But it IS a guess.

 

[jeanpat]

Or buy 3 more and cash out the 2Rx8s if needed. My guess is it will work. But it IS a guess.

I found this thread regarding 2Rx4 vs 2Rx8. I'll try to deepen the subject...

 

[Retrorockit]

I've been told that the x4,x8 issue is related to , but not exactly the same as, the old X64 low density, vs x128 high density RAM issue. LGA775 Dells all required the older X64 low density AKA "PC" RAM, and the x128 was known as "AMD" RAM at that time. Later Intel boards could accept it so that terminology went away. But the price difference is still there. "Dell Certified" RAM was x64 from various suppliers. 4GB DDR2 x64 UDIMMs are hard to find and about $50 each. But the X38 Dell T3400,and XPS420 can use them $ooooo.
It's been reported that the T3500/5500 can run either type. Running both at once is another question. The BIOS may not be able to set up that way. But even if it doesn't work it produces useful information.

 

[crazydrve`]

Hello everyone,

Does anyone know if you can use a normal atx power supply in the Dell t5500 workstaiton? my power supply and or system is not powering on at all. from what i can tell its the power supply

any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[ManGupta]

Hello everyone,

Does anyone know if you can use a normal atx power supply in the Dell t5500 workstaiton? my power supply and or system is not powering on at all. from what i can tell its the power supply

any help is appreciated.

Thank you.

T3500/T5500/T7500 can all use aftermarket power supply without any issue. But in case of T5500 / T7500 if you have 2 CPUs , you will need a aftermarket PSU with 2 8pin EPS connectors ..... and of course the wattage of psu should the adequate to power your system.

 

[crazydrve`]

Thank you for the responese, i guess either the extra power supply has doenst have enough power or my board is fried.

 

[ManGupta]

Are you able to run Dell Diagnostics mode that is boot with F12 and select Diagnostics Mode? How much wattage is your power supply ? You run 2 cpus or one ?

 

[Retrorockit]

The Dell PSUs tend to have a lot of power on the 5V rail. 32A in the ones I see online for that. Not many aftermarket PSUs can provide that.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimage.pushauction.com%2F0%2F0%2F55b58722-f39b-4070-a86c-f74f98e4ba96%2F6988940e-b301-4922-9863-40b3322ef6c1.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

 

[crazydrve`]

Hi @ManGupta no, I am not able to get it to boot at all, I have the n875ef-00 DP/N 0W299G 875 watt, I press and hold the button on the psu and it starts spinning but nothing shows up and it doesnt act like it fully boots either.

I took out everything but the ram video card and only 1 cpu. only usb kb plugged in.

@Retrorockit I kinda figured that last night with the other power supply I have, but I didnt think about the 5V rail, thanks. Guess I will order a new power supply and then hope for the best.

Thank you both for your help. I love my t5500 and I am trying to improve it too.