grab a usb to ethernet adapter as well as a hdmi to ethernet extender and run the cables from your closet so you can have the zero latency feeling of being in front of the unit, but without the harsh fans or heat(had heat exhaustion from one before). I have 3 servers and I plan to buy more to fill out my cabinet. The problem is finding hardware that fits a modern GPU and powers it. You can work around this by simply running a second power supply and even a PCI riser as I have in the past. But I implore you, mount the card onto something that allows for airflow. I ran a "test" to see if I could get a GTX 970 connected to a Dell R410. Long story short, it ran amazingly with 2 cpus at 16 cores around 3.5 GHz. But I let the card get too hot during my extended test and the solder melted which wouldn't have been a problem if I hadn't turned the unit back on before learning of the shorted solder joints. If you're going to mod your rig, make sure to focus on cooling options and be ready for an ugly as shit rig. Looks don't matter though when your pulling triple digit frames in AAA titles with cheap hardware.

Thank you for the video. Most servers can be used as workstations if you add appropriate GPUs. Sound is a problem, unless you place them far and make extensions of all cables needed. My worry is the electric bill. Servers are power guzzlers, but if you are either off the grid, or power is cheap, then all is good.

Very happy to see your video. i was thinking of doing the same and looking out for information.

basically what I did. I see no point in doing VMs or anything like that as I run my poweredge r720 for plex and hosting steamcmd game servers. Its not loud - my 48 POE switch is louder than it. Only cost me 200$ for the server and it came with 120gb of ram. upgraded the cpus to dual E5-2690 V2's for 40$ and tossed a couple Quadro M2000 cards (40$ each) in there and now I just use it as a "workstation" that hosts plex, my blueiris security cameras, the game servers, and general web browsing / movie watching since its plugged in to my TV in my office (used mostly to view security cameras). Chucked an old Avermedia 4k capture card that I had lying around and now can use it to stream or record gameplay without breaking a sweat (hence the two Quadro cards). Price all in? $320 (not including harddrives - I already had 8x 6TBs so those didnt cost me anything for the server build). Basically is on par with a Ryzen 7 3700x system but with more cores/threads and way more ram.

I think it's more impressive that you got a server in the first place! I always wondered if a server could be used as a beefy PC if upgraded a little. Some fan mods or replacements and sound dampening should really help out with the noise, even with them running really fast.

A server is just a computer, so technically there's no reason you can't. The hardware is optimised for a different use case, hence the loud fans.

Technically you can use server for workstation (only Storageserver are a little different). But the noise will be not be good in a office to work

If you look into thermal response online you can set it to normal fan response instead of the unknown hardware all fans high

The "Noctua NF-A4x20 PWM, Premium Quiet Fan for Server, 4-Pin (40x20mm, Brown)" may be of interest.

I use my DL380 Gen 9 server, with 256Gb of RAM, and 2xE5-2667v4 CPUs, as a workstation. I put a Soundblaster sound card, a USB 3.1 card and a Quadro M4000 GPU in it. There is a 32" Acer 2K monitor, with an HP DesignJet 125 plotter and a tabloid sized flatbed scanner attached to the USB card. I run MS Office Pro 2021, AutoDesk's AutoCAD 2011, Universe Sandbox, and Rule The Waves 2 on it in a Windows Server 2022 Standard environment. My favorite thing is to relax with Minesweeper. Oh yeah, it does a few server things too, like DNS resolves and file sharing. When it's not doing much, it is about as loud as the air conditioner in the window. When it is busy it is about as loud as the vacuum cleaner we have in our house.

You have to wait for the post...then windows will show up on the other screen, I have Windows 11 Pro on mine and it shows up on the small screen until post is finished!

why yes, I love to have 15 minute boot times on my workstation

Low profile graphics card preferred Quadro 2000 ish or FirePro v5800 and similar without 6pin GPU power, preferably with passive heatsink ( will be cooled by those 'turbojet' fans too efficiently) and gaming cards are not suited due to fan cooling and 2-3slots size, also 6 or 8 pin power requirements, server PSU don't have them even power wise are okay...

I have a r730 with a radeon pro and 2 tesla compute cards in it. I made a software that control the fans dynamically with temp and its very quiet (and cool, 30 to 50°C depending on load). It runs Win Server 2022 as the hyper-v host and desktop (workstation) and I've got many hyper-v instances running with server images and others. It idles at 300w and go to 700w when working hard but I don't care about that, electricity cost isn't a problem for me. I would recommend anyone that think he could maybe have a use for a server like these to get one.

@The Network Mystery ipmi works on the 2nd port in the back it has its own ipmi port you set up the ip static or dchp via the biso i have this very pc once done you can just log in via web browser no issue from any ystem and control off on fans w/e works the same on my spuer micro

Looking 👀 good I’m new this I want to learn more 👍

So you are running just standard windows 10 on this? No Windows server? Is it running alright without server OS?

your fans you need ipmi and codes to manually edit and also to enable manual control of fans via command, and also set equally such as Low Medium High levels ( example 0x19 is 25%)

would work for plex server with transcode from 4k to 1080p 720p, 30 devices simultaneous?

I just acquired a Cisco UCS C240 M4 with a dozen 10TB, 12Gb/s SAS drives and two 120Gb SSD boot drives in it and want to try something like this. I got it for free as a broken unit, but I've just about got it running again. I'll have to see if I can pop in a GPU card and maybe a Sound Blaster card. It currently has only one CPU, but I may add a second if Windows 10 can handle that and if it makes any difference. Need to pump up the RAM though because it only has 16Gb. I'll bet if I try to run Crysis the fans will be screaming! Lol. I don't know much about servers, but I've built quite a few desktop PC's through the years (plus I've stayed at a Holiday Inn) so this will be a fun learning experience. My eventual goal for the beast is to make it a NAS and Plex server.

Do not have second like button to click it. Great video.

Can you test game on it? 😅 can change all fans to Noctua for silent mode?

go into the life cycle control and you can fix the fans in there i use a dell r720 for a workstation/ gaming everyday

I mean yes you can. You can load any sort of OS. It’s just really loud. And would work better with a GPU

Pourquoi pas, mais qu'en est-il de la consommation électrique? Sans oublier le démarrage qui prend toute une éternité.

There is something wrong here. My R720XD is whisper quiet running my blue Iris security cameras. At idle after boot, an R720XD should not be that loud, even with the stock fan curve. My server rack is in my office due to space constraints and I have no issues working next to my servers. If that graphics card is not on dells office list of supported cards that may be what is causing the fans to run faster than normal.

Dude! To have a workstation, you need UNIX, like one of the illumos distributions; if you run Windows on it, it's just another very loud PC bucket! And ya hafta put in liquid cooling, because otherwise it's way too loud to be able to concentrate...

This is cool, and exploration is fun and required in life but, this is the same as saying can I use a CAT 793D Dump Truck as my daily driver? Sure you can but is it worth it? Don't do this if your serious about buying a workstation. use the bits designed for it. If your screwing around learning something new knock yourself out. It is fun playing with server gear. Expensive, but fun.

:) Enable manual fan control: sudo ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x01 0x00 For example, to set the fan speed to 20%: sudo ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x02 0xff 0x14 For example, to set the fan speed to 22%: sudo ipmitool raw 0x30 0x30 0x02 0xff 0x16 ipmitool raw - send raw IPMI command 0x30 0x30 - IPMI class for fan control 0x02 - target fan 2 0xff - apply to all fans 0x16 - hex value for 22% speed The hex values from 0x00 to 0x64 (0 to 100 decimal) map to the percentage range for fan speeds. So 0x16 hex converts to 22 decimal, setting a 22% fan speed. To quickly summarize the key points: Use ipmitool raw for raw IPMI commands 0x30 0x30 class is for fan control Last hex byte sets the percentage (0x16 -> 22%) Monitor fan speed: sudo ipmitool sdr type fan Monitor temperature: sudo ipmitool sdr type temperature

Dude! Ya hafta configure the firmware to use the extra video card as the default instead of the built-in video card, but here's the kicker, not all firmware manufacturers provide that feature! PC bucket firmware sucks frozen dead bunnies through a bent straw sideways while skydiving!

Dude! Servers control fans with the FIRMWARE, not with any kind of software! IPMI will only sometimes expose the fans' rotational speed, but whether all the fans are visible in IPMI depends on whether the firmware manufacturer exposed all the hardware in a standards compliant way! ONE CAN NOT RELIABLY CONTROL FAN SPEED IN A SERVER WITH GENERIC DESKTOP SOFTWARE; those applications are extremely OS-specific and hardcore proprietary, and totally dependent on hardware manufacturer's compliance with ACPI and IPMI standards! If the hardware manufacturer's implementation deviates from the standards in any way, you're toast!

soo funny thanks