Dell GX 520 Question

On Fri, 19 May 2017 05:50:55 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 19 May 2017 05:29:29 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 May 2017 19:58:17 -0400, Paul
wrote:

wrote:
On Thu, 18 May 2017 16:52:08 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 18 May 2017 12:32:13 -0400, Paul
wrote:

wrote:
I was given this Dell GX520 tower with good XP installation on it.
I thought to install W7 on it for my nephew.
I increased its RAM to 2GB, and replaced the HDD with an old 150GB I
have.
W7 seemed to install fine.
I notice that the mobo has two SATA headers, one of which is connected
to the HDD, the other to a DVDRW. I see no PATA header.
There is an second slot for a second 40GB HDD that is unconnected
adjacent to the existing HDD. It is sitting there, unused. The
wirings have a power extension which can easily power the second HDD.
I see no way to connect to the second HDD SATA connection from the
mobo however. Should I be able to?
I have to ask.
Thanks

JW
Check the GX520 for bad caps. Don't waste a lot
of time on it, if visually it's a mess inside.
There are certain Dell models you should *not* buy
second hand. While the motherboard can be "re-capped",
there aren't really a lot of people willing to do the
work.

http://www.badcaps.net/forum/showthread.php?t=41511

And without opening the case, you can use Ebay to
spot "interesting" connectors.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiple...-/122357201251

There is a black ribbon cable connector next
to the power supply connector.

There is a white ribbon cable connector near
the piezo buzzer (circular black plastic disc).

One might be floppy (34-pin?).

The other might be IDE (40 pin).

IDE uses either a 40 wire or 80 wire cable.
On the 80 wire cable, every second wire is
grounded and doesn't carry data. The 80 wire
cable allows faster transfers on hard drives, but
isn't absolutely necessary if you just have
a single DVD drive on a 40 wire cable. The 80 wire
cable (likely in the product box), would support
"Cable Select" as well as master/slave, and Dell
prefers Cable Select for fast factory assembly work.
So if Dell includes the cable, and it's just
hanging there, it should be an 80-wire one.

*******

Where do you find IDE DVD writers these days ?
Probably not Newegg. They've stopped making them
as near as I can determine.

I went to my favorite surplus supplier. It appears
some radio station locally, went out of business. And
the radio station was well-stocked with brand-new
replacement computer parts. I got a GSA-H22N
for $20, so now I have a spare kicking around
when I need one.

It's listed here as "Works With Vista", which tells you
how old it is :-) Mine didn't even have dust on it.

https://www.cnet.com/products/lg-gsa...-series/specs/

Really old computers cannot boot from a DVD drive,
and it doesn't seem to be an El Torito issue either.
An old BIOS does "hard drive emulation" when it sees
a CD drive. But what happens then, I haven't a clue.
It just didn't work. The drive was OK on my P4.

It's unclear how my surplus place, stays in business.
Many computer stores selling new goods, have gone
bankrupt here. The store isn't exactly crowded.
The last nice thing I got there, was computer
speakers for $20. I'm still using those.

The place is not meant for "bargains", but you
do find Smithsonian-class hardware for sale :-)
When I bought Ethernet cables there one night,
I was paying "full price".

Paul
Hi Paul.
The mobo appears pristine. Looks untouched. Amazing.
I see no bad caps, or any other bad signs. I have a W7 now on a 120GB
SATA HDD, and it runs pretty well. The 2GB RAM I added probably helps
there. Maybe I can find a PATA DVDRW in my closet. Gotta look.
I do think it is amazing that there was a second SATA HDD (40GB)
therein not connected tho. The box appeared unopened, but someone
must have.
Thanks
JW

I found two PATA DVDRWs in my closet. But my glee was soon dispatched
because I cannot make the 520 boot from a OS install disk therein.
Apparently the thing won't boot from a PATA drive?
JW

I can see an example of something strange here.

http://en.community.dell.com/support...514/t/19486825

It almost sounds like a combo Southbridge with SATA and IDE interfaces,
which is running in "Compatible IDE" mode. That should work like
gangbusters. There's no excuse for that to be broken. Yet, the
users cannot seem to make any progress.

The specs I can find:

Celeron D 326 2.53GHz
LGA775
DDR2-400 RAM (512MB)

And another info says
945G chipset

There's a picture of the "Drives group" here.

http://en.community.dell.com/support...514/t/19536619

If your installer disc is WinXP, I'd set the
SATA Operation to ATA(IDE) and not AHCI, then
try again after saving the setting. While you can
get AHCI to work (by offering a floppy with txteetup.oem
AHCI drivers, and pressing F6), it's just easier to
change the disk port mode instead. Try IDE and not
AHCI, for WinXP. Later OSes like Win7, shouldn't
be as much of a problem.

There's something weird about the pictures of
those BIOS screens. Is that really a BIOS screen ?
I'm confused. It almost looks like something Compaq
would do, but that can't be it.

Paul

Interesting reads. Thanks. Since I have W7 successfully installed on
this GX520, I wanted not to return to XP, altho I could. I think I
should give up on mounting a second HDD, even there is space for it.
I need to see what drivers are missing that I can fix. Device Manager
shows the multimedia audio controller to be missing. Gotta find that.
Also the PCI Modem (for which there is a PCI modem card which I should
remove). It shows a Broadcom NetXtreme Network Adapter too - but I
haven't found the any CAT5 mount yet.

How dumb can I be? The CAT5 mobo mount is right where it should be.
Howsomever, I now am having trouble connecting to the web. I have
forgotten how to tell W7 what it needs. Oh well, my feeble mind shud
remember soon.

Thanks
JW

I have gotten as far as 'error code 651', and can get no further, even
after trying a few suggestions in Google. Any ideas?
JW

wrote:


I have gotten as far as 'error code 651', and can get no further, even
after trying a few suggestions in Google. Any ideas?
JW

Any time those three digit error codes show up,
that tells me you have triggered "pre-historic"
networking standards.

Those kinds of errors could arise, if you plug a Win7 system
directly into an ADSL modem in bridged mode. PPPOE packets
would be coming out of the modem. PPP is Point to Point Protocol,
and is a method that used to be used on dial-up modems. But now,
it's also used on stuff like ADSL setups.

Normally, a user has a broadband router in their computer
room. That terminates PPPOE, handles the username and password
that PPP uses, and vanilla flavored network packets then come
out of the four wired ports on the router. If you plug your
Windows machine into a port serving up vanilla packets,
there should be no more of those three digit codes.

*******

Now, this isn't necessarily just the right answer you need.
What I did, is I took some of the keywords from the blurb above
I wrote, and did a search with them. This is just to confirm
that error 651 does come from PPPOE. It's a source of such an error.
Too bad they didn't actually tell us what the error means :-(

http://www.tp-link.com/us/faq-439.html?id=339

When PPP "dials" (even on broadband), it talks to the ISP end.
The ISP end negotiates, and eventually asks for "username" and
"password". Those two values, provided by your ISP, are the
things you would enter into some dialog box doing the "dialing"
on your behalf.

This article has the picture I want.

http://www.home-network-help.com/ppp...ler-setup.html

For people who like to live dangerously (think port 445 SMBv1),
they can use this dialog, to get Windows 7 to talk directly
to an ADSL modem in bridged (PPPOE) mode.

http://www.home-network-help.com/ima...q0M8lFtfWX.jpg

If you have any kind of home router box, the home router
box web interface has a dialog there which has
room for the username and password for PPP.

Have fun, Mr. Living Dangerously :-)
(I will be taking my lunch break, if you come back and
complain that right after it connected, you got Ransomware
on the computer :-) ) Please be careful. A router with IPV4 NAT
is your friend. It protects your port 445 SMBv1 (normally not
open). It protects you against SASSER (in case you ever re-install
some crusty version of WinXP which is not patched). *Never* connect
equipment directly to an ADSL modem (bridged), without having
all the exploit patches in place first... Having at least one
IPV4 NAT router in the path, provides a modicum of protection.
You can't expect your AV to catch everything.

ADSL modem --- integrated router ------------- Win7 computer
Cable modem *or* separate router box (with unpatched SMB
for IPV4 NAT protection vulnerability)

Some ISPs provide a modem/router, with two functions in the one
box. That makes it easier to make the connection to the network,
with no 651 error. So when I say "integrated router", I'm referring
to the router function inside the "modem/router" box you have
been given (or bought).

Yes, you could be on dialup... Please, don't be on dialup.
We don't have any real good answers for you... Even malware
cannot quickly get you, at 5KB per second. It takes time
to infect you in such a case (no IPV4 NAT protection on dialup).
Considering the ratios involved, the malware should be
able to infect you, before you can finish the Windows Updates.

Paul

On 5/19/2017 3:41 PM, Paul wrote:
wrote:


I have gotten as far as 'error code 651', and can get no further, even
after trying a few suggestions in Google. Any ideas?
JW

Any time those three digit error codes show up,
that tells me you have triggered "pre-historic"
networking standards.

Those kinds of errors could arise, if you plug a Win7 system
directly into an ADSL modem in bridged mode. PPPOE packets
would be coming out of the modem. PPP is Point to Point Protocol,
and is a method that used to be used on dial-up modems. But now,
it's also used on stuff like ADSL setups.

Normally, a user has a broadband router in their computer
room. That terminates PPPOE, handles the username and password
that PPP uses, and vanilla flavored network packets then come
out of the four wired ports on the router. If you plug your
Windows machine into a port serving up vanilla packets,
there should be no more of those three digit codes.

*******

Now, this isn't necessarily just the right answer you need.
What I did, is I took some of the keywords from the blurb above
I wrote, and did a search with them. This is just to confirm
that error 651 does come from PPPOE. It's a source of such an error.
Too bad they didn't actually tell us what the error means :-(

http://www.tp-link.com/us/faq-439.html?id=339

When PPP "dials" (even on broadband), it talks to the ISP end.
The ISP end negotiates, and eventually asks for "username" and
"password". Those two values, provided by your ISP, are the
things you would enter into some dialog box doing the "dialing"
on your behalf.

This article has the picture I want.

http://www.home-network-help.com/ppp...ler-setup.html

For people who like to live dangerously (think port 445 SMBv1),
they can use this dialog, to get Windows 7 to talk directly
to an ADSL modem in bridged (PPPOE) mode.

http://www.home-network-help.com/ima...q0M8lFtfWX.jpg


If you have any kind of home router box, the home router
box web interface has a dialog there which has
room for the username and password for PPP.

Have fun, Mr. Living Dangerously :-)
(I will be taking my lunch break, if you come back and
complain that right after it connected, you got Ransomware
on the computer :-) ) Please be careful. A router with IPV4 NAT
is your friend. It protects your port 445 SMBv1 (normally not
open). It protects you against SASSER (in case you ever re-install
some crusty version of WinXP which is not patched). *Never* connect
equipment directly to an ADSL modem (bridged), without having
all the exploit patches in place first... Having at least one
IPV4 NAT router in the path, provides a modicum of protection.
You can't expect your AV to catch everything.

ADSL modem --- integrated router ------------- Win7 computer
Cable modem *or* separate router box (with unpatched SMB
for IPV4 NAT protection vulnerability)

Some ISPs provide a modem/router, with two functions in the one
box. That makes it easier to make the connection to the network,
with no 651 error. So when I say "integrated router", I'm referring
to the router function inside the "modem/router" box you have
been given (or bought).

Yes, you could be on dialup... Please, don't be on dialup.
We don't have any real good answers for you... Even malware
cannot quickly get you, at 5KB per second. It takes time
to infect you in such a case (no IPV4 NAT protection on dialup).
Considering the ratios involved, the malware should be
able to infect you, before you can finish the Windows Updates.

Paul

Thanks for the reminder about how nasty and difficult things used to be.
I've been diddling computers since 1975 and I guess I've gotten soft over
the years. Yesterday I was thinking about the extreme measures that simply
getting a HD working back in ST-506 days was. My alleged mind surely isn't
up to trying to figure out heads and tracks and cylinders any more.

John McGaw wrote:


Thanks for the reminder about how nasty and difficult things used to be.
I've been diddling computers since 1975 and I guess I've gotten soft
over the years. Yesterday I was thinking about the extreme measures that
simply getting a HD working back in ST-506 days was. My alleged mind
surely isn't up to trying to figure out heads and tracks and cylinders
any more.

I used to have one of those on my desktop at work.
We had some ST412 and some ST506. There weren't enough
of them, for every computer to get one. (Some computers
had dual floppies instead.)

Back in the day, the management would never tell us
what some of that stuff cost. I was shocked when I
saw the suggested prices for those a few years back.

I supposed they didn't tell us, so they wouldn't
get stolen or something.

*******

When you mention CHS, one of the hardware developers
dropped by my desk one day back in that era, to complain
how hard he was finding it, to write modulo arithmetic
in firmware to convert LBAs into CHS on the hard drive
he was working on. The micro on the controller was
only 8 bit, and we didn't have a math library for
that processor, and at the time, I didn't have a
clue how best to help him. But sometimes, it's best
to let people figure that stuff out for themselves,
as a "character building exercise". With no web browsers
back then, if you wanted advice, you had to hit the
library. We did have a technical library, but they
eventually got rid of it (bean counters!).

Paul

On 5/19/2017 8:42 PM, Paul wrote:
John McGaw wrote:


Thanks for the reminder about how nasty and difficult things used to be.
I've been diddling computers since 1975 and I guess I've gotten soft over
the years. Yesterday I was thinking about the extreme measures that
simply getting a HD working back in ST-506 days was. My alleged mind
surely isn't up to trying to figure out heads and tracks and cylinders
any more.

I used to have one of those on my desktop at work.
We had some ST412 and some ST506. There weren't enough
of them, for every computer to get one. (Some computers
had dual floppies instead.)

Back in the day, the management would never tell us
what some of that stuff cost. I was shocked when I
saw the suggested prices for those a few years back.

I supposed they didn't tell us, so they wouldn't
get stolen or something.

*******

When you mention CHS, one of the hardware developers
dropped by my desk one day back in that era, to complain
how hard he was finding it, to write modulo arithmetic
in firmware to convert LBAs into CHS on the hard drive
he was working on. The micro on the controller was
only 8 bit, and we didn't have a math library for
that processor, and at the time, I didn't have a
clue how best to help him. But sometimes, it's best
to let people figure that stuff out for themselves,
as a "character building exercise". With no web browsers
back then, if you wanted advice, you had to hit the
library. We did have a technical library, but they
eventually got rid of it (bean counters!).

Paul

Yeah. The bad old days. In ancient times I built a Polymorpic System 8813
-- an S-100 8080 box with _three_ floppy drives (full-height drives at
that). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:P...stems_8813.jpg I
actually rewrote and patched the disk handling portion of the EPROMs on
that machine to handle double-sided double-density drives. Man, talk about
luxury! A bit later I had an 8086 NEC APC system with two floppies but
those were 8" units.
http://www.old-computers.com/museum/...C_System_1.jpg Great
graphics for the day, though -- basically two graphics systems which
overlaid on the same screen with one for standard character-based terminal
and one for 'picture' graphics. IIRC, the cost to add a 20mB HD to that
system would have been $1000 using NEC hardware.

I'm too old, tired, and lazy to consider going back though. Things are so
easy today no matter what people complain about and our basic computers
today would have qualified as supercomputers then.

On Thu, 18 May 2017 10:02:17 -0400, wrote:

I was given this Dell GX520 tower with good XP installation on it.
I thought to install W7 on it for my nephew.
I increased its RAM to 2GB, and replaced the HDD with an old 150GB I
have.
W7 seemed to install fine.
I notice that the mobo has two SATA headers, one of which is connected
to the HDD, the other to a DVDRW. I see no PATA header.
There is an second slot for a second 40GB HDD that is unconnected
adjacent to the existing HDD. It is sitting there, unused. The
wirings have a power extension which can easily power the second HDD.
I see no way to connect to the second HDD SATA connection from the
mobo however. Should I be able to?
I have to ask.
Thanks

JW

Well, I gave up trying to get W7 to link to the web on this machine.
W7 ran fine otherwise. I installed XP on it, thinking it shud run.
But I still cannot resolve the driver problem for internet connect.
The CAT5 port is built into the mobo, so it should work. I downloaded
all drivers available from the DELL support site, incuding one for
internet. I still do not connect - I get the error code 678.
I thought getting this PC to run was a good idea. Now I think not.
JW

wrote:
On Thu, 18 May 2017 10:02:17 -0400, wrote:

I was given this Dell GX520 tower with good XP installation on it.
I thought to install W7 on it for my nephew.
I increased its RAM to 2GB, and replaced the HDD with an old 150GB I
have.
W7 seemed to install fine.
I notice that the mobo has two SATA headers, one of which is connected
to the HDD, the other to a DVDRW. I see no PATA header.
There is an second slot for a second 40GB HDD that is unconnected
adjacent to the existing HDD. It is sitting there, unused. The
wirings have a power extension which can easily power the second HDD.
I see no way to connect to the second HDD SATA connection from the
mobo however. Should I be able to?
I have to ask.
Thanks

JW

Well, I gave up trying to get W7 to link to the web on this machine.
W7 ran fine otherwise. I installed XP on it, thinking it shud run.
But I still cannot resolve the driver problem for internet connect.
The CAT5 port is built into the mobo, so it should work. I downloaded
all drivers available from the DELL support site, incuding one for
internet. I still do not connect - I get the error code 678.
I thought getting this PC to run was a good idea. Now I think not.
JW

"windows-xp-sp2-causes-error-678-or-error-769-when-you-try-to-surf-the-internet"

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/892889/

Error 678 "The remote computer did not respond"

So you used a WinXP SP2 disc, without SP3 being present ?

Using your good computer, download SP3. That has nothing to do with
the error, but would be "good practice" today.

Note that, in the KB article, they're still referencing a user who is
connecting the computer *directly* to an ADSL modem, and attempting
to run PPP-like protocol. Try to have an IPV4 NAT router in the path.

*******

If you manually set the IP address on it, use the appropriate flavor
of Ethernet cable, you should be able to connect it directly to
a second computer and "buzz out" the cable using "ping". This is not
high up on my list of test ideas, because of the mess it makes for
you to clean up later.

Out of curiosity, does the networking on your good computer work ?
Is it plugged into the router ?

*******

It's got the Broadcom drivers here. R132254.EXE has WinXP mentioned.

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/...-gx520/drivers

; Copyright 2001-2005 Broadcom Corporation.
;
; INF for 32-bit Windows 2K, Windows XP and Windows server 2003
;
; InfVersion 9.52.0.0.B

Paul

On Sat, 20 May 2017 21:09:39 -0400, Paul
wrote:



Out of curiosity, does the networking on your good computer work ?
Is it plugged into the router ?


Paul

Quick answer to this q - yes. I actually have three computers that
work fine with same router - a W10PC (cat5), a W7/W10PC (cat5), and a
W7 laptop (wireless). Also a tablet.
JW

On Sun, 21 May 2017 04:54:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 20 May 2017 21:09:39 -0400, Paul
wrote:



Out of curiosity, does the networking on your good computer work ?
Is it plugged into the router ?


Paul

Quick answer to this q - yes. I actually have three computers that
work fine with same router - a W10PC (cat5), a W7/W10PC (cat5), and a
W7 laptop (wireless). Also a tablet.
JW

I decided to re-try installing W7 on this GX520 PC, with the PCI
wireless card already in place - guess what? W7 not only installed
(which it did before), but the installation automatically resolved the
network issue. I am now connected.

Now my only unesolved driver is the audio driver. The driver I had
downloaded from DELL will not work - maybe because it is not for W7.
I wonder where I might find same?
Thanks for your help.
JW

wrote:
On Sun, 21 May 2017 04:54:59 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 20 May 2017 21:09:39 -0400, Paul
wrote:


Out of curiosity, does the networking on your good computer work ?
Is it plugged into the router ?


Paul
Quick answer to this q - yes. I actually have three computers that
work fine with same router - a W10PC (cat5), a W7/W10PC (cat5), and a
W7 laptop (wireless). Also a tablet.
JW

I decided to re-try installing W7 on this GX520 PC, with the PCI
wireless card already in place - guess what? W7 not only installed
(which it did before), but the installation automatically resolved the
network issue. I am now connected.

Now my only unesolved driver is the audio driver. The driver I had
downloaded from DELL will not work - maybe because it is not for W7.
I wonder where I might find same?
Thanks for your help.
JW

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us/...-gx520/drivers

Analog Devices 198x Integrated Audio Driver --- Uh Oh!!!

I was hoping for a RealTek... As that would have
had a driver.

AD only provides drivers for a fairly short time.
They also don't have driver downloads from their web site.
They make electronics for engineers to use. SoundMax was
a "lark" for them, not something they took as seriously
as other companies.

So the deal is:

Say company X uses 198x chip in 2010.
Then you'll see valid drivers for the year
2010 and 2011 on the company X website.

Now, if company Y makes a motherboard with the
198x chip, AD will provide them support
for a couple years. Maybe that company,
their web site has valid drivers in the
year 2012 and 2013.

By combining the web sites of three or
four companies, you can kinda piece together
a selection of drivers. Until no motherboard
maker uses that chip any more.

See how crappy that is ?

When fighting with that, don't forget to ask
"Windows Update" for the driver. Consider every
possibility on sources. Go to Device Manager and
try to use the options there, and see what it can
dig up.

AD are not RealTek. The audio in this PC is Analog Devices,
so I have some first hand experience. I think the
copy of Win8.1 I have on this PC, has working audio,
and I didn't have to fight with it. It might have
been an in-box driver.

As an example, back in the day, I stopped using the
Asus version of the driver, and grabbed a Dell driver :-)
If you're gonna do it the hard way, you have to
"shop around". Maybe HP has one. And so on.

Paul