nmX.Memnoch

NewEgg has the Seagate 7200.10 (perpendicular recording) 250GB/16MB cache drives for $80 plus shipping...just so you know PATA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148143 SATA http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?...N82E16822148144

My favorite dual-CPU server right now is the Dell PowerEdge 2900 (or 2950 if you're rack mounting, although you can rack mount the 2900 as well). The 2900 can support up to 10 SAS drives for plenty of space and speed. The 2950 can take up to 8 SAS drives if you use the 2.5" form factor. As for CPUs...they have the latest, greatest quad-core Xeons at 2.66GHz with the 1333MHz FSBs. I would assume that if you're considering Virtual Server 2005 R2 then you'll be looking to run Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition. Enterprise Edition will allows you to run up to 8 Virtual Servers (using VS2005) without incurring any additional license fees (meaning you buy one license for 2003 R2 EE as the guest OS and you can run up to 8 virtual servers using VS2005 without purchasing anymore licenses). Honestly though, I'm not sure I'd run the Exchange Server in a VS environment. I think I'd run that straight up and maybe run the file and web servers under VS. But that's just me.

jcale, No, a dual core CPU will not be double as fast as a single core CPU at the same clock speed. Then RAID would give you also double the speed and SLI with 2 cards too... It’s just not like that as we all know. Those analogies don't even translate to CPUs. That's comparing apples to oranges and bananas. Also, multiple graphics cores do exhibit a MUCH better speed advantage than multiple CPUs.Also, even if an application is single-threaded both the OS and the CPU will make determinations as to which core/CPU the thread will run on. I can have two single-threaded applications running at the same time and the OS and CPU will automatically adjust the affinity so those threads run simultaneously instead one having to wait on the other. You are correct in that it's not a doubling of CPU power. Not even dual CPU systems get double the power. There is a substantial gain in performance, but it's not even close to double. The gain is much better with dual-core CPUs than it is with straight up dual CPU systems though. This simply has to do with the front-side bus (the cores don't have to go across the bus to talk to each other). However, y'all are also talking like people only run one application at a time. We aren't running Windows 3.1 anymore and in this day and age when you're pretty much required to run antivirus, antispyware, filters for this, blah, blah, blah in the background single CPU systems just can't compare. I can prove this with my workstation at work. It's a dual Xeon 3.06GHz machine with hyperthreading enabled. I've had it running Nero Recode at real-time priority with absolutely zero impact to performance of other applications. Try that with a single CPU system... I can also tell you with absolute certainty that I can tell a difference in our single CPU systems vs. even our P4 HTT systems at work just by how they perform. I can even tell you without checking the BIOS if one of the P4 systems doesn't have HTT enabled. It's that noticeable on the overall system performance. On the gaming front; game developers know that dual-core and quad-core CPUs are the thing of the future so they are coding their future games to take advantage of this. Some existing games have even been patched to take advantage of this (Quake 4 as an example). And those of you saying "well, I only run CS:S". What's to stop Valve from updating the Source engine to take advantage of it? If you're buying/building a computer now you'd be absolutely crazy not to go with a dual-core or quad-core based computer. I recently upgraded from a P4EE 3.4GHz to a C2D X6800. I noticed the difference right away. I LOVE how smooth my system runs now...and it was no slouch before.

I once ran a Dual PIII 450 system with six 7200RPM drives on a 300W PSU. It eventually blew, but it took two years and the system was being leaned on at the time it went...we were in the middle of a LAN party with it hosting the games!

It's 32GB for Enterprise Edition. However for 32-bit Windows "support" and "use efficiently" are two different things. Unless you're running databases on there, you can probably remove all but 4GB of the RAM (or use the /maxmem boot.ini option as cluberti suggested). Also, check into getting Diskeeper Enterprise Server Edition to help with file fragmentation. Fragmentation probably isn't the issue after only 3 months of usage (unless it's HEAVILY used with LARGE files), but it's something you need to consider at some point. Also, if you're required to run AV on the file server (as I am where I work) then try to get it configured so that it only scans files on create/modify instead of open/create/modify. Also see if you can get it limited to specific file types instead of all files. We have to use Symantec Corporate Edition, which has options for configuring the real-time protection methods. Another thing to check is your network controller drivers. Dell uses dual onboard Broadcom NetXtreme II NICs in the 28x0/29x0/68x0 lines (not sure about the 69x0 line, but they probably do). These NICs have an option for TCP/IP offload. You'll want to check the setting for that as well.

Password policies are machine level. If you enforce a password policy on the domain controller(s), it will affect all domain accounts since they reside on the domain controller(s). So regardless of where the domain user physically logs in (workstation or DC) they will be forced to use the password policies set on the domain controller(s). Although I'm not sure why you would do this, you can enforce a different password policy on workstations than from the domain controllers. These policies would only apply to local workstation accounts though.

HKEY_USERS\.Default is not the structure for the Default User profile. The .Default structure is for settings when the system is at the logon screen, whether it be the Welcome Screen or the Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to Logon screen. In other words, it's for the default settings to use when no user is logged on. This is why you're not seeing the settings applied to new users logging into the system.

This was happening prior to SP1. It also doesn't matter if one or all three of the programmers are connected. It does it even with just one. It also does it the entire time the DBA has Enterprise Manager opened...to the tune of about 3-5 events per second. The programmer that does most of the actual DBA stuff originally had a 2000 Pro machine but it was replaced with an XP Pro SP2 machine a few months ago...issue still there. They work in a different organization/building on base so I'm don't have any access to their workstations. I've gave them a list of settings to check a while back but I don't know how far that got. Oh...and the programmers are all admins on the server(s). I'll logon to the server later today and get the Security Options settings from gpedit.msc. Most of what we did was based on the DISA STIGs, NSA Guides, Microsoft Server 2003 Security Guide and what DISA refers to as their "Gold Disks". The Events appeared after we based our security configuration on those "guides" (they call 'em guides but they're more of a "policy" for us). Unfortunately the fix may be something that I "can't" undo. Some of the stuff regarding Kerberos and NTLM make since. One of the security settings on the servers is to "Send NTLMv2 response only\refuse LM and NTLM". We also have all three options (each) configured for the two "Minimum session security for NTLM SSP" options configured. There are other settings that may be contributing to this... Whatever the cause, it's not preventing anything from working...it just spams the Security Event Log repeatedly.

After doing a little searching I found that the SL77P is part number RK80532HE083512. According to this page, it does support Hyperthreading. It is a Mobile Intel Pentium 4 so your mileage may vary getting the CPU to work properly in a desktop board.

Any idea on the 537 and 560 Failure Audits then? I can tell you that I know it only happens when the DBA's/Programmers have Enterprise Manager opened on their workstation and connected to one/any of the SQL instances on the cluster.

Sounds like a plan. Same here...which is why I wanted to test it for myself. We're about to upgrade both nodes to 16GB anyway. After learning more about /3GB over the last few months I'd have to say I agree with that completely. We have plans to make that move about this time next year (no funding this year). We're doing a complete cluster replacement to either a pair of quad-socket dual-core 64-bit systems or quad-socket quad-core 64-bit systems...depending on what's out and costs. I've also talked them into going fiber channel with the drives. They're starting to see I/O errors on one of the drive sets but that's just because they're processing too much on the one drive set. We're adding some drives and moving processes around to bandage up that problem.

I'll edit the boot.ini tomorrow and reboot the servers this weekend. Do you think it'd be worthwhile to run the poolmon script before and after? I may do it anyway if for no other reason than my own education.

Recreate your shortcut with just hcp://CN=Microsoft%20Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote%20Assistance/Escalation/unsolicited/unsolicitedrcui.htm in the target (remove the %windir%\explorer.exe). You'll have to recreate it so that it'll make it a "New Internet Shortcut". I had the same issue when I tested it until I recreated it without the %windir%\explorer.exe.

PM sent. After reading what you said about the kernel paged pool memory I have a feeling that the /3GB switch may be doing it. The servers have 8GB RAM each so I need the /PAE switch, but I keep forgetting to remove the /3GB switch. I honestly don't remember if the issue appeared before or after I added the /3GB for testing. It didn't "seem" to cause any problems so I wasn't in any real rush to remove it.

That's pretty much the same result I had... I don't think I ever found any. Nope...just Server 2003, Enterprise Edition SP1, SQL Server 2000 SP4, Office XP SP3 and a few other things apps that were pre-existing to the problem. We are, however, also getting a ton of Event 537 and 560 Failure Audits though. Event Type: Failure Audit Event Source: Security Event Category: Logon/Logoff Event ID: 537 Date: 4/26/2006 Time: 10:06:48 AM User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Computer: XXXXXXXXXX Description: Logon Failure: Reason: An error occurred during logon User Name: Domain: Logon Type: 3 Logon Process: ÐùWD Authentication Package: NTLM Workstation Name: Status code: 0x80090302 Substatus code: 0x0 Caller User Name: - Caller Domain: - Caller Logon ID: - Caller Process ID: - Transited Services: - Source Network Address: - Source Port: - Event Type: Failure Audit Event Source: Security Event Category: Object Access Event ID: 560 Date: 4/26/2006 Time: 10:06:35 AM User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Computer: XXXXXXXXXXXX Description: Object Open: Object Server: Security Object Type: Key Object Name: \REGISTRY\USER\.DEFAULT Handle ID: - Operation ID: {0,568296711} Process ID: 1396 Image File Name: C:\WINNT\system32\svchost.exe Primary User Name: XXXXXXXXXXXX$ Primary Domain: XXXXXXXX Primary Logon ID: (0x0,0x3E7) Client User Name: XXXXXXXXXXXX$ Client Domain: XXXXXXXX Client Logon ID: (0x0,0x3E7) Accesses: MAX_ALLOWED Privileges: - Restricted Sid Count: 0 Access Mask: 0x2000000

That only works if Hyperthreading is enabled in the BIOS and the correct HAL is installed in Windows. @ideas: What information is printed in the CPU itself? There should be just a bunch of numbers.

If you only have one drive you want to hookup and your only open drive connector is on a RAID controller then you have to configure it with some sort of "RAID" mode. Most controllers have the option of a single drive stripe array but his doesn't so he had to choose JBOD. In other words, he had no chioce...

Take a look at the VIA EPIA line of motherboards/CPUs. They'd be perfect for what you're trying to do and shouldn't break the bank. Power consumption is at an absolute minimum as well. http://www.viatech.com/en/products/mainboards/

You're misunderstanding how the Change Password screen works. You have to know the current password before you can change it to a new one. So don't worry, you can't just put in a user name and change the password.

I think you missed the work "if" in every statement I made. It's physically impossible to add this support via drivers. The workarounds in games use DX8.1 features in an attempt to get the same output as a DX9 card. Sometimes there is no way to get that output (newer lighting/shading features) so the result doesn't look as good. That's why it was such an issue when NVIDIA came out with the 6 Series cards with support for Shader Model 3.0 (true DX9c) while the ATI Xx00 line only supported up to Shader Model 2.0. The support couldn't be added to the Xx00 because the GPU wasn't designed to process those commands. BTW, there's a Feb06 release of DX9c. Also, believe what you will about Vista and DX10...but you won't require a DX10 card to run Vista. It'll have work arounds so DX9 cards can run most of the Aero Glass interface, but you can disable that interface all together if you don't like it.

That would pretty much render the PC unusable since most applications require temporary data be written to the drive. The location this temporary data is written depends on the application...

We've been having an issue that I hope some of you can help me figure out... We have two servers setup in a cluster running Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition SP1 and SQL Server 2000 SP4. These servers were originally running Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP4, but were upgraded to Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition using the rolling upgrade method. Server Clusters: Rolling Upgrades. Upgrading to Windows Server 2003 http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechn...g/rllupnet.mspx http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServe...3bea3a1033.mspx Upgrading to Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition, and Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition on Cluster Nodes http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServe...a406de1033.mspx We went through an "audit" of sorts last year where we basically have to certify and document that the security settings meet the policy requirements. During this "audit" if anything was found non-compliant we had to either fix it or document why we couldn't fix it. We started this process with Windows 2000 Advanced Server so I do not remember if this issue appeared before or after the upgrade (although I'm pretty sure it was before). Anyway, on to the actual problem. When I try to make a remote connection to the cluster using Cluster Adminstrator I recieve the following error: An error occurred attempting to open cluster node "XXXXXXXX". Not enough server storage is available to process this command. Error ID: 1130 (0000046a) If anyone has any insight please share it. If you require more information please let me know and I'll provide what I can.

Well the next question would be... Why do you know other users' passwords? That in and of itself is the problem.

The early Pioneer burners were pretty picky about media. There's probably an imperfection in the disk that prevents that particular drive from reading it. That 106 is what? About 3 years or so old now? I've got a A08 (retail version of the 108) that's about 2 years old so that sounds about right. The upside is that DVD burners are cheap now so you can get a newer drive to try that. It'll also be a lot faster than the 4X you're dealing with now.

adding my single drive for backups and stuff into the raid controller as JBOD Wait...so there was only one drive in the JBOD "array"? You probably won't lose anything then since it probably just wrote to it as a normal drive. For future reference when you attach a single drive to a RAID controller you usually set it up as a "single drive stripe array"...in RAID0 mode.