1U Server Combo

Tue Apr 22 15:46:28 PDT 2003

> Just remember one thing before you order memory.. LOW-PROFILE memory! 
> RMAing sucks, I hate paperwork.

Hear, hear to "RMAing sucks."  In my cases it usually applies to hard
drives hitting their bathtub curve.  :(

Folks who work with little kiosk-boxen such as ThinkNICs also need to
get low profile memory, so luckily, it's not entirely rare - you just
have to know what you are looking for.

Looking at sticks of memory where the chips are vertical
  _______. . .
 |
 | ## ##
 ) ## ##
 | ## ##
 | ## ##
  """"""" . . .

versus
  _______. . . 
 | ## ##
 | ## ##
 ) ## ##
 | ## ##
  """""""

...you'll see that they really barely fit along their edge. It's a
little harder to tell with the horizontal chips, but you can easily
compare it to a handful of standard chips and see the difference in
height.  I hope this keeps someone from getting gypped.

Some motherboards also improve this hieght issue, at the cost of some
real estate on the board, by tilting the memory chip slots downward
too.  I presume they intend that you can use such boards with standard
size memory in a setting which would normally call for low-profile
sticks.  I don't know if such an arrangement causes other problems, but
it seems to me that if you use such a board with low profile chips
instead, you get even more room in the chassis.

Beware taking your cooling for granted just because the system works
with the lid open - or the heat for granted just because it runs warm
that way.  Only the cooling with it closed and/or sandwiched between
its fellows on the rack counts.  

Finally, check whether the thing's vents are on the side or the back, and
try not to have all the rack-beasties vent to someplace that also fails
to let the heat out quickly enough. (Also known as the "does this net
closet seem a little warm to you?" principle...)

  . | .   Heather Stern                  |         star at starshine.org
--->*<--- Starshine Technical Services - * - consulting at starshine.org
  ' | `   Sysadmin Support and Training  |        (800) 938-4078