{"id":1565,"date":"2009-11-27T01:20:35","date_gmt":"2009-11-27T01:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/11\/building-a-low-power-server-for-24x7-infrastructure-at-home-part-2-assembly-and-initial-configuration.htm"},"modified":"2012-12-31T13:49:18","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T13:49:18","slug":"building-a-low-power-server-for-24x7-infrastructure-at-home-part-2-assembly-and-initial-configuration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markwilson.co.uk\/blog\/2009\/11\/building-a-low-power-server-for-24x7-infrastructure-at-home-part-2-assembly-and-initial-configuration.htm","title":{"rendered":"Building a low-power server for 24×7 infrastructure at home: Part 2 (assembly and initial configuration)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I wrote about how I’d been looking to create a server that didn’t consume too much power to run my home infrastructure and finally settled on a mini-ITX solution<\/a>. \u00a0This post continues the theme, looking at the assembly of the unit, installation of Windows Server, and finally, whether I achieved my goal of building a low-power server.<\/p>\n

As I commented previously, it’s been at least 10 years since I built a PC from scratch and it’s still a minefield of connectors and components. \u00a0I took the Travla C158<\/a> case and Intel D945GCLF2<\/a>\u00a0board that I had purchased and added 512MB of DDR2 RAM and a 250GB Seagate Barracuda (ST3250620NS) that were not being used in any of my other machines. \u00a0I didn’t fit an optical drive, electing to use a USB-attached one for setup (more on that in a moment) and the case also has a slot for a card reader, which I really should consider filling (or blanking off).<\/p>\n

With all the components ready, this is the process I followed:<\/p>\n

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  1. Open the top cover of the case.<\/li>\n
  2. Remove the media drive and hard drive holders.<\/li>\n
  3. Fix the hard disk to its holder and refit.<\/li>\n
  4. Fit the gasket that surrounds the various ports (supplied with the motherboard) to the case<\/li>\n
  5. Fit the motherboard and PCI riser.<\/li>\n
  6. Fit a blanking plate for the (unused) PCI card slot.<\/li>\n
  7. Install some DDR2 memory in the motherboard’s single memory slot. \u00a0Unfortunately the module that I used does not have a low-enough profile to allow the media drive holder to be refitted, so I’ll be looking for some more (512MB isn’t much for a modern operating system anyway).<\/li>\n
  8. Connect the case fan to the jumper on the motherboard.<\/li>\n
  9. Connect the side panel audio ports to the motherboard (the labelling on the connectors did not match Intel’s instructions for the motherboard but I followed Gabrielle Torres’ Hardware Secrets article on installing frontal audio plugs<\/a>\u00a0– sound is not really a concern for me on a server).<\/li>\n
  10. Connect the front panel connectors to the motherboard, using the pattern shown in the instructions (noting that the case I selected doesn’t have a reset button, so pins 5 and 7 are not connected)<\/li>\n
  11. Connect the side panel USB ports to the motherboard (single jumper).<\/li>\n
  12. Connect both the power jumpers (2×2 and 2×10) to the motherboard.<\/li>\n
  13. Connect the SATA hard drive power and data cables (the data cable was supplied with the motherboard, along with an IDE cable that I did not use)<\/li>\n
  14. Install the mounting kit, ready to fix the PC to the wall of my office (I also considered placing it in the void between the downstairs ceiling and upstairs floor… but decided it wasn’t really necessary to bury the machine inside the fabric of the house!).<\/li>\n
  15. Check that the BIOS configuration jumper block is set to pins 1 and 2 (normal) and refit the top of the case, then boot the PC.<\/li>\n
  16. Press F2 to enter the BIOS configuration utility and change the following values:\n