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caperjack 875 I hate 20 Questions

Im in the process of updating my dell workstation ,plan on making it my main machine.
replaced a xeon 2.0 , with a 2.8 ,changed out the Fijitsu 36g 10000rpm scsi for a Seagate cheetah 15000 rpm,plan on slaving the Fijitsu next .loading winxp on the drive now as thats all i have access to !cost to add the 2 above items was under 50 dollars canadian .shipping included ,

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Good score on cheap, effective upgrades, . A few practical checks and tips that folks who find this thread later will still find useful.

When you change a CPU or add a high-speed drive, first check motherboard BIOS/firmware support and update it if needed. A BIOS update often adds CPU microcode and fixes that improve stability. Re-seat the heatsink, use fresh thermal paste, and verify the CPU fan and case airflow; faster CPUs and 15K drives raise temps and power draw. Run a burn-in (Prime95 or similar) and memtest86 to validate stability before trusting the box for daily work.

If the system uses SCSI hardware, remember SCSI does not use master/slave — it uses device IDs and termination. Every device on the chain needs a unique ID and proper termination at the ends. Also confirm the SCSI controller’s boot/option ROM and drivers: many Windows installers (especially older XP) won’t include third‑party SCSI drivers by default. Be prepared to load controller drivers during setup (F6) or slipstream them into the install media so the installer can see the drive.

Use drive/vendor diagnostics and SMART tools to monitor the Cheetah — high RPM enterprise drives can show different failure modes than consumer disks. Keep full backups before swapping or reusing drives. Finally, remember Windows XP is long out of support; if network exposure or security matters, consider a supported OS or isolate the machine from the internet and keep drivers and firmware offline and updated locally.

These checks cover the usual gotchas: BIOS/compatibility, cooling/power, SCSI IDs/termination, installer drivers, and stability testing.

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