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On Fri, 3 Sep 2021 17:32:38 +0100 comrade meowski <mr.meowski@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > On 03/09/2021 12:44, fraser kendall wrote: > > Dell T7810 > > Nice: Dell Precision T-series are 'proper' workstations and they're > built and run like tanks. Very much my cup of tea, nice acquisition. > > I'll try and answer more generally with how I'd handle one of those > rolling up on my doorstep and please ask again about anything > specific I miss. > > https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-uk/product-support/product/precision-t7810-workstation/drivers > > That's an older - but still supported - system so if you order that > by date release you'll see that Dell have pretty much stopped > releasing upgrades for it by now. Just a single release this year and > only a single BIOS upgrade in 2020 so it's in full maintenance mode > with Dell only releasing presumably security critical patches every > now and then. > > This is good news from your perspective as unlike a brand new Dell > you'll have virtually no new firmware or BIOS upgrades to worry about > - I'd simply use the existing Windows 10 system that comes with it to > install Dell Support Assist and do a single pass to flash it to > current once and then bookmark the above link to the Dell page. > That's you basically done for firmware updating for the lifetime of > the machine. > > With that out of the way, google how to extract the license key of > your Win10 install with a powershell one-liner, write it down and > then blow windows away forever on the bare metal... unless you > specifically want or need a bare metal windows installation. In which > case nuke the existing one for obvious reasons, grab a clean ISO from > Microsoft and reinstall to a separate SSD or NVME drive reusing your > valid Pro key. Don't arse about with partitioning single drives, it's > a workstation and drives are cheap: each OS gets it own drive. > > That being said I categorically would run that box on linux: it's > super well supported, has tons of power and you're already thinking > of using Qemu/KVM for VMs anyway. Just go that route if you need > Windows. > > Make sure the system is setup correctly in it's BIOS. Enable all the > latest UEFI + secureboot options. Dell Pro systems have *very* > comprehensive UEFI/BIOS setups with every option you can imagine > available so spend a while combing through it to familiarise yourself > with it fully. It's easy to miss things defaulting to weird values > like memory timings. Workstation firmware defaults are usually setup > to quite conservative values and can often tolerate a fair bit of > tweaking. > > Finally if you got one with a HBA then watch out for it - it might > have a Dell PERC or a LSI unit and not all HBAs are created equal. > Generally speaking unless you got one that can be easily reflashed to > IT mode you'll be better off ignoring it and using the normal SATA > backplanes to attach your disks. > > Anyway have fun, that's a cool machine! You might want to replace the > fans with some more modern quiet ones as well especially if they've > never been replaced and are getting old. Workstations can be noisy... > > Cheers > Thanks. On the case. fraser -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG https://mailman.dcglug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq