$10 Dell OptiPlex 'XE - N Series' Systems x 4!!
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- Опубліковано 14 лис 2023
- What is an 'N Series' computer? I wasn't sure until these 4 Dell OptiPlex XE business systems came to me for $10! What's inside? Do they work? Let's go over each system and test to see if they can post & boot into an O/S!!
#retropc #nostalgia #core2duo #intel #vintage #ewaste #pcrepair #retro #pentium #nseries #dell #optiplex #overview #pc
The Optiplex XE series was a special rebranding of an existing model where they intended the computers to be used as a industrial system, point of sale, or kiosk and guaranteed the model and parts would be available for at least 3.5 years. I think the original XE was based on a Optiplex 780 or 980 with a modified bios and more ports. The XE2 was I think a Precision T1700 or Optiplex 7020 (basically the same systems).
The motherboards were basically the same but the case was different than the original models they were based off of and they added the special ports that could supply an external 24V for other peripherals that were connected. Such as a receipt printer.
Ok, this is the background I was looking for - thank you! That external 24v port is very interesting. Dual gigabit onboard is a nice win.
XE2 was based on the 9020, gotta love that haswell. I have one of these in SFF and after the last BIOS updates it can use Xeons! Was running mine with an E3-1240v3 4x8GB DDR3-1600, great little proxmox... right up till I needed the xeon for another project and popped in an i7-4770, not much of a change really.
Haha that's great.
@@Trylen Yes we deployed thousands of XE2's mostly i3-4330 or i7-4770S for customer sites and for our office i5-4570S. I think only difference between them and a 9020 is the front fan and the PSU, it has the cable to power a Powered USB card. I think their main purpose was to be used as a Retail EPOS base unit or light industrial.
Powered USB in my experience is for point of sale machines, like from NCR. They run bar code scanners, receipt printers, etc.
Thanks!
That was a good deal!👍👍 In my opinion, they are good candidates for Linux.
I think so!
What a wonderful start to my day to see that one of my favorite tech UA-camrs has uploaded.
This was an amazing comment to wake up to today! Thank you!
my best guess would be that these were setup to run some industrial equipment like C&C machines or something that required either a custom OS or an older OS that they couldn't purchase at the time of purchase, that Serial to RJ45 adapter on the one is what gives it away for me
I figured they were definitely not for home use and probably in some commercial application.
We bought hundreds of these back in the XP days. We had a VLC Microsoft licence from memory and could image our corporate XP image into them and use our VLC key. But by buying the N-Series Dell we saved around $20 per PC which added up when buying hundreds of them.
I do recall they all to came with a CD with FreeDos on it.
Yes from what I ready you are correct. I also believe that caused some 'conflict' as well.
@@TheRetroRecall I think the Freedos was a getout to satisfy some MS licensing agreement that systems were not to be supplied with no OS
I think you are right.. But I also think this whole thing caused a bit of controversy. I don't see them being sold anymore.
@@TheRetroRecall part of the Microsoft OEM agreement when they were doing this had a clause that prevented Dell from reducing the cost of the N series systems or promote them. basically they could only discount it on bulk sales to companies smart enough to find them the irony was that the system included windows driver discs for the current windows version with the freedos disc.
Those are nice systems .they will clean up and look like new. I have the 7020 sff version. with 4 gigs of ram an SSD and a good video card they will make excellent XP retro systems. Thanks for the video
You're welcome!!!!
Impressive video!😄
Thanks!
Four For Four.. that is awesome! I had as sick feeling it was the RAM that was causing the issue. I wasn't sure if it was because of only using a single DIMM slot, or if it was a bad module. I was shouting "check the RAM" lol. I have NEVER seen a Serial Port to Ethernet Adapter... that is so cool! Nice job my friend, and thank you for saving these perfectly good PC's from being "Recycled." By the way... it WAS you. 😉I hope you are doing AWESOME! 👍👍
Lol it was me 😅😅 and I'm doing awesome thank you!!
I have seen a Dell Optiplex 755 that shipped w/o an OS installed. It was purchased along with a Xerox XES wide format printer to act as a print server/ controller.
Neat. I can definitely see the use case giving the end user in a business environment the choice of what OS they were going to use.
Amazing channel!
Love this, thank you!!!!!
Absolutely
I have a bunch of those 4:3 HP monitors. They are really nice for older retro builds and they made a bazillion of them.
Yes! The only annoying part is that this one tries to auto adjust all of the time. Haha.
love the He-Man in the back
Haha, I have quite the collection :)
Like the sticker that says fuel lol
LOL yup!
Yes these systems do support the riser cards mentiont. The back comes off. Think you mentioned that somewhere.
I do love these form factors somewhat for server(ish) workload as they can take a couple of expansion cards.
That serial to ethernet "adapter" is just a passive adapter. RJ45 is a rather popular port for serial connections on a lot of networking gear(ie. Cisco) and the ease of getting network cables makes it a obvious choice. When my rollover cable is too short at work(or at home) i put in a RJ45 coupler and extend it with a normal patch cable. at 9600 baud 10 meters of cable is still good,
And a core 2 with DDR3 RAM??? being fancy there. Normally those are paired with DDR2 memory. Though it is certainly technically possible to create a chipset for that processor that supports DDR5 :). Core 2's don't have a memory controller build in.
Haha yes! You saw it, DDR3! And I was like you I thought I was going to be DDR2 :). Overall, not a bad system.
Great video
Thanks!!
@@TheRetroRecall thanks too
Point-of-sale PCs had those USB ports as well and I was told at my former employer that they used to have some old peripherals that used that to have no separate power supply to ease securing and replacement (think thermal bill printers or cash drawers) but nothing that I saw in active usage.
Thanks for the info. Any idea what that port on the front is next to the USB ports? It states external power button... So a remote button?
@Karataus never seen it, but I guess if the PC was installed at a store, you might be able to short the pins to turn on, and that could go to a switch on the desk and the PC is not physically reachable inside the desk as not to be stolen easily.
The small form factor makes them great for HTPC's, especially if you toss in a video card with an HDMI output. As for the OS, I agree with another person who commented about using Linux on them, since activating Windows on them likely wouldn't be a justifiable expense on hardware that old
Agreed.
I remember having had some systems that would always lock up like this under Linux when starting Xorg because of some GPUs. What I did was to start in text mode and then type "startx", sometimes it would then come back and tell what the error is in a line with "(EE)" at the front. Just for testing you could maybe force it to use the default "vesafb" or "svga" driver by changing the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file or running "xorgconfig".
But other than that, I feel these machines are not really "retro" yet and given it is low-profile you'll have a harder time finding decent GPUs or sound cards for it. I've been there, because I have a dc7900 SFF in the basement myself and really don't know what I could use it for, well it has a Radeon 7750 and some Asus Xonar card.
In the end it ended up being the ram :)
@@TheRetroRecall haha too often it's not as complicated as we're thinking.
Looks like your lucky day. Those Core2 systems kept on running, so my idea for a re-use would be either a budget office PC with Internet (maybe Win10 runs smoothly enough) or for much more fun: some WinXP or WIn7 Retro Gaming rigs!? 😊
Now the fun option sounds much better hahaha
I saw those models in my company as SCADA client. They are robust. Today we are using them with Igel as a thin client for a Citrix session.
The only real issue we had with those DELL is the fan. We are in a very dusty environment, and fans don't like it.
I could definitely see that.
That is an awesome bios. They all should have at least been like that by that time. I used to have a (cough) Cyrix system at one time in the mid 90's that had a mouse driven bios with icons. That was the ONLY good thing about that POS. 😂
Hahahah I still have one of those systems with that BIOS! The one where the mouse icon has a tail on it lol.
I have never see this type of Dell before.. they front looks strange.. Great vid btw.
Thanks and yes - definitely different.
Feels like work
Haha - but so much fun!
I think you are missing the rack mount hardware for these. Rackmount server application was a common business use. Need to retest #1. If dual channel RAM failing because 2 sticks are not being used? Could try that on system 1.
We got system 1 working. It was the ram :)
Hi, that is a good find
I still run as my daily drive a SFF core2duo i purchased new in 2010-2013 somewhere.
It is on my desk but under a shelf, fans only turn on in ht summer and run 30 seconds then switch off, it is practically silent
Some what embarrassing to hear my daily driver is almost retro - but my games machine is a ryzen 5x
SFF = GT1030 SFF Video card it uses only bus wattage so small end power supply can run it ( i think they take 30 watts ) - i upgraded about 30 machines at work with these cards - only issue is they dont have win7 driver support :(
They will make a excellent retro combo machine,for the P4 era i often install dos 6.22 and then installed XP on the second partition
Having a serial port can make it a "conversion machine" - i should rewatch your video but i did not notice any reference to a floppy port connector on the mother board - if it is not there then it is a bit of a shame
Regards
George
Hey George! Thanks for this and you are correct - I don't recall a floppy header on the board.
my optiplex 380 is an n series too, my dads office had another one with windows 7, now mine runs windows 11 and it runs weirdly well for the specs
Its crazy to think that the older computers are still running today's applications.
14:06 I have seen those ports used to open a cash drawer on POS (Point of Sale) systems.
Thanks! I've heard they are for Thermal printers and Barcode scanners.
I cant find any of these first generation Optiplex XE systems on ebay, might be worth cleaning them up and listing them! These are pretty cool especially the design of these first generation ones!
Great to know, thank you!
my dell is from old business place. also it had bad bulged up capacitor in psu. please check them if you are planning to use them.
I will definitely check that out!
Could probably take an 8000/9000 series Quad, the Q45 chipset definitely can, apparently has been seen benchmarking with a Q9400
Thanks!
@@TheRetroRecall even better if you modify them to take a Xeon E54xx series CPU with the socket 775 to 771 mod. Cheaper usually than the Q series core processors.
I've seen that special USB connector before. It's typically reserved for POS Terminal accessories, like a printer or barcodes reader.
Time for a Thermal printer!!! Haha. Banner Time.
Add 8 GB memory and an SSD with 1 TB and Window 10. Either sell modified systems or use them. Data server would be a good use for one since it supports two ethernet ports.
Agreed and thanks!
You only had to do a bit of fiddling and these all seem to work pretty nice. They would hold their own as Windows machines but I reckon they'd make great Linux refurb'd rigs!
For sure, I lucked out! I think a Linux distro is the way to go.
@@TheRetroRecall Linux Mint is the most "Windows" looking distro!
I would max the ram the cpu and use it to upload UA-cam videos nice score! going to go watch another one of these videos!
Nice! I have a dedicated system for editing, rendering, uploading / storing the videos. I did t realize how much data it would be haha!
@@TheRetroRecall im using a rescued hp laptop that I turned more less in to a desktop added 12 gb ram a 2 tb hard drive and it seems to get the job done....love those sff dell computers most are both to hard to work on
So its a BTX motherboard and case since the rear ports and the card slots are oppositeway compared to the ATX cases and motherboards, with the cpu more towards the front of the case directly behind the vents in the front to maximise the cooling to the cpu since the days of Pentium 4 prescott chips that ran hotter than normal. Now since the release of core2's and onwards that BTX became defunct.
I've done a few BTX videos as well on the channel, and we know how much Dell loved the BTX design.
Awesome computers! Do they do Secure Boot?
I would have to test. My gut says yet.
With dual nics they would make a good pfsense box
For sure! It definitely opens up the possibilities! I usually only see the dual NIC interfaces on servers.. so this was a nice surprise!
The 24 volt USB is used to power the receipt printers for POS transactions (replacing the printer's power supply).
That is SOO cool! Time to buy a Thermal POS printer 😂
😄
Think of the banners!!!!
There are several PoweredUSB ports. 5V (yellow/white), 12V (teal), 24V (red) and for proprietary voltages (black or other color). It's power and USB so you can use them also for barcode scanners, scales, displays and pin and signature pads. And is sometimes used for peripheral devices or sensors in machinery used in factories. That adapter is probably an serial port to RJ12 adapter and might been used for an cash drawer.
Ohhhhh barcode scanner? This could get fun :)
That powered USB port seems familiar. I had one on a Latitude laptop before. I remember a disc drive addon for the laptop with it. it would be useless here, however I thought it'd be good to share my information :)
Love all of the shares! I think some other viewers have said that it was used for a barcode scanner or thermal printer.
These would make for cheap WinXP rigs for light gaming.
For sure.. I mean I would say you could do even deeper gaming with a decent pcie 16x card.
Learned something new about my trashpicked Optiplex GX170l.
It too has a N series sticker.
Awesome!!!
The Layout looks very much like hp compaq sff Systems
I think during this era the business class systems were similar in design.
very good deal for just 10
Agreed. Lots of potential... and I almost passed up on them!
These were a huge leap for us, we migrated from Sun micro systems to XEs, they're just a remodeled standard optiplex with better IO for integrated systems and more options
Dell also sold modems, parallel cards, and other special cars for these, we have alot of the parallel cards still
That's awesome. You can see a lot of the expansion options on the board.
@@TheRetroRecall They are great machines, we still have quite a few in the field, though we've been slowly migrating to IBM, so far we haven't done away with any of the machines, somewhere theres a few pallets of these dells
Haha,... Need to get my hands on some of the explansion cards. Operation - raid pallets!
@@TheRetroRecall I can definitely look at getting some, anything in particular or just a variety? All this stuff is going to be scrapped eventually
Variety would be cool, at least to test out the various expansions! Thank you!!
Look for those using for likely Windows 10. But also make PRO genius pack, even can use computers!! 🤔
They can still be used today I would think.
Yesterday I got an Optiplex GX260. The big tower, it also has a sticker with the N Series. The device is in very good condition, not made, everything is original as delivered by the manufacturer. I just don't like the slow GeForce 4 MX420 graphics card, you can't really play retro games with it. So it will probably come out.
For sure. I'm sure that system has the ability to provide a nice GPU update :)
just got a dell vostro 1700 laptop monster. has a c2d 1.8ghz, 4gb ddr2 ram and dedicated intel x1300 gpu card which i find weird. has 2 hdd bays, 3 wifi card ports with one populated. 17in screen and heavy with extended battery. obviously a business laptop, but not sure how this was used other than desktop replacement.
A total monster! I would say a desktop replacement for sure - they were quite popular back then, before the tech got caught up enough to streamline the components into a much sleeker form factor :)
i have a pipeline to getting a bunch of old laptops as my wife works at a place that a friend of hers is the recycler so instead of them going to be destroyed, i get them.@@TheRetroRecall
Knoppix maybe you needed a earlier version version 9 works only in the later cpu's oh now i see it works for you
Yes for sure - it ended up being the ram that it didn't like.
MS-DOS on system 1?
Are you suggesting that I try to use system 1 with msdos?
@@TheRetroRecall Yes, and would be interesting if a Win 10 install would have any problems on one of these.
Ohhh ok I understand. I'm confident that windows 10.would.work for sure.
Core duo is 32bit only Core2Duo is 64 Bit and will boot with Knoppix!. 1Gb Ram is to little for Knoppix
Yup and they worked just fine once I found out that the ram was the issue.
I have the Vostro 3090 I guess, the BIOS is make me angry, original BIOS was the best control I think.
Possibly. You mean you could tweak more settings?
@@TheRetroRecall +1
What do with the pcs after the video. Do you donate them to low income families and community groups
For now, they go into storage. In the future, not sure. :)
14:12 the red usb port is for charging things faster. Also you didn't confirm system 1. You confirmed system 2 and carried on to 4.
I was told this port was to power / connect external POS peripherals like thermal printers, bar code scanners etc. It's very possible that it could charge items faster due to its power properties.
Cool it would defo be good for that.I only ever see the machines without the devices. A good high power port is more valuable nowadays than it was back then. You should see the diff on charging an iphone or ipad vs the regular port or the charger they sell. Might be interesting.@@TheRetroRecall
If you sold all 4 E7400's you could double your investment ...otherwise XP 64bit gaming.
Haha! 10.00 to have some fun and Share the experience... That was worth every penny :). According to the Knoppix boot loader, it stated that they are Intel based graphics. That said, the Pcie 16x interface opens up a pile of opportunities.
If even just one psu is working you already doubled your investment, you can easily sell these psu 20 $ each, you got a bargain.
I really didn't want them, but for 10 bux, it was worth looking them over!
o my god my wife would kick me out of the house for that... nooooooooooooooo not more pcccccccc's
Bahahha... Well so far I'm still allowed in the house lol! I have a decent sized storage area so, that helps a lot.
Donate to a Tech High School.
For sure. I think in the end these systems will all be donated once they have been restored :)
Core 2, why ?
use the case to do rebuild ? Windows PRO key, install in again.
CD ROM boot, muhahahaha..Why that ?
RTX 4060, Fortnite build ?
Haha. Well, for 10 bux, why not? Sometimes you get some goodies when you get these systems. That said, it's pretty decent system with a lot of potential if you want to go backwards or forwards in time :)