[Asterisk-Users] Need off-the-shelve PC for Asterisk Server

[Colin Anderson]

>then a $50 Compaq deskpro which 
>are also Linux friendly might be an option.

I'm using Deskpro EN P-II 400's and Celeron 533's for remote IAX servers and
they work fine, except for PCI; they have a wierd bus that's kind of PCI 2.1
or 2.2 depending on ROM revision. I note this because someone might run into
an issue with a Digium card on these PC's; a Deskpro EN is an extremely
popular Ebay-style computer because of corporate off-leases. I picked up 120
of them for $350 Cdn. I went through this pain with PCI 2.2 cards on these
systems so I hope documenting it on the list will help someone in the
future. Compaq changed the BIOS around August 2000 to improve wake-on-LAN
compatibility with 3rd party NIC's; that rev broke PCI 2.2 compatibility
with a good number of PCI cards including the TDM400. Symptom is, system
will power up, no video. Not nessisarily with a Digium card but almost any
2.2 card you put in there. Take the card out, boots fine. The workaround is
to *downgrade* the system ROM to ROM 686T3 dated 4/14/98 and pretty much
everything works. Deskpro EN's are a great choice because they are
bulletproof (low failure rate) and well documented. I expect to run these $3
PC's as IAX servers for the next 10 years, at least.